The Joy

The Joy
Nettie Horn Gallery
7 Sept – 7 Oct

Nettie Horn Gallery, now, not the newest gallery on Vyner Street as the stunning Wilkinson Gallery opened its doors last Thursday. Wilkinson’s is now like the White Cube, but without the Hello Magazine array of artists who are all far too famous to be interesting. On display at Wilkinson were Thoralf Knobloch paintings’ that were less drippy Doigs’ and more urban dystopian - spaces similar to Hopper.

The Joy at Nettie Horn was another group show.

Pros and cons of group shows;
• They are often only loosely themed without any critical underpinning
• Generally there is just too much work so everything looks cramped
• It is a who’s who, or who’s new kind of thing
• Works are hardly ever site specific but commodity driven
• You don’t get much of an idea of the artists practice
• Discovering new artists who’s work you love
• As an artist you have to worry less about the number of people turning up to the private view

Highlights were Louise Colbourne’s videos of white bisected cubes moving in duet - reminded me of logic puzzles at maths in school. A person standing on one leg (you just see the foot and the lower leg) wearing a golden shoe who wobbles but never falls over thanks to the editing of the film.

Andrew Ekins nipple stalagmite paint drips on tin cans producing a castle like structure was juicy and good in a naughty way, much preferred this to his painting. I never thought I could like anything that was pink.

The unfussy straight talking ‘Where did Evil come from?’ by Brian Reed; just pen on paper in a frame as you entered the space, left the question in a large space somewhere at the back of my brain.