Viewing Roe Ethridge: Happy Birthday Louise Parker II at Gagosian

You’ll have to get to Gstaad to see the first part of this sprawling show of work by Roe Etheridge, but there is plenty to pique your imagination and curiosity at Gagosian’s Davies Street gallery in London, too. Etheridge is known for defying genres and merging visual cues, drawing on studio, commercial, fashion and editorial photography with signature saturated colours and formal compositions informed by rigorous study of the history of photography.

The show’s title refers to Louise Parker, a model Etheridge collaborated with on several occasions over the years since they first worked together in 2010. Using a mix of highly staged, overtly styled scenes and more whimsical, fanciful images, Etheridge carefully and cleverly questions the intertwining of life and its image.

Look out for Louise on David’s Refrigerator (2012–20) and Louise on Central Park Smoke (2023), where Ethridge depicts Parker in modeling spreads and more natural, intimate situations. Other works bring out tensions and contrasts between the real and the represented inherent in Etheridge’s work, such as Duck for Burberry (2023) produced for a promotional campaign for the British fashion house, and Candy and Comme. In another twist of direction is this expansive, non-linear exhibition, there’s also a portrait of the artist’s son, age 5 in 2015, a poignant reminder of the passage of time and the cyclical nature of life.