We don’t need an editorial here do we? Another week, another Five Art Things thing and on with all this endless art coverage? Years of it. Actually this week we probably do need an editorial, or a repeat…
Enough of this, shut up, get one with it. Five art things then, five more art things happening somewhere around right now (or any moment now). Five art shows to check out in the coming days as we repeat ourselves. We do aim to make this an (almost) weekly round up of recommended art events, five shows, exhibitions or things we rather think might be worth checking out. Mostly London things for that is where we currently operate and explore, and like we said last time, these five recommendations come with no claims that they are “the best five” or the “Top Five”, we’re not one of those annoying art websites that ignore most things whilst claiming to be covering everything and proclaiming this or that to be the “top seven things” or the “best things this weekend”. This Five Things thing is simply a regular list of five or so recommended art things happening now or coming up very soon that we think you might find as interesting as we think we will…
And we should add, that entry to these recommended exhibitions and events, unless otherwise stated, is free…
1: Anna Barham, ZYX at Matt’s Gallery – 3rd June until 29th June 2026 – “Matt’s Gallery is pleased to present ZYX, a new audio installation by Anna Barham, her second exhibition at the gallery”
“Barham works with sound and installation, treating mishearing as a way of thinking that produces meaning as language moves between bodies, technologies and material forms. ZYX centres around a voice recounting a psychedelic experience accompanied by a spatial soundscape of incidental, bodily, and environmental sounds. The listener’s body becomes part of the acoustic field, while lighting and material staging contribute to a heightened sense of perceptual instability, echoing the hallucinatory atmosphere of the narrative itself.
A woman’s voice moves between clarity and fractured, associative phrasing, which she does not register as error. At times, language tumbles into rhythmic fragments suggesting thought unfolding through sound as much as sense. A small misunderstanding leads to an intense psychedelic experience; time loosens and events become difficult to order. She remembers “feeling up off the surface” and repeating the alphabet backwards as a way of keeping time. The world vibrates – a “delirious mantra chorussing through the grass”.
The work brings human and machine perception into dialogue by thinking through hallucination, contrasting hallucinatory states associated with grief or psychedelics with speech-to-text misrecognitions and fabrications of language. Barham created an audio filter to force such machine “hallucinations” by emphasising paralinguistic features of speech (hesitations, repetitions, breath, accent, and vocal strain) shifting attention from semantic meaning to the material qualities of voice. Algorithmic mishearings generated through this process became source material for the script, blending machine error with embodied recollection.
For Barham, it is precisely these textures and mishearings which hold the relational potential of the voice. What initially seems like a misheard text becomes a new way of thinking and writing – in radical opposition to automatisation, standardisation and authority”.
Matt’s Gallery is now found at 6 Charles Clowes Walk, London, SW11 7AN. The space is open Wednesday to Sunday, Midday until 6pm. There’s a so called private view on Sunday 31 May, 2–5pm. Anna Barham
2: Kembra Pfahler, Hungry for Trash at The Clerk’s House – 29th May until 25th July 2026 – We did preview this one already, it happening this week; “Emalin is pleased to present Hungry for Trash, a solo exhibition of new works by American artist Kembra Pfahler, the artist’s fourth at the gallery and her first at The Clerk’s House”. The dates you need are 29th May until 25th July 2026 with a so called private view on 28th May, 6–8pm. Nothing to indicate if you need to get on a list or not, but we do expect it to be busy.
The Clerk’s House, is one of Emalin Gallery‘s two current Shoreditch spaces, find it at 118½ Shoreditch High Street, London.
Read more about Kembra and the show via last week’s Organ preview – Kembra Pfahler is Hungry for Trash. The New York artist’s latest London show kicks off next week, opening night is May 28th, we’re still getting over that time ten years ago when Emalin first kicked off…
3: Lisa Ivory, The Near Distance at Gramercy Park Studios, Soho presented by Charlie Smith London – 29th May until 26th June 2026 – Charlie Smith might be a fictional character, an alter-ego, a rather aloof one at times, but he does put on some interesting shows and he is presenting The Near Distance; “a solo show of new paintings by Lisa Ivory exploring mortality, ritual and dreamlike folklore through dark, symbolic landscapes”, Lisa Ivory is rather different…
“Charlie Smith London is pleased to present The Near Distance, a solo exhibition by British painter Lisa Ivory. Bringing together a new collection of oil paintings – developed in parallel with Ivory’s recent sell-out releases of works on paper with Charlie Smith London × Project Papyrophilia – the exhibition expands the distinctive imaginative world she has cultivated over the course of three decades: a liminal realm inhabited by Wildmen, nude women, skeletal guardians, and hybrid creatures that pass through darkly atmospheric landscapes suspended between folklore, theatre, and dream.
The exhibition’s title refers both to the formal structure of landscape painting and to the illusion of distance itself: the tension between the belief that there is still time ahead and the unsettling awareness that the horizon may be nearer than imagined. Within Ivory’s paintings, landscape becomes a psychological and existential space in which mortality, ritual, desire, and transformation quietly unfold.
Across the exhibition, recurring figures appear in shifting symbolic dramas. Female protagonists encounter Wildmen whose roles oscillate between protector and threat, while skeletal figures resembling Death interrupt scenes with the logic of allegory or fable. Acts of strange ceremony recur throughout: figures wear crowns of tiny bodies and miniature skeletons, workhorses are adorned as though for ritual procession, and shepherds shapeshift between human guardian and spectral sentinel.
Archaic in atmosphere yet psychologically contemporary, Ivory’s paintings stage unstable encounters between the feral and the domesticated, tenderness and menace, devotion and abandonment. Rich in dark humour and symbolic ambiguity, The Near Distance presents painting as a space of existential theatre in which the familiar continually gives way to something strange and unknowable.
Lisa Ivory (b. 1966) studied at Saint Martins School of Art, London (BA Hons Fine Art, 1988). Solo exhibitions include Nino Mier Gallery, Brussels; Pamela Salisbury Gallery, New York; CZA, Milan; and Charlie Smith London . Group presentations include Saatchi Gallery, London; Ricco Maresca Gallery, New York; Fabian Lang Gallery, Zurich; and Hastings Contemporary. Her work is held by University of the Arts London, St George’s Medical School Library, and private collections internationally”.
Gramercy Park Studios is found 25 Great Pulteney Street, Soho, London W1F 9LT. Open Monday to Friday 10am-5pm. I guess the best place to interact with Charlie is via Instabloodygram although there is charliesmithlondon.com
4: Tom Lemon and Gerard Cassidy, Tom & Gerry The Exhibition at The Chapel at St Margarets House – 30th May until 31st May 2026 – Now I do like the train ride from Limehouse to Rainham, I sometimes just take a walk down the canal to Limehouse then catch a train to Rainham and all that the opens up with the Marshes, just take the ride for the pleasure of it, past Dagenham docks, the East Ham train sheds, through Barking; “Curated by Tom Lemon and Gerard Cassidy, this exhibition presents a historical, sometimes cinematic glimpse into years gone by. Rainham to Limehouse is a nod to their creative imaging journey”.
Information about this show is vague at best and truth be told I don’t know anything much about either artist (and I don’t know who has made which statement), I’ve seen their names around, I do like what they have to say and the two of them do have me intrigued and sometimes you just need to follow your instincts or your gut feeling or where the line might take you….
“My inspiration going back would have been Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Henri Magritte, all fashionable artists in the 1960s, maybe there are elements of those artists’ work in mine. Cinema inspirations in some of my pictures come from various films, Bronco Bullfrog by Barney Platt Mills, Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse and the striking actress Simone Signoret. I have a love of printmaking and Letterpress printing, have a fair amount of equipment at home where I can carry out some creative work. I am a student of Shadwell print studio, East London (Idea Store) tutor Anna Dyke, where my greatest energy is producing silk screen prints and more recently lino cut printing. The bulk of my career was in the printing industry and since retiring, I have been able to carry through new ideas to print. I also have a connection with Havering Changing, an organisation that fosters art and all manner of creativity in the less well creative served areas of Havering. I enjoy ceramics and am able to do pottery projects at Fairkytes Arts Centre in Hornchurch, Essex at weekly held sessions”.
“My prints are an exploration of colour, shape, design and precision. I developed this method of block printing while doing my degree course. I experimented with various printing techniques before settling on a refined woodblock method. I construct my prints using ink, paper woodblocks and a jig. This method affords me endless possibilities of design and colour combinations by reconfiguring the blocks in the jig. The motivation for my method of printing came from Victor Vassarly and his Alphabet Plastique work. I also draw inspiration from Wassily Kandinsky and Helio Oitocica with regards to their compositions and use of colour. By carving out motifs and patterns into individual woodblocks, I build up layers of contrasting colour and shapes to deliver a powerful visual experience. Overlaying blocks, designs and pigments I create pieces to surprise, intrigue and enthrall”.
The Chapel at St Margarets House is found at 21 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, London, E2 9PL. The space is open Saturday and Sunday 30th and 31st, 10am until 6pm in terms of this very short show. There is an opening on Friday May 29th, 6.30pm until 8.30pm
Hang on, found some Instabloodygram links: lemon.thomas / gelcoat77 – see, we do go searching, we do make an effort (I can’t stands the way most artists, vurators and galleries seem to think like starts and ends with Instabloodygram these days)
5: Phyllis Bray, Myth and Nature at The Batsford Gallery – 2nd June until 21st June 2026 – “Batsford Gallery presents Phyllis Bray: Myth and Nature the first UK retrospective of the pioneering artist, celebrating her evocative landscapes, mythic imagery and lasting impact”.
“Discover Phyllis Bray: Myth and Nature at Batsford Gallery, a rare retrospective celebrating one of modern British art’s overlooked talents. From atmospheric landscapes to richly imagined mythological scenes, Bray’s work blends nature, folklore and personal vision. Spanning over four decades, the exhibition offers a vivid journey through her paintings, illustrations and murals – inviting visitors to rediscover a truly distinctive artistic voice”.
The Batsford Gallery is at 266 Hackney Road, London, E2 7SJ. The space is open Thursday to Sunday, midday until 5pm
And while we’re here, you’ve surely noticed another Cultivate online show opened earlier this month? Once again hosted here on the Organ website. Melike is, as we said last time, a rather exciting painter, a rather pro-active mixed media artist who’s work, especially her drawings, constantly challenge us. You can explore the recent work of Melike via this link – Cultivate Presents: Melike, Recent Work, an exhibition…
Previously…
THE ORGAN 