Where were we? Back in the saddle? Approaching the Approach, somewhere around Bethnal Green, somewhere on the edge of the park and all those damn joggers when the lure of paint began to take hold. In search of a good art show needing to make an exhibition of itself? We’d been to a few in the week, nothing had really grabbed for days and days. did go to that L’Age D’Or Masquerade Opening Party in the not often used (it costs a bleedin’ fortune to rent!) Hoxton Arch space over by Hoxton railway station, it was an overcrowded show in terms of both the art on the walls and floors as well as the people, a show that didn’t know if it wanted to be about the art or the party and the people, of course it could have been about both things at once if it had made its mind up, alas it didn’t and ultimately tried to do far far too much in amongst the overbearing goth flavours (cliches?), the undertones of fetish, the tedium of steam punk and what with feeling that I hadn’t dressed for the occasion, a quick exit was needed. Where else did we go? Well it doesn’t matter really, nothing worth typing about, and we don’t want to be typing about nothing. We do go to lots of art shows that we never do bother to mention, nothing had really grabbed us, Wilton Way, Finch, a couple of underwhelming up West adventures, some fancy Street Art pop up thing that mostly seemed to be about “stuff” and Street Art so often is these days, there was something at Hundred years but they long since told us we weren’t welcome and well besides Kunst The Clown, there has been little to hammer on broken keyboards about in May so far. The new show(s) at The Approach promised much though, well the show in the main space certainly did…      

“The Approach is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings by London based artist, Jai Chuhan” said the statement, I had hopes for this one, the on line tastes promised lots, and you know viewing art can’t be anything more than a way of getting a rough idea of what to maybe hope for. Jai Chuhan is an Indian-born British artist, and yes she does take the breath, that one to your left as you walk in, the colour, the texture, the movement of brush that demands to make straight for it, ah yes, this is good, this is what we want, paint, a painter, proper, vivid. Paintings that depict the human body in abstract space. They’re not easy to read but then who wants easy? There’s a real sense of a painter challenging herself (and us) here, not just about what painting is either, as much as painting is life, this, dare I say, feels like a little bit more…

– “Using vivid cadmium pigments, Chuhan’s visceral visual language incorporates contorted limbs, raw flesh and quivering muscle to suggest bodies in struggle or in intimate embrace. The poses of the often-nude body are portrayed with smudged caresses and violent gestures to express tensions and ambiguities between genders. Chuhan’s portraits explore both alienation and belonging as well as the claiming of space and agency in relations between the self and others”.

The opening night was deliberately avoided for this one, an obscure mid-week mid-afternoon visit instead, time selected in hope of being the only one there, it worked, I was, just me and a big enough room full of very big paintings. it feels strong, it feels fragile, it feels almost private, private interaction, the gaze, the light, the personal. Here’s a #43SecondFilm…

Jai Chuhan paintings have been exhibited in some significant places, this, in an excellent gallery above a pub in the East End, was my first chance to be in a room alive with a group of them and really try to get to grips with her work. It feels intense, not that the gallery walls are crowded, the hang is just right, each piece given the space it needs, space enough to talk with one painting at a time without the others eavesdropping as you step from one to another and back again. Vibrant is a word used way way (way) too much, these pieces are that though, vibrant, alive, intimate, intense, exciting, moving, beautiful. I really do make a point of never saying vibrant, here it is a word needed though, there a light, a glow in the shadow. There are glorious paintings, I want to say beautiful paintings, and they are that but beautiful isn’t quite the right word either and that’s the thing here, there aren’t really the words, the best art is the art there aren’t words for, this is a show to quietly privately just enjoy if indeed that is the right word? 

Over in the Annexe of The Approach, the second much smaller space, where most of the time there is a second exhibition, there is indeed s second exhibition. Now I’m not much of a fan of some of the annoying things Peter Davies has to say about art and the London Art Scene in particular, he has had a hand in curating the Jai Chuhan for which there must be major credit. Peter is part of a two person show with fellow painter Mary Ramsden – 

“The Approach is pleased to present Kind of… an exhibition of new paintings by Peter Davies and Mary Ramsden. The exhibition underscores the influence of collaboration, dialogue and friendship in the evolution of both artists’ approaches to abstraction, colour and form” – 

Now I knew very little about either person in terms of their art, I hadn’t looked at any of the advance publicity, avoided the gallery statement, I just walked into the small room with no idea as to who’s work was who’s or what to expect from either artist. There’s no labels, there’s no information immediately available unless you reach for the piece of paper in the hall outside of the small annex space. For once I rather liked the idea of not knowing who had painted what in here. Two painters sharing space and really not imposing on each other. Once again a good hang, smaller pieces in a small space, it works, the hang works the two artists work hangs well together. Here’s another #43SecondFilm…

According to Mary, “there is something curiously beautiful about the idea of folding the particularities of a still life into a systematic grid; the desire to create a structure around a subject that speaks to the inevitability of material decay”. Mary it transpires is talking about Peter’s work, still life as grids or blocks of colour and some kind of attempt to geometrically code within the organic matter in a pictorial space for a some reason or other. You get the idea no one has dared to ask him why? What’s the actual point is? What is he trying to say? – “A kind of alchemy or attention to the possibility of a thing changing states?” Yeah, okay, there’s a couple of Peter Davies paintings, maybe three or four, I don’t honestly recall now, and “an endeavour to blur art historical thresholds” and yeah, right, I’ll politely leave them and their self-importance with you.  

Now Mary Ramsden on the other hand, now these paintings I instantly love, and I don’t really want to try and work out why, these are paintings to just enjoy rather than dance around, paintings to drink in. I don’t know anything much about Mary Ramsden, as far as I know I’ve never met her, I have no idea what she looks like or what her background is, where she comes from, how old (or young) she is, but I know I really like her already, I know I couldn’t possibly not like someone capable of making paintings like these. I hope I would have liked them just as much if they had been Peter Davies paintings, I liked them before knowing who had painted what. I don’t want to read about her right now, I don’t what to know anything beyond the immediacy of her paintings for now, maybe later, but for right now all I want to know about are these paintings in this small white cube of an art space above a pub in East London are the paintings themselves. I want to go back and spend another half hour or more with them and then go sit in the pub’s beer garden with a cold pint of Guinness by myself and just think about them. I know I have seen Mary Ramsden’s work in other galleries at other times but there just something about these paintings right here right now, I’ll read about her later, for now these small paintings in this modest space are more than enough. (sw)       

Previous Approach coverage on these pages

The Approach is found on the first floor above the pub, 47 Approach Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 9LY, Access to the gallery via The Approach Tavern pub, there’s a brown door at the end of the left side of the bar that the staff may or may not feel like pointing out to you. The gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday (although some places say Tuesday) 12–6pm or by appointment. The Jai Chuhan show runs until 24th May 2025, with an artist talk happening on May 21st. The Annexe show is also on until 24th.

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