Yinka Shonibare CBE RA: Free The Wind, The Spirit, and The Sun

Yinka Shonibare - Feeling Free Like a Bird, 2023

Still on Cork Street and I had to pay a visit to the Stephen Friedman Gallery, who like Alison Jacques, have also relocated here. This a better, more cohesive space than the two galleries Friedman had previously occupied at Old Burlington Street, one street away. The inaugural show here was devoted to the sculptures and textiles of Yinka Shonibare, and the pieces appear to have carried on in much the same vein as those from his previous show (here), taking their cue from European artists and art historical movements, in this case the spirit of the Dada movement, and the artist George Stubbs who inspired the life-size equestrian sculpture, which also brings to mind those formal equestrian monuments of generals on horseback glorifying war along Whitehall and Trafalgar Square. I really enjoyed the textile studies of birds which are a meditation on the natural world and man's defilement of the environment. The effects of textiles caught in the breeze were captured in the large, decoratively patterned Wind Sculpture in Bronze (SG) I. There is currently another version of this series on display in Regent's Park as part of Frieze sculpture which I had seen and posted about recently here. This exhibition also generously showcases a presentation of paintings of artists from the African diaspora who have taken part in Shonibare's residency program at Guest Artists Space Foundation in Lagos, Nigeria. 

Sun Dance Kids (Boy and Girl)

Hybrid Mask (Gurunsi), 2023

Hybrid Sculpture (Faun on Stilts)

Hybrid Mask (Ndeemba), 2023

Hybrid Mask (Guro), 2023

African Bird Magic (Yellow Breasted Bunting) II

African Bird Magic (Crested Lark)

Wind Sculpture in Bronze (SG) I, 2023

Hybrid Mask (Tsekedi), 2023

African Bird Magic (Saker Falcon) I

Group Presentation:

Ozioma Onuzulike - Chequered Jumper for Anatsui, 2023

Nengi Omuku - Quorum, 2022

Emma Prempeh - A Haunting Fragility, 2023

Bunmi Agusto - Apparitions Fly Past Umbanda, 2023

Victor Ehikhamenor - The Arranged Marriage of King Oedipus, 2023

Okiki Akinfe - The Road to Damascus, 2023

Gareth Nyandoro - Sofa Constructions, 2022

Masimba Hwati - Trepanation, 2015

Feeling Free Like a Bird, 2023

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA: Free The Wind, The Spirit, and The Sun

until 11th November

Stephen Friedman Gallery

5-6 Cork Street

London

W1S

Ian Davenport: Lakes

Ian Davenport - Lake No. 1 (Tide) detail

“Working on a large scale, flooding the gallery with colour, brings out certain themes in painting that interest me. I can allow the paint to behave more like a sculptural entity: it is manipulated by me but also by gravity, and the work has a pronounced relationship to the floor, much like a sculpture”.

Another good exhibition visited on my Cork Street trip was this at Waddington Custot featuring the poured lines of artist Ian Davenport (previously). His Lakes series dominate here. They are huge, immersive paintings which spill lines of colour from the wall, which then congeal in beautiful chromatic puddles of abstraction onto the gallery floor, and invite the viewers to actually step into/onto the work. There is a lovely sense of tension and contrast of the poured but controlled lines of rigid paint on the wall, against the randomness and fluidity of the same paint collected in the spilled pools of colour on the floor. Davenport is a skilled colourist, selecting and combining the harmonious colours wonderfully, allowing one colour or hue to dominate which is then supported by other contrasting vibrant colours.

Lake No. 2 (Tectonic)

Shuffle

Mirrored Amaranth

Do Dah

Mirrored Blue Light N0. 2 (after Perugino)

Outside In

Black Powder

White Stars

Lake No. 1 (Tide)

Blue Perugino Study

Mirrored Blue Light N0. 1 (after Perugino)

Mirrored Napthalo Crimson

Ian Davenport: Lakes

until 11th November

Waddington Custot

11 Cork Street

London

W1S