EXHIBITIONS | RECOMMENDED
LONDON, BRISTOL
Keeping up appearances, it's just two recommendations this month. (Read our newsletter, we're all about "good things come in twos!") But just because there's less of them, doesn't mean they're less great, in fact, these two really pack a punch, and are not to be missed if you can help it! Drawing, painting and life, that's what's on offer here, so read on to find out all about our two recommended art exhibitions to see this April.
6 FEBRUARY -- 11 MAY
NOAH DAVIES - BARBICAN, LONDON
The Barbican presents a posthumous debut retrospective of Los Angeles artist Noah Davis, celebrating the artist in all his uncanny originality. Ten years after his untimely death in 2015, the exhibition brings together 50 of his several hundred paintings, dreamlike, radiating humanity and steeped in art history.
His works resonate as much today as they did throughout his career, feeling extremely contemporary through his wonderfully unique lens of honesty and heartfelt sincerity. There is a deep love for his subjects that radiates through the work, for his family, his community, his city, all of which he represents with a profound and candid emotion.
Throughout his career, Davis strove to create work exploring Black life, ordinary moments but with a hint of the "magical, not so stuck in reality" and brought his observational, enigmatic work to those who didn't always have access.
Across both floors of the exhibition space, this expansive retrospective introduces the artist as he hasn't been seen before in the UK, growing awareness of his work from previous single images such as "40 Acres and a Unicorn", which featured in The Time Is Always Now at the NPG last year, giving a broader context and understanding to the emotional narratives carried throughout the artists practice.
Find out more and buy tickets below
8 MARCH -- 25 MAY
BARBARA WALKER: BEING HERE - ARNOLFINI, BRISTOL
This show is excellent. The work, the curation, the hang, the accessibility. It is everything. I really could leave it at that. On reading back through the notes I made at the exhibition, there is little of decipherable use and a lot of what can only be described as "fangirling", so I'll get to that in a minute. First, the details.
This is the first major survey exhibition by Barbara Walker, one of the most important British artists working today. Being Here charts the artist’s compelling figurative practice, from the 1990s to today, through just shy of 60 artworks from across six of Walker's major series. It includes rarely seen painting works from early in her career through to her Turner Prize nominated drawing series Burden of Proof (2022-2023).
Walker's work delves into Black British Life, observing, creating space, and empowering those around her through tender, intense portraits of family and community, drawings encompassing hand-rendered archival documents and embossed reliefs spotlighting marginalised Black figures in old Master paintings.
The works on show are poignant, in-your-face, unapologetic but sensitive portrayals of humans. Quietly brazen, Walker forces you to look and to see without aggrandising or pretension. She demands you look, that you understand the stories she is telling, but she does it not through pain or violence but through beauty and connection.
Her weighty portraits, her sensitivity without restraint make her drawings open and honest, graceful and full of quiet power. The hand-rendered lettering is the stuff of early 00s art students' dreams, executed to perfection.
The exhibition is split over the two floors of gallery space, and each room has its own distinct feel and encompasses a different collection. It flows beautifully and each space works with the pieces to show them at their best. The deep red and grey of the walls in the downstairs gallery work wonderfully to enhance the work's power, full-bodied and bold, illuminating the paper without light, while the wide open upstairs lets Walker's community breathe from the bright walls.
Run, don't walk. If you are anywhere in the South-West. Rare are the exhibitions of such importance and excellence, and lest we forget, free!
That's our recommended exhibitions for this April, but we'd love to hear your thoughts, so drop us a message if you see any of the shows, and let us know what you think. Or tell us about something you recommend - we always love to share!
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