You get used to enjoying paintings not for what they picture but for how they attack the problem of creating space and organising sensations. The range of artists is global, from London's East End to New Delhi, from LA to Japan; as are the works - some of then go back to the early years of revolutionary Russia, and some were done only the other day. The fact that all the artists are women is not nearly so compelling as the tangible, physical, factual objects you are confronted by and the sensations they offer.
Surface Work almost invites you to become a painter. A painter would know immediately to look for eloquence in the way marks lie on a surface, or knit to make a surface, or the surface is already grabbing a certain type of attention by not being a canvas. (One painting is done on an ambulance trauma blanket.)
Image: Jackie Saccoccio, Portrait (Captive), 2015
Oil and mica on linen
144.78 x 114.3 cm, 57 x 45 in
© Jackie Saccoccio
Courtesy Van Doren Waxter, New York
On view at Victoria Miro, Wharf Road
