Christian Hidaka

The first work is a Japanese-style room-divider. On one side Hidaka has painted a dark, overtly Oriental-looking scene, featuring a nocturnal sliver of mist-enshrouded mountainside – though done in his oddly unreal, slightly plumped-up style – while the other side reveals a pattern of pure colour, with a brilliant, almost luminous rainbow-effect. Taken together, the two images suggest a series of contrasts that continue throughout the rest of the paintings: between figuration and abstraction, between different methods of paint-application and, most dramatically, between areas of darkness and super-saturated colour. (GC)