tue 22/07/2025

Visual Arts Reviews

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support

Tom Birchenough

We are bowled over! 

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Emily Kam Kngwarray, Tate Modern review - glimpses of another world

Sarah Kent

It took until the last room of her exhibition for me to gain any real understanding of the work of Australian Aboriginal artist Emily Kam Kngwarray. Given that Tate Modern’s retrospective of this highly acclaimed painter comprises some 80 paintings and batiks, the process had been slow!

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Kiefer / Van Gogh, Royal Academy review - a pairing of opposites

Sarah Kent

When he was a callow youth of 18, German artist Anselm Keifer got a travel grant to follow in the footsteps of his idol, Vincent van Gogh. Some sixty years later, work by the two artists has been brought together at the Royal Academy in a show that highlights Van Gogh’s influence on his acolyte and invites you to compare and contrast.

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Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting, National Portrait Gallery review - a protégé losing her way

Sarah Kent

When in the 1990s, Jenny Saville’s peers shunned painting in favour of alternative media such as photography, video and installations, the artist stuck to her guns and, unapologetically, worked on canvases as large as seven feet tall.

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Abstract Erotic, Courtauld Gallery review - sculpture that is sensuous, funny and subversive

Sarah Kent

The Courtauld Gallery’s Abstract Erotic is a delight for two reasons – because an institution that has often seemed locked in the past is now embracing change and also because the sculptures on show are clever, suggestive and subversively funny.

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Edward Burra, Tate Britain review - watercolour made mainstream

Sarah Kent

It’s unusual to leave an exhibition liking an artist’s work less than when you went in, but Tate Britain’s retrospective of Edward Burra manages to achieve just this. I’ve always loved Burra’s limpid late landscapes. Layers of filmy watercolour create sweeping vistas of rolling hills and valleys whose suggestive curves create a sexual frisson.

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Ithell Colquhoun, Tate Britain review - revelations of a weird and wonderful world

Sarah Kent

Tate Britain is currently offering two exhibitions for the price of one. Other than being on the same bill, Edward Burra and Ithell Colquhoun having nothing in common other than being born a year apart and being oddballs – in very different ways. And since both reward focused attention, this makes for a rather exhausting outing – I’m reviewing them separately – so gird your loins.

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Rachel Jones: Gated Canyons, Dulwich Picture Gallery review - teeth with a real bite

Sarah Kent

I first came across Rachel Jones in 2021 at the Hayward Gallery’s painting show Mixing it Up: Painting Today. I was blown away by the beauty of her huge oil pastels; rivulets of bright colour shimmied round one another in what seemed like a joyous celebration of pure abstraction.

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Yoshitomo Nara, Hayward Gallery review - sickeningly cute kids

Sarah Kent

It’s been a long time since an exhibition made me feel physically sick. The Hayward Gallery is currently hosting a retrospective of the Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara and the combination of turquoise walls and oversized paintings of cute kids turned my stomach over. Kitsch has that kind of power.

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Hamad Butt: Apprehensions, Whitechapel Gallery review - cool, calm and potentially lethal

Sarah Kent

Hamad Butt studied at Goldsmiths College at the same time as YBAs (Young British Artists) like Damien Hirst and Gillian Wearing; but whereas they would become household names so their work is now familiar, he disappeared from view. It makes his Whitechapel retrospective feel like a rediscovery – incredibly fresh and immediate.

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