The Secret Salon, Bloom at Free The Gallery, Crystal Palace, South London – March 2024 –  It felt more like a semi derelict garden outhouse than a formal white cube gallery, it almost felt like one more nail hammered in to a wall during the hang would bring the whole place crashing down and was that the internal and external scaffolding all that was holding this glorious place up? I like this place.  We’re lost somewhere in the infamous Crystal Palace triangle, we’ve gone overseas, South London, we’ve walked up and down hills and this space feels almost refreshing, a throwback, as does the area. True, the busy roads could maybe use a pedestrian crossing or two – pedestrians are very much an afterthought in SE19 but this does feel positive. Free The Gallery is not the kind of place you’ll find Seb listing and you get the feeling that that London Art Round Up guy is not going to be ticking it off shows here like he ticks off this week’s train numbers in his latest Art Round Up, you ain’t gonna be find those by-the-book art critics dirtying their boots over here, we’re deep in the undergrowth now. This is a beautifully (dis)organised artist-led show in a rather punk rock flavoured event space rather than a formal gallery – it might be an art show here this week, an art market at the weekend, it might be a vintage clothes sale or who knows what next time, it feels kind of like Hackney Wick did before the Olympics struck us all down, it feels good (not that I have a major problem with formal white cubes and spending hours inside them you understand, well maybe a problem with a lot of the baggage that comes with them but I love the reverence of  a white cube)  

This is a a Secret Salon event, The Secret Salon is a pop up thing, a rather defiant set of events run by artist Andree Adley, very little about this show is formal or by the book, kind of hard to even work out who is or who isn’t taking part (yes it is very secretive). And yes, it would be fair to say that not every piece of art in the show is to my taste. Bloom is a rather eclectic sometimes stimulating mix of sometimes hit ‘n miss painting, fashion, print, a touch of installation, some great music, a lot of ivy, roses hanging from the aforementioned scaffolding and none of the walls are that straight, to attempt some kind of formal hang would be folly. I love the way Andree and her Secret Salon have gone with the place, I love all weather-worn junk that was already hanging around the space, i love the smell of the damp and the fact that the space itself is semi-hidden down a side alley,  the building looks and feels like lots has happened within it, downstairs you find antique market junks stalls, vinyl dealers and all kinds of up hill down in the corner stalls in a kind of untouched seen-better-days Victorian yard. I do like that we’re not quite sure where the exhibition starts and the clutter already there ends.

There’s a rather eye catching rather expressive painting by Carole Robson demanding attention in the middle of hang, there’s a beautiful freedom in the way she uses paint, there’s more of Emma Harvey‘s beautifully painted bookplate manipulations that come with the undercurrents Emma’s work always has, there’s two of Eden Sherry‘s rather intriguing rather piratical hats on the naked mannequins that are just crying out to be tried on, there’s Andree Adley‘s own eye paintings watching us from around the room (and yes I have a painting or two on the wall). There’s some excellent DJing from Angel Adley, check out her Plastic Club and her fine taste as well as the rather impressive new band she’s part of called Jesus And The Zealots (I suspect we’ll be covering them rather a lot in the not too distant future), at times it really is hard to work out where the art that is part of the exhibition ends and the art that just happens to be part of the fabric of this fine building starts. Bloom is audacious, Bloom is a delight, Bloom is messy, things are far from perfect but then who wants perfection? Bloom was a welcome blast of fresh air,  and the Friday night opening was exceptional fun – people danced, people smiled, fashion designers posed, musicians strummed imaginary twelve string guitars, walls were painted.it was beautiful, it was positively chaotic, I’m still not sure who did take part, we need spaces like this, we need art shows like this… (sw)

As always do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the rather fractured slide show…