Tal R: Sexshops

With their areas of flat, unmodulated colour and deceptively simple compositions, Tal R’s paintings have long questioned our conception of and presumptions about our surrounding reality – what we see and where its meaning and beauty lies. In these new works he brings a quizzical eye to the largely unconscious actions of seduction, desire and gratification. Approaching his subject matter non-judgementally, Tal R sees the sex shop façade as being metaphorically allied to the function of desire within a painting. For the artist, that which is on display is only successful in as much as it activates the imagination, hinting at something tantalisingly out of reach; in the 'back room' as the artist says – unseen and unknown. Keeping us on the outside is a deliberate creative strategy. Working from photographs, some sent by friends and acquaintances from around the world, Tal R is on the outside too: shut out by closed doors and frosted windows, which he paints with varying degrees of abstraction in dazzlingly seductive hues.