Viewing Christabel Blackburn: Another Day of Sun at Gillian Jason Gallery

Just as the weather falters once again, Blackburn gives us Another Day of Sun — the title of a solo exhibition of new works on view at Gillian Jason Gallery until 2 August. The London-based artist has long been fascinated with California’s sunlight and architecture. To make her latest body of paintings, there was only one thing for it — go and experience it first hand.

Blackburn spent time sketching and photographing fleeting, real-life scenes of people and places in Los Angeles which were then translated onto canvases when the artist returned to her studio in London. The result is a series of sumptuously rendered, minimal and meditative figurative paintings that emanate a sense of vast open space and “the feeling of being bathed in light” as Blackburn puts it.

With a hint of Hockney, and touch of Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Blackburn perfectly captures the environment and energy of the fabled city, but leaves “plenty of space for the viewer to engage with their own narrative”, curator Kate Bryan, Chief Art Director of Soho House, proffers. The quintessence of Californian cool that will brighten the greyest of days.