Orlanda Broom: Rewild
Grove Square Galleries, London
Until 11 June 2021
Mysterious, exotic and ablaze with brilliant colour, the mesmerising floralscapes of British artist Orlanda Broom draw the eye every which way you look. Her highly-saturated imagined visions combine fictional plantlife with abstract organic forms and seem to exist outside of a specific time or place.
In lockdown Broom focused on the more jubilant aspects of her practice, creating a new series of paintings celebrating the natural world.
‘The connection to nature and aspects of escapism have always been a theme but it’s particularly pertinent now as people’s appreciation of being outdoors has grown,’ she says. ‘I’d like my love of nature to come through and engage people to also think about what the future holds… can our planet rewild?’
Currently on display at Grove Square Galleries in Fitzrovia, these buoyant new works offer a colourful escape from our current — dare we say, still-a-little-frazzled — state of being. Hop to it!
Viewing In Heat: Plum Cloutman and Nettle Grellier at Blue Shop Cottage
Above Topiary 26, Plum Cloutman, 2021
Above do your bit or get out, Nettle Grellier, 2021
Above Tree Bust, Plum Cloutman, 2021
Above g’wan then, Nettle Grellier, 2021
Above Topiary 26, Plum Cloutman, 2021
Above do your bit or get out, Nettle Grellier, 2021
Above Tree Bust, Plum Cloutman, 2021
Above g’wan then, Nettle Grellier, 2021
In Heat: Plum Cloutman and Nettle Grellier
Blue Shop Cottage, London
Until 12 May 2021
Women celebrating women. This joint exhibition of paintings and drawings is described by Ocki Magill (Director at BSC) as a celebration of the ‘raw femme that consumer culture would rather us not see.’ Together, contemporary artists Plum Cloutman and Nettle Grellier have directed the shift away from the male-gaze picture-perfect imagery of women in the media and achieve an unabashed expression of female sexuality in all its forms.
And these works don’t hide away: there is vulgarity, beauty, grotesqueness, delight. Addressing themes of trauma and survival, they’re a reminder of what Cloutman describes as ‘the antidotal properties of funny art’. Like the nude figure riding the slug in ‘I’ve lost my fear of being left’ (Grellier, 2021), the artists tread an often-fantastical line between the humorous and the absurd – one where filters and airbrushes suddenly appear no more real.
Viewing Frank Walter at David Zwirner, Grafton Street
Above Untitled (Self-portrait on water with red hurricane moving in), n.d.
Above Untitled (Watermelon), n.d.
Above Untitled (McAlister Coat-of-Arms), n.d.
Above Untitled (Self-portrait on water with red hurricane moving in), n.d.
Above Untitled (Watermelon), n.d.
Above Untitled (McAlister Coat-of-Arms), n.d.
Frank Walter
David Zwirner, Grafton Street
Until 22 May 2021
‘Art is a festival in which a narrative is told’ wrote Frank Walter – and his first UK solo show at David Zwirner deserves all the song and dance. The Antiguan artist, writer and polymath produced a prolific body of work across his lifetime, ranging from Romantic landscapes to portraits exploring racial identity.
What’s just as extensive is the variety of materials Walter was working with – from wood, linoleum and the backs of photographs, to oil paint, shellac and glitter. Passionate that art should be universally accessible, his works may be small in scale (they really invite you to look close-up) but they’re big in scope.
Four years after the artist was posthumously honoured at the Venice Biennale, this exhibition comes hot on the heels of the artist’s retrospective at the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt. As interest around his work gains momentum, this David Zwirner show brings the colours of his work further to life.