Imagine the great abstract painter Cy Twombly as a character in ‘Clueless’. That’s what young English artist Mary Ramsden’s show is like. Her canvases are filled with rushed washes of paint, big splatters of colour and sweeping fields of monochrome. And in among all of it, endless love hearts.
Her works feel like a teenage diary has been discovered and manically censored with highlighter pink, Tipp-Ex white and ink black. All the words have been scribbled over, the meanings obliterated until all that’s left is the love hearts you dotted your crush’s name with, leaving behind just the pure, frantic, overwhelming rush of new love. The show’s title refers to the works existing in relationship to each other – with you as the therapist, negotiating the divide – but maybe it’s also about trying to reconnect with the heady feeling of joyful, breathtaking love that makes you such an idiot when you fall for someone.
Ramsden’s paintings may be a little cheesy, but that’s way harsh, Tai. When you get down to it, these are intense, overwrought and passionate works of abstract art that drag you in and tug at your heartstrings.
@eddyfrankel