fruchtbaresland at carl freedman

Fruchtbaresland (barren land) is, like every Carl Freedman exhibition, makes a detour to the barren lands of East London well worth while. A group exhibition that opens today, it includes Armando Andrade Tudela, Michael Fullerton, Thilo Heinzmann, David Brian Smith and Catherine Story.

At the end of the gallery a fabulous new work by Smith (another future ‘One to Watch’!) grabs the attention. He draws on autobiographical incidents and memories which root his colourful and intricate landscapes in the real world. With their ‘intense palettes, dramatic skies, folkloric subjects, and passages of pure dream-like invention, they radiate an almost spiritual quality’. Saatchi showed his work at British Art Now and has also quietly been buying more of his work.

Fullerton’s painting Something That Originates Or Results From Something Else; Outcome; Issue (2011) enters sexual and political territory and is one of his best. This striking portrait is of Mary Palevsky – is the progeny one of the creators of the atomic bomb – which ushered in the the nuclear age and a new political era. Having been included in British Art Now 7 – In the Days of the Comet,  amongst other important exhibitions, Fullertons reputation is rocketing  – no pun intended!

Thilo Heinzmann’s delicate landscape of splattered pigment is also excellent and gives the exhibition its title. I am not really sure that this title really ties the works on show together and it is clearly an opportunity for Carl to show a number of his stable – but who really cares when everything in this small gallery is well worth seeing?