We never did get around to posting Part Five of the London Gallery weekend adventure, it feels like a lifetime ago now although I imagine most of the shows from that weekend are still open and as we have already said, in reality, it was pretty much just like any other London weekend of gallery exploring, just with the addition of a fancy blue sticker or two on a gallery door or two, that and lots of hype and self-congratulating celebration from an art establishment that doesn’t tend to want to connect with any kind of reality. As Sean Scully once said, the London art scene on the whole doesn’t know shit from shinola and as we often say, it isn’t that friendly either. We did leave Part Four of our London Gallery Weekend coverage halfway down Cork Street on the Friday afternoon and yes it was a couple of weeks ago now and we are tempted to just forget about posting the rest of it and get on with life. We left Part Four as we were just entering the Liza Giles exhibition at Flowers Gallery. The show had looked intriguing from what we had seen through the Window during the Wednesday night opening, we had resisted the temptation of going in right there and then in favour of a quiet first view on what would hopefully be a more peaceful Friday. I did find myself to be the only one in the gallery when I did finally venture in in the middle of the afternoon straight after the delight and the rather rewarding challenge of the Virginia Chihota exhibition at the always welcoming Tiwani Contemporary gallery, alas, the silence of Flowers is totally ruined by a very (very) loud Gallerina complaining (very) loudly on the phone about a parking ticket and the distraction is impossible to shut out. These Liza Giles paintings do seem to want to communicate, her colours, her shapes, her combinations and composition, the scale of the pieces, It all feels like communication and reaching out from the gallery wall rather than waiting for the viewer to take the lead in terms of the conversation. These Liza Giles pieces really do seem to want to take the first step.
“My works are driven by an impetus to ‘switch off’ and re-engage with our instinct. I want my art to speak honestly to its observer in a pure and simple way. My work is essentially about how it makes you feel.” – Liza Giles
Does this latest exhibition from the artist feel very much like the last one we saw in the very same place a couple of years ago? This show, In Flux, we’re told, “is a solo exhibition of new works by London-based artist Liza Giles; The exhibition title reflects Giles’ process-driven approach, where the act of creation is continuously evolving and in constant transformation. Throughout her practice, Giles explores the tension between fluidity and control, presence and absence, capturing the dynamic, ever-changing nature of her work as it unfolds. This sense of flux permeates each piece, allowing the works to emerge organically, shifting and adapting as they progress” – and you know what, that loud phone call and the parking ticket saga really is making it irritatingly impossible, there is a mindfulness to the work of Liza Giles and the distraction really is annoying me far more than it probably should be, I’ll come back on another day. These shapes and compositions do rather intrigue, and oh well; “rather than offering fixed meanings, Giles’ paintings invite viewers to connect with their own responses, to feel rather than interpret”.
Off out into the Friday afternoon sunlight and out of Cork Street after a quick look at the Keith Grant exhibition of what you might wish to call rather monumental paintings, a show of rather dramatic paintings currently on show at the rather oldschool space that is Redfern Gallery. Grant’s “deeply considered, impassioned homage to the North”, those almost fantasy-like studies of the world of the Poles that are much appreciated by so so many that we’ll respectfully leave with you. And off we go past the second Pilar Corrias Gallery, this one is actually open, a quick second look at Ragna Bley’s rather fine exhibition that I was sure we had covered on these pages after a visit to the rather busy opening night, let me dig all that out and post it rather than throw some words in as part of this piece, it deserves more than a few words in this piece and I rather think we’ve exhausted art for this first day of this London Art Gallery weekend. A walk back to Bond Street Station via a couple of shows at JD Malat Gallery where they say they are delighted to be showing The Hills Are Not as Close as They Seem, the first solo exhibition in London by “emerging international artist” Máté Orr (b. 1985, Budapest). I can’t say Orr’s “distinctive practice” that “merges digital precision with traditional oil painting, resulting in dreamlike compositions where human and animal forms inhabit complex, psychologically charged landscapes” did that much for me, we’re told that “through intricate scenes of quiet confrontation and poetic unease, Orr invites viewers into a world where adversity becomes adventure and vulnerability is met with calm introspection” which I guess is fine if brightly painted three headed almost graphic novel comic book swans are what you want, I don’t really. There a show called Time Alone, the debut London solo exhibition by South Korean artist Han Ji Min (b. 1978, Jeollabuk-do). Featuring 17 oil paintings also on in the same gallery, a show that we’re told “offers a deeply introspective portrait of solitude, routine, and emotional interiority” and mostly looks like polite enough book illustrations with that very restrained pallet, all muted greys, blues and pinks and well, neither show in the highly polished rather slick space that is the London home of JD Malat Gallery do that much and maybe we have reached saturation point now on this first official day of this year’s London Gallery Weekend now? it is our third full on day of gallery exploring and there is still a whole Saturday afternoon of avoiding the East London hen parties and the rest of it to come yet…
There is that giant piece of toast at Gagosian‘s Davies Street space before we do actually call it a day; “Gagosian is pleased to announce Roman Meal, an exhibition of two new sculptures by Kathleen Ryan at 17–19 Davies Street, London. In this, her solo debut at the gallery, Ryan mines ideas of utility and excess, luxury and repulsion, pondering culture’s inherent state of perpetual transformation while maintaining an appealing sense of the absurd” – and here we are in a street full of expensive car shows and Vivienne Westward shops, we’ve just passed something horrendous, by far the worst piece of art seen today, a Damien Hurst piece that’s luridly shouting at the selfie-takers posing in front of it in the big brash auction house window that it currently resides in and I guess this is the perfect spot of the two Kathleen Ryan pieces to be saying whatever they need to say? Whatever they are saying they are attracting a rather overdressed audience, selfies are very much the thing here in the relatively intimate Gagosian space.
“Ryan is known for her surreal interpretations of everyday objects. To date she has realised a glistening jack-o’-lantern at human scale, fashioned a delicate pearl necklace from pre-loved bowling balls, and pierced the trunk of a 1968 AMC Javelin with an aluminium umbrella to produce cocktail garnish” and well yeah, alright, a bit of bling on toast and the uniting of the organic and the artificial and I think we’re done with all this and the rest of it for day one of this year’s rather over hyped London Gallery Weekend… (sw)
Flowers Cork Street is found at 21 Cork Street, London, W1S 3LZ. The Gallery is open Monday to Saturday, 10am until 6pm. The Liza Giles exhibition closes on 5th July 2025
Kathleen Ryan is at Gasgosian. 17–19 Davies Street, London W1K 3DE until August 15th, 2025
As always. do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show
THE ORGAN 
2 responses to “ORGAN: London Gallery Weekend Pt.5 – Liza Giles at Flowers, that big piece of Kathleen Ryan’s toast at Gagosian, a parking ticket, a three headed piece of cheese, a fancy blue sticker on the door…”
[…] ORGAN: London Gallery Weekend Pt.5 – Liza Giles at Flowers, that big piece of Kathleen Ryan’s to… […]
[…] ORGAN: London Gallery Weekend Pt.5 – Liza Giles at Flowers, that big piece of Kathleen Ryan’s to… […]