Rain pounds on a car windscreen, an alarm clock flashes in an empty hotel room, a tap runs in a pink bathroom. There are no figures in English artist Dexter Dalwood’s new paintings, no humanity, just barren points of view. He paints the Arc de Triomphe out of a plane window and a burning fire in the back of cab. These are visions of the modern travelling, flitting between spaces and places.
As single paintings, they’re not great. They feel rushed, messy, ill-considered, even ugly. But as a group, they suddenly hit you. There’s a crushing sense of isolation here, of solitude in a world of luxury and comfort, of being alone even when you’re surrounded by people. These are disconnected paintings for a hyper-connected world. Dalwood perfectly conveys a particularly modern sense of loneliness. If you leave discomfited, it’s probably because it feels too familiar.
@eddyfrankel