And the around about way to Break The Glass via Tim Stoner’s Negative Space at Pace Gallery, Anne Rothenstein’s subtle mystery at Stephen Friedman Gallery went on, before that Black Star opening there was more of that constant search for whatever and a scout around the rest of Cork Street before heading off to see what Pierre Knop’s Fireflies under Fever Sky at Pilar Corrias Gallery has to offer.

There was some rather striking rather inviting Clive van den Berg landscapes, African landscapes in the big Goodman Gallery, piece rich in colour as well as in gesture, intuitive both in terms of form and that beautiful texture. Paintings that are surely about the land, about the emotion of the land, more than just landscapes though, these pieces feel deeper, a little more than passive observation and it is, well not a pleasure, that’s the wrong word, that’s too throwaway, but it is a pleasure to spend time in here with these big pieces. And yes I was rather guilty of ignoring David Goldblatt’s photographs that are sharing the wall space in my haste and need for paint, really must go back before the show ends on May 3rd, it was a fleeting visit and it is worth going back, find more here

There’s a show of work from highly respected British painter David Inshaw on at Redfern Gallery that doesn’t, if the truth be told, do very much for me, likewise the rather polite Elger Esser exhibition currently occupying the Flowers Cork Street space, a show that we’re told is concerned with the historical relationship between painting and photography, creating lyrical and often introspective images, in which the landscape and memory is entwined and well, it was politely nice I guess.  The three galleries occupying the three Frieze spaces at No.9 offer little to really excite and there’s really only the drawings, paintings, and collages of Wura-Natasha Ogunji‘s exhibition, space comma space comma space at Tiwani Contemporary that ignite in terms of the best of the rest that Cork Street has to offer late on a Thursday afternoon. Actually Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s art really does pull you in if you take the time to let it, if you embrace the not-knowing, the breaking of habits, the almost irreverent feel and the use of mistakes as part of the creative process.   

“With this new body, Ogunji uses magazine pages, gessoed tissue paper, and glassine, as well as the architectural tracing paper for which she is known.  Many of the works have an almost-hyperbolic density to them–especially when considered alongside her past oeuvre where stitched figures are commonly surrounded by large expanses of paper-space.  There is an irreverence for the correct way materials should be used: oil paint on tracing paper, a two-sided painting (where only one side is visible, but both are important), or the combination of oil and ink forming a resist pattern of dots along the surface of the trace”.

I like this show, I like Wura-Natasha Ogunji‘s art and the way she demands you really look. It isn’t just that your not quite sure what she’s done or what’s she’s used to do it, is that paper or paint under the reflection of the glass? It is as much about the results and at times the rich use of colour, the drama of her composition.  She currently lives and works in the city of Lagos, Nigeria, her work does kind of feel like performance, it has that movement in terms of her decisions, I like Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s art.   

And with that it was off to Pierre Knop‘s Fireflies under Fever Sky at Pilar Corrias Gallery just around the corner (on a corner) and a little bit up the road…

Wura-Natasha Ogunji‘s exhibition is at Tiwani Contemporary, Cork Street until 24th May. David Inshaw‘s paintings are at The Redfern Gallery, Cork Street until 25th April. Clive van den Berg is at Goodman Gallery, Cork Street alongside David Golsblatt until 3rd May.

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