Good things come in three's

Laura Letinsky 

at the James Hyman Gallery

I just caught this exhibition, very, very beautiful large prints the colours and the way the objects are lit just brilliant. You really do have to see work of this quality in the flesh if you can to appreciate the skill involved in these images.

John Blackburn: Paintings

13 May - 6 June 2009

On at Osborne Samuel

Now back in England, Blackburn had his first solo show at the Woodstock Gallery in London. Life was still hard but crucially this exhibition was visited by Jim Ede, a well known collector and promoter of contemporary art who had a house in Cambridge called Kettle’s Yard that housed his collection and has since become an important art centre.

All this caused a prolonged disruption to his painting and a lack of funds obliged the artist to pursue a career as a graphic designer. Painting was however still an integral part of his life and he continued to work in isolation with minor exhibitions outside London.

The current exhibition is built around recent work chosen from the studio. We also include earlier works such as the important group of large paintings first shown in 1969 at the Gulbenkian Foyer at the University of Kent as wall hangings and reworked in 2007 and laid onto boards.

John celebrated his 75th birthday last year and continues to paint with the same inventiveness, vitality and enthusiasm he has shown throughout his career.

There's my two most favourite words in the English language Kettles Yard, how amazingly serendipitous finding this exhibition was, I do not normally walk down the street but some how this day I did. As I passed by I thought it was a William Scott exhibition but on closer inspection it was nothing like his work. It was richly layered textures with delicately drawn lines & shapes. Stunning, seriously if I could I would have bought the third one down. The gallery has a brilliant catalogue and web site here

Susan Derges

3 June - 4 July

How lucky was I, I managed to see this before it opened and although I had seen her work on the web, nothing and I men nothing prepares you for the sheer beauty, the depth of colour and the almost spiritual beauty of these images they are big, very big. Stunning

Subliminal perfection, and absolute proof that if you can ALWAYS see photographs in the 'flesh' the detail in these is lost in cyber translation. Yes I would have the top one, well any of them, although I was mesmerised by the one with frog spawn in. As someone who has schlepped across bath with a wheelie bin customised as a pin hole camera I appreciate that the skill involved in making these unique images is awesome. She must have the patience of a saint. A BIG thank you to Purdy Hicks for allowing me to gate crash the exhibition whilst it was being hung.