Candy Coated Canvas at London Miles Gallery

Candy Coated Canvas at London Miles Gallery

27 July, 2009
by: Katuschka

With the recession causing galleries to collapse like dominos, the unspoken victims - us poor art critics - have noticed a decline in freebies. The wine tray is whipped away after one thimble of champagne and 'suggested donation' signs are placed by the usually free bar.

However London Miles Gallery have hit upon a sure-fire way to get a glittering review - feed your critics. Guests were greeted by flutes of pink champagne, bowls of sweets and multicoloured trays of Chewies cupcakes, so beautiful in fact that no-one tucked in for a while for fear of eating the art.

Of course the downside to this is that it's hard to focus on the paintings when you're wondering how many cupcakes you can fit into a handbag, and how long you can live off free cake before developing diabetes; but luckily the paintings of the Candy Coated Canvas exhibition were just as tasty.

It's long pained me that the LA aesthetic - so far removed from the acerbic, punky cynicism of the London scene - with bold colours, cartoon characters, delicate ingenues, woodland creatures, manga monsters and Hollywood nightmares can only be viewed in galleries such as Thinkspace and Corey Helford, thousands of miles across the Atlantic.

Thankfully, London Miles has recognised a demand in the UK and imported some of the west-coast's finest and its international contemporaries. Matthew Bone's hard-ass valkyries, Zoe Lacchei's amphibian-wrangling geishas, Jade Klara's soft-focus religious allusions and KuKulas sleepy-eyed Lolitas come together to form a riotous, sensual daydream of a show. It's honestly some of the most inspiring work I've viewed in a while, representing a new wave of Mark Ryden and Neckface suckled, Juxtapoz-baiting artists revelling in the nonsensical and Freudian, but with more than enough style to make empty walls salivate.

The work may be infallible; however with this type of art the urge to turn the gallery into a fairy orgasm piñata is a little too hard to resist. Happy egg tart and marshmallow plushies, fluffy skirting boards and ice-cream lights create a sensation of being conceived into a My Little Pony's womb by gay pixies. I'm all for ambience, but this kind of kawaii fetishisation trivialises the fact that this art derives from a serious street scene and negates the pains the artists have gone to, adding just enough darkness to rein in the twee.

It is all a bit girl's world, but munching happily on a star-spangled cupcake I can't really complain. Free food, radical wall candy and the sauciest nymphs this side of the Atlantic: roll me in glitter and sign me up because London Miles may just have created the funnest show ever.   

Candy Coatyed Canvas is at London Miles Gallery until 24th August 2009.

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Katuschka