Hetty Douglas, Miracle State at Haricot Gallery, East London – “If we were born whole, but then we became fragmented in our body, mind and spirit through abandonment and shame (mortification) then we need help finding a way to return to our Miracle State”

– There’s a big fist full of questions, I mean, how do these exciting paintings of hers actually happen? I feel like I’m seeing new ones on an almost weekly basis at the moment, something more than welcome but does she have more than one on the go at any given time? Is she surrounded by a whole gangs of them as she jumps from one to another? I imagine she does have quite a few on the go at once or is it that’s she laser focussed on one before the next can happen? Does see complete the individual pieces quickly or do they gestate? Do they brew? Stew? Simmer? Do they fight or her attention? Is it a long process in terms of looking at them and thinking about the next mark or the next layer laid on them? There is the argument that ninety percent of the process is looking at the painting and the other ten percent actually doing the actual physical painting. How does she make her decisions? What is the process? I don’t really want answers, not yet you understand, not right now. Right now I’d rather ponder it all, wonder about it, and I do run the questions around my head, she does have my attention, right now I want to avoid her answers; there will come a time when we do need those answers but not right now, not is the time to enjoy not knowing. Does she have brush in hand loaded with paint, or even can in hand ready to spray, and just attack the canvas? Is it fast? is it frantic? Violent? Controlled? No not violent, they don’t feel violent. Full of energy, committed maybe? They do feel rather cathartic, alive, very obviously punk rockish? Does she do it alone and in silence or is she accompanied by music or radio or birdsong or indeed people? People who matter? I really like the art Hetty Douglas makes, I like her marks, her evolving use of colour, I like trying to read them, I like just really standing in front of them and letting them shout at me, they don’t shout in a confrontational way, it is a pleasure, is ‘like’ the right word? it seems too polite, too restrained a work? I don’t adore them, that’s not the word I’m looking for? They’re like dancing to a different song (and we’ve been crying out for much too long), I don’t even care if they look a mess, don’t want to be a sucker like all the rest. And Miracle State?

“Shame.  An intense feeling of being faulty, ruptured, inferior at the core. A burning stomach, shrinking body, spiralling inward in the chest. Constricted throat. Difficulty in breathing and speaking, feeling glared at by others. These symptoms destroy our ability to trust. As adults we can have a mistaken sense that something is wrong with us without knowing why. Hetty Douglas’s solo show Miracle State invites you to partake in a journey of psychological renewal” so reads the Gallery statement. Here’s a #43SecondFilm…

Are these faulty paintings? Ruptured? They’re certainly not inferior. They do hit you in the chest, they do take your breath, I like looking at Hetty Douglas paintings… Here’s another #43SecondFilm…

“This exhibition can be described as the ‘inner drug store’. The shelves are stocked with the addiction of excitement, poison of shame, false fears, and the seduction of self-abandonment. Each work in this exhibition measures the weight of these learnt beliefs against the reforming of hope. Miracle State is an exploration of shadow, an opening to the possibility of self reclamation and what it means to trudge ‘the road to happy destiny’.”

Haricot Gallery is found at 2 Blackall Street, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 4AD. The Hetty Douglas exhibition runs until 6th June 2025. Hetty Douglas on Instagram

Previously on these pages:

ORGAN THING: Hetty Douglas and Katie Eraser’s Flesh and Time at Bomb Factory’s Shoreditch space, these are paintings alive with raw personality…

ORGAN THING: and upstairs there’s a couple of rather big, rather ambitious, rather alive, rather exciting Hetty Douglas paintings that really do stand out…

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