Spring Again, Spring Ahead – No. 20 Arts, London

A group exhibition at No. 20 Arts in Islington challenges us to question our perceptions. Bright colours, a range of materials and messages of hopefulness herald the season in Spring Again, Spring Ahead.

Spring Again, Spring Ahead

It’s a pleasure to once more be at No. 20 Arts in Islington. This gallery in a former frame factory provides a great backdrop for both solo and group exhibitions. Hidden corners and a mix of surfaces keep you on your toes while you explore the art, and suit both large- and small-format works.

The exhibition we are here to see today is Spring Again, Spring Ahead. This seasonally-appropriate offering includes one artist we have encountered here before, alongside new discoveries. The aim is to bring together artists who represent inner thought processes in different ways. According to the press release, “they each attempt to convey the emotions that result from our experiences of the external world”. The ways in which they achieve this aim are varied, resulting in some interesting synergies between works.

You may have spotted already the artist in this exhibition whose work we have seen before. Jim Threapleton’s painting style is ‘abstraction flirting with figurative representation’. Paintings that look like a Turner-esque seascape or snowstorm dissolve into abstract shapes on closer inspection. It might be a stretch to call the earthy colours spring-like (more autumnal?), but the paintings by Threapleton definitely fit the brief of conveying emotion and inner thought.

I found an interesting synergy between Threapleton’s work and that of Nick de León. A Fellow of the Royal College of Art and Royal Society of Arts, de León takes an interdisciplinary and innovative approach. His unmanipulated photographs find remarkable perspectives which take a moment to parse. They often play with reflection. Both artists create works that are at first glance simple, but are also cerebral in how they refuse to let the viewer’s first impression stand unchallenged. While de León’s are undoubtedly figurative, the patterns and layers in his work make for an interesting dialogue with Threapleton’s abstract paintings.

The Warmth Of Spring

The next two artists are both painters, working in figurative but very different styles. If I think about them in the context of this spring exhibition, the commonality for me is their warmth. The first artist is Andrea Christodoulides. Born in Cyprus, she trained in Edinburgh and London. There is something of Peter Doig in the way bold forms and colours combine on her canvases, evoking reality through more senses than just sight. Her caged bird motif reminds me of an exhibition I saw some time ago about gender roles and the constraints on women, and this seems to be a preoccupation in her work. Christodoulides’s colour palette brings the promise of warmer months to this exhibition, full of life and colour.

The warmth I see in Helen Bur’s work is emotional. Several works from her series HOLD are on display, featuring tender moments in which two people hold each other, their faces mostly turned away from us. This anonymity helps us to focus in on the moment, to feel the emotion radiating from the canvases. They are wonderfully suggestive paintings: I found myself examining the background for clues as to who these people are and what has brought them to this moment. We cannot know their thoughts, however: their inner worlds continue to elude us.

Cycles Of Creation And Destruction

The spring months are also about the passing of the old and the beginning of the new. Our final two artists embrace this cycle in themes and materials. Jukka Virkkunen, born in Finland, lives and works in London. In Imlatar/Magenta he draws on Finnish mythology, taking inspiration in particular from Ilmatar, the goddess of air and mother of creation. A drop cloth is the starting point, to which new materials add a splash of contrasting colour. The fabric has ended one life as a practical object, and embarks on a new one as a work of art. Virkkunen’s work is bold and forthright, a statement piece within the gallery space.

Finally Raymond Attfield, an artist, architect and musician also based in London, quite literally brings spring growth to No. 20 Arts. Art and architecture seem to intersect in works which take fragments of wood and order them into groupings reminiscent of city blocks. There is a tension between our senses recognising healthy young trees, and our intellectual selves knowing these fragments, now preserved in artworks, no longer contain life. I particularly liked Attfield’s contributions to the exhibition. A standout for me was Villes imaginaires-Rome IX, a tantalising work in the form of a small and delicate book with maps on its translucent leaves. It seems to whisper stories to the viewer from its pages.

Taken as a whole, the artists represent different media, styles, and approaches to the themes suggested by this group show. Islington is a lovely place to be on a spring day, and I can confirm a visit to this exhibition pairs well with an after-gallery iced coffee and chat about the artworks you’ve seen.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

Spring Again, Spring Ahead on until 27 May 2023