Five art things, Another one? Already? We’re itching to get going. Hey, have Flowers closed their Kingsland Road space, an end of an East London ere? Kind of looks like they might have,  nothing on their website in terms of current or upcoming shows and the space has been looking rather sad since the last group show, Matter, closed at the start of November. The news of the passing of Angela Flowers, founder of Flowers Gallery, last year at the age of 90, was of course very sad indeed, kind of feared what might follow though. There’s been some wonderful shows in their East London space in recent years, hopefully they’re just taking a rest, we haven’t seen any announcement, just news of new shows in their Cork Street space. if their East London operation has gone it will be another rather significant nail in the coffin of the once thriving East London art scene than no one seems that bothered about any more. Hang on, they’re just take a longer than usual end of year break, although when asked they didn’t say when the next show might happen in the big space…  

We hadn’t written one of these Five art things since late November and then two in a week. 2023 kind of just gave up in terms of London and art, it just kind of limped away in am almost apologetic nothing. What does 2024 hold? I guess we just carry on? What else is there to do? 2024 hasn’t actually blasted off, so far it has been rather like that American rocket that was heading to the moon only to run out of steam shortly after blast off. That much heralded 2024 group show at Moosey Hoxton failed to open, twice we’ve tramped up the Hackney Road now, twice we’ve found it closed with an apologetic notice on the door, it is how 2024 has been so far. Tonight should have been the opening of Cacotopia 08, the now almost traditional start to the East London art year at Annka Kultys Gallery should have opened tonight, alas the admittedly not that long a  walk to the gallery in the cold and wet proved to be rather fruitless, the show has apparently been cancelled and the curator is hanging around to apologise because the show is still in the listings, so one cold beer in an empty gallery later I’m back here in the studio waiting for the art year to eventually ignite. is it really going to take the previously previewed opening of Jeffrey Gibson’s Dreaming Of How It’s Meant To Be at Stephen Friedman‘s London gallery to get things going?  

On we go them and never mind whatever we said last time, that was then, this, once again is about this week and next and cake and yes you are right, at the end of last year we were asking if London’s art scene gone a little flat? Are the newer galleries a little too full of themselves and believing their own hype? Is it all just a little too conservative? Dare we say politely boring? Here, for what any of this is worth is our first five art things of the new year although so far excitement is a little thin on the ground. Five more art things? Five art things, five more art things happening somewhere around right now (or any moment now). Five art shows to check out in the coming days. We do aim to make this an (almost) weekly round up of recommended art events, five shows, exhibitions or things we rather think might be worth checking out. Mostly London things for that is where we currently operate and explore, and like we said last time, these five recommendations come with no claims that they are “the best five” or the “Top Five”, we’re not one of those annoying art websites that ignore most things whilst claiming to be covering everything and proclaiming this or that to be the “top seven things” or the “best things this weekend”. This Five Things thing is simply a regular list of five or so recommended art things happening now or coming up very soon that we think you might find as interesting as we think we will…

And we should add, that entry to these recommended exhibitions and events, unless otherwise stated, is free.Actually is there five things happening and worth a mention this week?

1: Kemi Onabulé, All The Land Is Spoken For at Sim Smith – 11th Jan until 10th Feb 2024 – “Sim Smith is delighted to present All the Land is Spoken For, the second solo show with the gallery by British artist Kemi Onabulé. The exhibition explores our relationship to our environment, as consumers of a seemingly unending resource”.

“Across the paintings in the exhibition, Onabulé traverses superficially magical forests through a veil of neon brushstrokes, transporting us with her and compelling us to look through her technicoloured lens at the result of our actions on our world.

All the Land is Spoken For refers to a land, our land, our need to own the place that we come from, a need to put our name on it in personal, cultural or ecological terms. This need is not so much for the land itself or for nature or sustainability but about an urge to consume. The title relates to the moment we start to understand that most of the land is spoken for and we are needing to go further into the wilderness.

Onabulé is known to portray the everyman in her paintings, drawing on universal, collective experience. In this exhibition, the image of the figure has been replaced in many of the paintings by the figure of the tree. It is a structure that has limbs, a tall body and stands erect in the landscape, it changes with the weather and the seasons;

“…there is so much to enjoy from a tree as a painter, you can paint its skeleton as if it were a body.” – Kemi Onabulé, January 2024

Onabulé is an artist who is preoccupied by nature in a way that is exhilarating to her, the paintings act as an embrace of her personal understanding of the land. The depiction of trees, forests, moorlands and meadows is very natural to Onabulé. Drawing on her rich Greek, English and Nigerian heritage, this body of work is particularly grounded in the history of English landscape painting. This was less of a conscious decision and more a case of observing her surroundings rather than projecting onto something unknown.

“I know puddles, rain, deciduous trees… I have really enjoyed working with my immediate experience for this show. It feels natural to do so, this needs to be here. This belongs in the work and the way I paint.”- Kemi Onabulé, January 2024

The figure in this exhibition has taken a back seat and instead, in many works the viewer is the figure, sitting amongst the trees or looking down towards the sea. Onabulé has cropped vistas, unconsciously creating frames through which to experience the landscape. In Receding Flood we are at ground level, sitting at the roots of a tree like a child, we feel the pull of the English fairy tale but also it feels claustrophobic, there is a darker dynamic at play across this exhibition. The largest painting Onabulé has made to date is in this show, Forgetting the Storm, it is a piece that grew naturally in scale with the sprawling subject matter of the natural world. Here, however, a figure is present, it is a self-portrait of Onabulé herself lying in a puddle in the forest. This painting is the amalgamation of all of her sentiments about our environment. She lies on top of the land but can never be fully absorbed into it, there is a distance in her, a sadness, a need that cannot be met.

The colour palette in this exhibition changes through the seasons through which the paintings were made. There are high pigments in summer paintings and darker, danker works which turn to autumn and ultimately winter. There is a sense of toxicity that has intensified in this body of work, depicted through the use of neon across Fever Dream-like landscapes. These are not bucolic or peaceful places, they are troubled with dark hues and choppy brushstrokes. Suns and moons are a constant in every work; fierce and burning or soft, full and heavy, they take on many forms across many moods and seasons.  

Onabulé’s highly imaginative landscapes disrupt our view of outwardly beautiful scenes and our relationship with our environment within the paintings. Through the individual and personal visions of the natural world, she transports us through the broad tradition of historical European painting to a verdant English countryside where not all is as it seems. The essential harmony and purity of nature here has been grappled with, coerced through a lens of one who sees our ruinous relationship with nature for what it is.

About the Artist – Kemi Onabulé (b. 1995, London, UK) lives and works in London, UK and holds BA (Hons) Fine Art: Painting from Wimbledon College of Art, London. Selected recent exhibitions include Shrubs, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, USA, Untitled But Loved, Bosse & Baum, London, UK, Arcadia, Sim Smith, London, UK. Onabulé will exhibit with James Cohan, New York and Night Gallery, LA in 2024

Sim Smith is at 6 Camberwell Passage, London, SE5 0AX. The show runs from 11th Jan until 10th Feb 2024 and the gallery is open Friday 10 am – 4pm and Saturday 11am – 5pm or by appointment. Nearest London Stations: Oval (Northern Line), Denmark Hill (London Overground and Thameslink) or Loughborough Junction (London Overground and Thameslink) Nearest Bus Stop: Camberwell Green (F), bus numbers 35, 40, 42, 45 and Warner Road (J and H) bus numbers 36, 185, 436, N136

2: Diana Copperwhite, Onomatopoeia at Flowers, Cork Street – 10th Jan until 17th Feb 2024 – Things might be dormant to the point of concern at their Kingsland Road space (see editorial nonsense up above) but things are happening at Flowers Cork Street, “Flowers Gallery is delighted to present Irish painter Diana Copperwhite’s first solo exhibition with the gallery” so they say…

“This selection of new paintings marks an extension of the artist’s lauded use of abstraction to explore notions of memory and perception against the visual chaos of twenty-first century life. The exhibition shares its title with Copperwhite’s touring show that took place at Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick and Galway International Arts Festival between March and July 2023.

Painting for Copperwhite is a means of systematizing information, which she describes as “giving the unseen world visual form.” Derived from her lifelong interest in chemistry and physics, she visualises the canvas as a kind of “notational system”. Her distinctive, undulating, kinetic streaks of colour appear at once autonomous, like light through a prism, and diagrammatic, as if mapping and charting forces invisible to the naked eye.

Four large new paintings Disjointed Entropy, Neural, Morocco and Seclusion (all 2023) are expansive, theatrical manifestations of these ideas – at three metres wide they constitute, Copperwhite reflects, “their own environments.” Her lyrical and dynamic textural forms are articulated with a brush or knife, giving the surface of the work an almost architectural quality. In part a reaction to the grey weather of her Irish home, her approach to colour is equally expressive, demonstrating her proclivity towards bold hues in the pulsating rainbows of Seclusion, moody blues of Neural and dynamic pinks of Morrocco”.

Flowers Cork Street is not surprisingly found at 1 Cork Street, London, W1S 3LZ. The gallery is open Monday through to Saturday, 10am until 6pm

4: Kadie Salmon, Hunting Razorbills at New Art Projects – January 13th until March 2nd –  “New Art Projects is delighted to present its first exhibition of the year, Kadie Salmon: Hunting Razorbills. Salmon’s new solo show features a remarkable series of 9 hand-colour photographs alongside a three-screen video work” and while we don’t tend ot get as excited about photographs of video screens as we do about paint, Fred Mann and New Art Projects long ago earned our trust

“The sea contains infinity. Its lunar ebb and flow, its ripples and roar speak of boundless possibilities. On a gentle day, currents rock you in a womb-like embrace. When storms rage, it is ferocious, unforgiving. The sea is birth and death, abundance and abyss, adventure and tragedy. Familiar as a mother to those whose lives unspool on its shores, and yet mysterious still, alien. Its darkest depths are the closest thing we have on Earth to another planet…”

‘A Weightless Entanglement’, Rachel Segal Hamilton.

Kadie Salmon is a Scottish artist based in London who uses analogue film to create hand- painted photography, moving images and sculptures. Salmon’s practice is site-specific and often explores historic or contemporary depictions of romanticism and sexuality.

New Art Projects, is now at Ground Floor, 357 City Road, London, EC1V 1LR. The exhibition will be open until March 2nd. There will be an opening drinks event on Saturday, January 13th from 2-6 pm. Check with the gallery for other opening times

4: Mike Ballard, Shadow Ban at Shtager&Shch – Now this one could be interesting, certainly intriguing |(yeah, I know, thast word can be such a sittingon the fence svop out), the show runs from the 18th Jan until 28th Feb with a preview on 17th January, 6 – 9pm – “We would like to invite you to celebrate the opening of Shadow Ban, Mike Ballard’s first solo exhibition with Thorp Stavri – hosted in partnership with Shtager&Shch” so say Thorp Starvi, 

“Shadow Ban explores the dynamics of visibility and invisibility within the contemporary urban landscape. While the term “shadow ban” is typically associated with online platforms and digital censorship, Ballard extends its meaning to encompass the physical world and the hidden narratives embedded within urban spaces.

Ballard’s site-specific installation suggests an engagement with the entropic condition of the city, as he directs his attention to overlooked and underused spaces. These spaces become a metaphorical representation of the shadows in the online realm where voices are muted or content is suppressed. By employing various artistic techniques like photography, adhesion, saturation, and abrasion, Ballard captures the processes of negation, displacement, and corrosion present in both the physical and digital realms”.

Shtager&Shch is at 52-53 Margaret Street, Lower Ground Floor, London, W1W 8SQ. The gallery is open Wednesday—Friday 11am until 6pm and Saturday 11am until 5pm. Closest station: Oxford Circus

5: Richard Kenton Webb and Emrys Williams, Luminous at Benjamin Rhodes Arts – this fine show previewed and indeed reviewed last year, it did open bac kat the end of November, it has reopened now after the end of year and it does go on until February 17th. a two artist show called Luminous featuring two painters, two properly proper painters and the anticipation of light, colour and imagination. Richard Kenton Webb and Emrys Williams. Here is tthe review – ORGAN THING: A two artist show, Luminous, two painters, two properly proper painters and the anticipation of light, colour and imagination. Richard Kenton Webb and Emrys Williams at Benjamin Rhodes Arts, East London…

Benjamin Rhodes Arts is at 62 Old Nichol Street, London E2 7HP. The show runs until 17th February  The gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday Midday until 6pm. And you might like to note the following dates:  Late Fridats (to 19.30): Jan 12 / Jan 19 & Feb 2 and 6 – 8.30 pm and on Friday 26th January both artists will be in conversation at the gallery from 7pm – “all welcome”.

And while we’re here, our latest 13 Questions piece…

13 QUESTIONS FROM ORGAN: Yasmin Grant’s studio revealed a space alive with rich colour, with warm yellows, with lusciously painted golds, rich dark browns, deep dark blues that are…

London-based artist Yasmin Grant and her very powerful paintings first came to our attention sometime in the middle of 2023, those first encounters were, as is so often the case, on-line. Images explored and then words exchanged and a need to see more, to see the work, To see the art in real life, yo… more