Stop Scrolling: Here’s 5 art shows to go to this April
Featuring AI-generated art, Buddhist deities and post-apocalyptic paintings
Featuring AI-generated art, Buddhist deities and post-apocalyptic paintings
Perhaps, like us, you’ve come across a bunch of cool artists on Instagram whose content you’ve saved with the best intentions of revisiting. Or scrolled by a fun video of an immersive exhibition you’ve sworn you’ll go to with a friend. If so, then you’ll know that sometimes it’s hard to keep track of these IRL events when you’re always on the FYP.
Luckily, woo’s Senior Social Producer and resident art expert Hollie Hilton has done the leg work for you, digging into her Explore page and recently saved to pull out a selection of standout shows and culture events to visit in the coming weeks. Read on for our picks, including AI generated art, Buddhist deities and post-apocalyptic paintings.
This group show is curated by Lisa Boudet, contributing art editor at Playboy and known for her knack of spotting upcoming art talent. This exhibition spotlights 25 international artists, all working around a theme of ‘psychological safety’. The exhibition space is filled with parachutes, and attendees are invited to peer behind the curtain into a ‘judgement-free zone’, where they’ll find works from artists like Bradley Ward who often nods at sports iconography as a way to tell stories about Black joy, and Meghann Stephenson, who uses still lifes as allegories for the female experience.
Maria Thuy Hien Than is a UK-based creative who uses augmented reality, illustration and AI-generated content in her work, often exploring themes of fragmented identity, buddhism and internalised racism. This new exhibition at arebyte – a London gallery that’s all about digital art – is an ode to Bodhisattva (a Buddhist deity) of compassion, mercy and medicine, Maria’s favourite goddess. Drawing inspiration from Maria’s own experiences of growing up in a Vietnamese-British-French Buddhist family, the works in the exhibition serve as a visual exploration of the complex journey away from refusal and towards acceptance and understanding of one’s own identity.
Homage to Quan am is open until 19 May 2024
This group show features paintings by five female artists who all explore alternative ways of living together on a damaged earth. Whether that means visions of post-apocalyptic survival or visualisations of entire universes that are intertwined and unbreakable, the viewer is invited to imagine alternative futures (besides global ecological devastation, that is). Paintings by Yuma Radne – a descendant of the Buryats, a Mongolian Indigenous group – take inspiration from the rituals and stories of her people: mermaids frolic upon sentient rocks, while naked figures ride upon benevolent sea-creatures.
Making Kin is open until 11 April 2024
The North East is the subject of the photos featured in this duo show at Martin Parr Foundation, despite being on display in Bristol. Taken between 1975 and 1987, the black and white images depict an era of thriving industry as well as devastating collapse. Covering Skinningrove, Tyneside, Middlesbrough and County Durham, this collection of works brings together the individuals and communities whose lives were dependent on the heavy industries. The exhibition also brings together two lifelong friends, Chris Killip and Graham Smith. Snapshots and ephemera included alongside the photographs attest to this mutual respect, as well as texts from the pair who have previously shown landmark exhibitions together at the Serpentine in London and MOMA in New York.
In Five Acts, Spike Island studio holder Young In Hong brings together tapestry, sculpture, video and performance to explore the bond between humans and animals through non-linguistic forms of expression (think: movement and sound). Among these new works is an installation consisting of five sets of shoes for different animals – a range of species brought together randomly according to the shape of their feet, including a heron, polar bear and gorilla. Then there’s its captivating soundtrack, which blurs the boundary between human and animal. Grrr!
This group show is curated by Lisa Boudet, contributing art editor at Playboy and known for her knack of spotting upcoming art talent. This exhibition spotlights 25 international artists, all working around a theme of ‘psychological safety’. The exhibition space is filled with parachutes, and attendees are invited to peer behind the curtain into a ‘judgement-free zone’, where they’ll find works from artists like Bradley Ward who often nods at sports iconography as a way to tell stories about Black joy, and Meghann Stephenson, who uses still lifes as allegories for the female experience.
Maria Thuy Hien Than is a UK-based creative who uses augmented reality, illustration and AI-generated content in her work, often exploring themes of fragmented identity, buddhism and internalised racism. This new exhibition at arebyte – a London gallery that’s all about digital art – is an ode to Bodhisattva (a Buddhist deity) of compassion, mercy and medicine, Maria’s favourite goddess. Drawing inspiration from Maria’s own experiences of growing up in a Vietnamese-British-French Buddhist family, the works in the exhibition serve as a visual exploration of the complex journey away from refusal and towards acceptance and understanding of one’s own identity.
Homage to Quan am is open until 19 May 2024
This group show features paintings by five female artists who all explore alternative ways of living together on a damaged earth. Whether that means visions of post-apocalyptic survival or visualisations of entire universes that are intertwined and unbreakable, the viewer is invited to imagine alternative futures (besides global ecological devastation, that is). Paintings by Yuma Radne – a descendant of the Buryats, a Mongolian Indigenous group – take inspiration from the rituals and stories of her people: mermaids frolic upon sentient rocks, while naked figures ride upon benevolent sea-creatures.
Making Kin is open until 11 April 2024
The North East is the subject of the photos featured in this duo show at Martin Parr Foundation, despite being on display in Bristol. Taken between 1975 and 1987, the black and white images depict an era of thriving industry as well as devastating collapse. Covering Skinningrove, Tyneside, Middlesbrough and County Durham, this collection of works brings together the individuals and communities whose lives were dependent on the heavy industries. The exhibition also brings together two lifelong friends, Chris Killip and Graham Smith. Snapshots and ephemera included alongside the photographs attest to this mutual respect, as well as texts from the pair who have previously shown landmark exhibitions together at the Serpentine in London and MOMA in New York.
In Five Acts, Spike Island studio holder Young In Hong brings together tapestry, sculpture, video and performance to explore the bond between humans and animals through non-linguistic forms of expression (think: movement and sound). Among these new works is an installation consisting of five sets of shoes for different animals – a range of species brought together randomly according to the shape of their feet, including a heron, polar bear and gorilla. Then there’s its captivating soundtrack, which blurs the boundary between human and animal. Grrr!
want more?
