An Organ Thing of The Day? We do like to have a Thing of The Day when we can. when time allows. Today we need to focus a little morte on those two Hetty Douglas paintings we saw at Haricot Gallery a couple of weeks ago

The piece on the left is Won’t Stop Until Death, Oil on Canvas, 162×12 cm (2024) and the piece on the right is Lion Protect, Oil on Canvas, 162×12 cm (2024), the two paintings were spied at Haricot Gallery here in East London at the end of a long day exploring the first day of Condo. Here’s that whole piece – ORGAN THING: Exploring this year’s Condo London and beyond Pt.2 – We’re still East with Jerôme Masi, Hello Dolly, Kyriaki Goni and Greg Carideo at Public, Hetty Douglas at Haricot, Faisal Hussain’s All These and… those two Hetty Douglas paintings might have got lost at the end of what was a long piece and a long day, here’s what was said in the piece…

Haricot Gallery is still open in the very late afternoon/early evening January darkness on Blackall Street, they’ve got a group show on at the moment, sixteen artists and a show called Two and we probably have looked at too much art by now but hey, in group shows like this there are always one or two pieces that grab a touch more attention than most of the pieces that make up the exhibition. Lydia Hamblet‘s triptych stands out in this one and upstairs there’s a couple of rather big, rather ambitious, rather alive, rather exciting Hetty Douglas paintings that really do stand out. It has been like this at Haricot for most of their exhibitions, group shows that almost always have one or two pieces that stand out amongst what have been rather decent, rather youthful, rather forward looking group shows. Once again not everything here in this show works, some of it is a little, well shall we politely say a little hit and miss, there is once again, enough positives to focus on, no need to be negative, cherry picking in the thing at a Haricot show. Always worth dropping in and exploring the rather unpretentious welcome of Haricot if you happen to be passing which indeed was the case on the long first Saturday of Condo… 

Haricot tell us that “Hetty Douglas is a self-taught lesbian artist whose paintings explore identity’s darker, more intricate aspects, inspired by her complex childhood. She has exhibited in group and solo shows worldwide, including her first solo, Flooded, at Gallery Steinsland Berliner in Stockholm (2022), followed by Baby Names in Los Angeles (2023) after a residency. In 2024, she soloed with Mott Projects in New York. Douglas will debut her first London solo show in May 2025, with four group exhibitions planned beforehand”.

And some more Hetty…