The Top Exhibitions in London This April
Hey, art lover, If you’re on the hunt for the capital’s best hangs but spoilt for choice and overwhelmed by the social media and press release overload, check out these April recommendations. Two of the artists will be amongst those featured in our Best2Invest discussion at the end of the month where we review striking art pieces by exciting emerging artists.
Amoako Boafo: I Do Not Come To You By Chance
A vocalist and guitarist duo performed here at the private view for Amoako Boafo’s first solo exhibition in the UK. The final song on their tracklist should have been the cue for a drum roll; the atmosphere was that electric – as if you were expecting a rockstar. The Ghanaian artist arrived dressed head to toe in casual white garb and shades, looking very much the charismatic rising star. And as with his paintings, there was vulnerability, fragility even, behind the hard lines. Strong, hard, edges are found on all these striking portraits but his unequivocal signature is the visceral and exfoliating paintwork on the face and body, which he says is applied with his fingertips to enhance expression.
Where & When: Gagosian Gallery, Grosvenor Hill, London. April 10 – May 24 .
Transvangarde: Luminous Matter
This exhibition, grouped around artists born in the Near and Far East, has at its heart an open exploration into aesthetic approach and culturally unifying national or geopolitical themes here are few and far between. The works resonate across the gallery space with a meditative energy – the one unifying feature. Certainly, Chinese painter Tian Wei’s abstract monochrome pieces radiate with a luminesce that lulls you beyond the pull of the bold colour. Interestingly, the sole swish of calligraphic brushwork isn’t Chinese lettering at all…but how are they English words? Ying and Yang opposites at work here, it seems.
Where & When: October Gallery, Old Gloucester Street, London 10 April – 17 May
REMUS GRECU: THE SILENCE BETWEEN
The colours pop! That, and the surreal, unreal, expression of detail in the folds of the models’ garments and mountain crevices in the background, place the works at the insightful intersection of Alice in Wonderland and Renaissance art. Romanian artist Remus Grecu uses the paint medium to create these works, not computer software, so the illustration-like perspective skews are artfully deliberate. And something timeless about them; deep and painterly yet hints of AI-flecked aesthetics.
Where & When: BEERS, 51 Little Britain, London EC1A 7BH. 17 April – 17 May.
The Flux of memory
Venture south of London to check out the Flux of Memory group exhibition at the ASC Gallery and you”ll be bowled over by the colourism and totemic symbolism in Raul Pina Perez’s work [photos above]. Your art trekking just beyond the Vauxhall Bridge will find two of the Mexican painter’s pieces, Totem of Memory-Well of Creation and Blue Lady-Utopian Memory, lighting up the otherwise inobtrusive group works with a mind-altering tangle of striking imagery. His graphite and acrylic The Wall of Memory foregoes this Fauve-like colour. Instead, it moves like a mystical street mural, tackling the gallery wall as part sculpture, part rabbit motif signature.
Where & When: ASC Gallery, 3 Loughborough Street, London SE11 5RB. 07 April – 19 April
Writer – Eddie Saint-Jean
For more on London’s art scene, read London Art in Review, authored by Eddie Saint-Jean
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