Art on your doorstep (well, mine)

Tropical tricksters, gorgeous gardens, pots, Proms and Abigail's Party are among this week's London treats

Firelei Báez: Sueño de la Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream) at South London Gallery. Photo: Above Ground

I spend so much time in the West End (o woe, so hard etc) sometimes I forget about what’s on my own doorstep in south London. I think I might attempt some posts on what’s going on in specific chunks of the city in the coming weeks, because it’s always good to remind yourself of what’s right in front of your (or other people’s) nose.

This weekend I saw a brilliant exhibition curated by the wonderful OHSH Projects, a nomadic project space started in 2021 by Henry Hussey and Sophia Olver with the intention of responding directly to the sites in which it finds itself. 

The former Bottle Factory on Ossory Road off the Old Kent Road (part of a development that includes studios for small creative businesses), is the location for their latest show Vessel, in which ceramic and glass artworks are shown in the same curatorial context (and therefore with the same respect and status, not always the case) as painting. Even taking into account my deep personal devotion to ceramics, it’s excellent. 

I loved Elliot Walker’s Irreverence, a collection of blown drinking glasses seemingly nailed to the walls (he won season 2 of Blown Away on Netflix, which is essentially Bake Off but for glassblowing - watch him in action here, it’s mesmerising), and Rebecca Elves’s Moored together, until the final flood, which comprises three pleasingly rickety vessels inspired by the marshy islands of the Thames Estuary. 

I don’t really understand why Louis Thompson’s work isn’t seen more often in a fine art context, unless the fact that he blew all the glass himself for his imaginative installation, Sigmund Freud’s Dream Catching Apparatus C1910, has confused people into thinking that it’s “just craft”, which is obviously stupid. I also really enjoy the work of Richard Slee, at 78 the oldest artist in the show by some distance, whose ceramics based on the classic Toby jug, extrapolated from the descriptions of items that sat on the mantelpieces of a national panel of volunteers in 1937, are both witty and oddly moving. 

The whole show is really worth seeking out, and I love the way OHSH eschew the usual white plinths (which often look a bit shit) and present the works imaginatively, whether that’s on pastel-painted metal surfaces or on a structure of bricks taken from the foundations of the refurbished buildings in the development. The show’s on until September 21, and they have some nice events coming up, including a curator’s tour at 3pm this Saturday.

Vessel by OHSH Projects at the Bottle Factory

You could do worse than combine it, as I did, with a visit to South London Gallery (SLG), which is about a 30 minute walk away through the lovely Burgess Park. Right now, across both SLG’s sites, which are two minutes from each other on either side of Peckham Road, is a beautiful exhibition by the Belizean artist Firelei Báez: Sueño de la Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream). 

Through immersive installation, vivid wall pieces and paintings, Báez explores the myths, folklore and lesser-known histories of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. This show is based around the figure of Ciguapas, a mythical, anthropomorphic, feral sort of trickster character, stories of whom Báez would listen to as she submitted to having her tightly coiled hair painfully combed as a child. I found the show quite magical, and the short film in which Báez talks about the work is illuminating and engrossing.