The now and again Five Pieces of Art thing feature again. Well why not (again)? Again and again (and again and again), all this art flowing past on various feeds or wrapped up in press releases or jumping off actual gallery walls or wrapping chips or passing on the side of those Whitechapel white vans.…
The now and again Five Pieces of Art thing feature again. Well why not (again)? Again and again (and again and again), all this art flowing past on various feeds or wrapped up in press releases or jumping off actual gallery walls or wrapping chips or passing on the side of those Whitechapel white vans. So we ask (again) why not five pieces of art every couple of weeks or so alongside everything else that appears on these fractured pages on a daily basis? Can you think of one good reason why not to? Well besides the time involved and the this and the that and the dancing around and the skins on the tins of paint and the man at the door…
Five pieces of art then, a semi regular feature, just five pieces of art that have passed our way in the last few days, nothing more (or less) than that. Nothing really to do with an upcoming show or anything else (although maybe they are), just a simple, semi regular five pieces of art feature. Let’s do it again…
1: T.J. Ly-Donovan – a recent so far untitled piece from the artist who’s Instagram feed is always alive with intrigue. This one is a piece in oil paint and craft foam on panel. Here come some detail shots of a piece that really does, as is the case with so much of his work, excite….
“Through the use of oil paint and craft foam, T.J. Ly-Donovan’s paintings are coalescent clashes between high and low art-making materials. Fusing the exalted with the lowly, Ly-Donovan’s paintings playfully traverse the indefinite spectra between painting and sculpture, window and object, minimal and maximal, systems painting and casualism, the romantically expressive and the incidental. Prior to an eight-year hiatus from painting, (Born 1979) Ly-Donovan’s work was shown throughout the United States and abroad.
Instagram / website / T.J. Ly-Donovan at Devenin Projects
2: This is a Lauren Halsey piece, Untitled (2025) – Polymer-modified gypsum and stain on wood (240 x 120 x 7cm) . The piece is from an exhibition of new works by Lauren Halsey, opening on November 14 at the Gagosian’s Park & 75 location in New York, but this page isn’t about exhibitions and what’s opening where, this page is merely about five pieces of art. “The installation is composed of protruded engravings and a large-scale plaza sign sculpture—honouring the aesthetics of her home community in South Central Los Angeles and the diasporic, mythological features of Black life in the United States” and follows our recent encounters with Halsey’s work here in London at this year’s Frieze.
“The six-foot-tall sculpture from the plaza sign series (2024 – ) pays homage to the iconography, colour palettes, and creative wordplay commonly found on Black- and Brown-owned business signage in working-class neighbourhoods. Whereas signs like “Watts Happening” are tributes to artist – and community – run cultural centres, others like “Dreams and Things” and “Sisters Serving the Community” are a call to action and a reminder of the historic and current roles that community members and institutions play in stewarding Black and Brown neighbourhoods amid conditions of economic inequality, systemic racism, state violence, gentrification, and displacement.
The monochrome sculptural reliefs in the protruded engravings series (2022–), on the other hand, assemble a historical, contemporary, and mythical graphic record of Black culture in Los Angeles. Like the cosmological carvings of ancient Egypt and Mesoamerican civilisations, Halsey’s engravings appear almost hieroglyphic, transforming South Central residents, institutions, and everyday moments into ciphers that illuminate alternative constructions of the past, present, and future. She places their expressive cultures and community designs into a dynamic exchange with Afro-diasporic mythologies, Funk music and aesthetics, personal memory, and collective history”.
And here’s an installation shot from that same Gagosian show…
Previously –
3: This is a Barnett Newman painting (1905-1970, USA) – Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue IV (1970, 274×604cm) as seen at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin and on this page today just because it is so satistying…
4: Carla Arocha and Stéphane Schraenen – and some installation shots of Shadows Know, the first solo exhibition in South Korea by artist duo Carla Arocha and Stéphane Schraenen at Jason Haam Gallery who in turn brought some rewarding art to London this year including the work of work by four Korean artists Jihyoung Han, Jungwook Kim, Mike Lee and Moka Lee at No.9 Cork Street as well as work from the same four artists at East London’s Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery as part of this year’s Condo
“By migrating Wasp Nest from 2024 Busan Biennale to Jason Haam New Gallery, the exhibition unfolds a subtle tension among the viewer, work, and space through the shifts in light and perspective”.
Read more about Carla Arocha and Stéphane Schraenen here, the installation shots just looked good to us, so here they are…
“The nature of the surveillance mirror plexiglass, which appear to materialize or become transparent depending on the light conditions and position of the viewer, add to its evanescent character and will hopefully be a source of beauty and lead to a question provoking experience for the public” – Carla Arocha and Stéphane Schraenen.
5: CBA is an artist from Japan, here’s a piece of work called The F2 Block Compass and here’s the Instagram feed
And while were here, here’s a couple of Sonia Delaunay paintings just for the pure joy of them as it was with Barnett Newman just now…
Sonia Delaunay (14th November 1885 – 5th December 1979) was an artist who spent most of her working life in Paris. She was born in Ukraine. She was the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre in 1964 and if you want to know more then go exlore, don’t be trusting A.I though, A.I comes up with all kinds of nonsense, go ask it a question you already know the answer to…
Previously…
And we’ll be back with more online exhibitions in January of 2026, here a group show from March 2025
THE ORGAN 