The art berries

30/05/2026

Entering Tracey Emin’s exhibition at Tate Modern feels less like stepping into a retrospective than into an exposed psychological landscape. The atmosphere is raw, intimate and emotionally charged, with visitors moving through the galleries absorbed by works that refuse distance or detachment.

Once the “enfant terrible” of the Young British Artists, Emin built her reputation on autobiographical and confessional work. Yet this exhibition feels less concerned with provocation than with vulnerability, revealing the emotional openness that has remained at the heart of her practice.

Read the full review of The Art of Falling Apart via the link in bio. Available in English and Spanish.

🇪🇸 También disponible en español.

Tracey Emin: A Second Life
Tate Modern, London
27 February - 31 August 2026
£20

20/05/2026

The Body Thinks in Colour is the title of Wen Wu’s new solo exhibition at Paul Smith Westbourne House in Notting Hill. I was delighted to attend her private view last Thursday, an evening that included a guitar performance by Robin Kat and a dance performance by Siyuan Meng .4y whose movement wove itself seamlessly into the atmosphere of Wu’s paintings.

Wen Wu is a Chinese artist who has lived in London for over two decades. Her work resists the commercialisation of art production in contemporary China and reflects a broad spectrum of Western influences, from nineteenth-century French plein-air romanticism to the English Pre-Raphaelites, the Dutch Masters, and the Spanish Baroque painters of the seventeenth century.

She has a remarkable ability to draw the viewer into a singular universe, imbued with mystery and quiet enchantment. Her paintings envelop their subjects in refined aesthetic elegance through a masterful orchestration of light and shadow.

Firmly rooted in figuration, Wu’s work radiates an abstract, almost sacred quality. Her instinctive, sensuous brushwork captures the corporeality of the human form and the expressive language of models posed among tabletop objects, evoking an ineffable sense of nostalgia. Books hold particular significance in her practice: an avid bibliophile, Wu regards them as a universal language and a potent symbol of knowledge and collective memory.

Exhibition curated by

06/05/2026

Painting without limits

For Katharina Grosse, colour is neither descriptive nor symbolic. It functions as a physical force that alters how a space is felt, not simply seen.

Her show at White Cube Bermondsey is not a collection of paintings. It is a confrontation.

Part of our Encounters series, I responded to the work.

Katharina Grosse: I Set Out, I Walked Fast
White Cube Bermondsey, London
22 April – 31 May 2026

Want to know which exhibitions are actually worth your time? Link in bio.

18/04/2026

Fotografía de calle que activa la escena

Helen Levitt no es una "vo**ur" a la espera del instante fortuito; es una catalizadora. Una revisión de su obra en la Fundación Mapfre que analiza la calle no como fondo, sino como un dispositivo performativo y un campo de batalla político....

Análisis de la exposición de Helen Levitt en Madrid. Descubre cómo su fotografía activa la escena urbana a través de la fricción, el gesto y la soberanía del espacio público. Una crítica sobre el derecho a la calle.

15/04/2026

Beyond simple memory, the .gallery hosts a visceral confrontation between Yin Xiuzhen’s sociopolitical textiles and Chiharu Shiota’s psychological webs. This is a staggering dialogue between the world we have ruined through rapid modernisation and the body that must endure it.

While I shared Chiharu Shiota’s installations in a previous post, I now want to bring your attention to Yin Xiuzhen’s first major UK survey, currently on view on the ground floor of the gallery.

I was mesmerised by Xiuzhen’s use of fabric. However, the show is less about nostalgia and more about the violent speed of change that has taken place in Beijing and across China over the past decades. Her most poignant works are her smaller, more brutalist pieces.

The first photograph captures my daughter before this confinement of memory. Her posture reflects the fragility of a body attempting to protect itself against the rigidity of Yin Xiuzhen’s concrete and history.

Dress Box (1995), in the 2nd photo, does not just “preserve” childhood; it suffocates it in concrete, sealing memory while alluding to the suppression of individuality.

The following photos show Portable City. This should not be read as a charming miniature, but as a critique of the suitcase as the only stable home in a globalised world. Her use of worn clothing as a “second skin” evokes the lived experiences of a Beijing transformed by rapid, often ruthless, modernisation.

If you have not seen this exhibition yet, it is running for a few more weeks. You must see how these two artists occupy the same space from opposite ends.

Exhibition Details:
Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life / Yin Xiuzhen: Heart to Heart
Hayward Gallery, London, UK .gallery
17 Feb. to 3 May 2026

Thank you for some of the photos.
asianwomenartists

02/04/2026

New Contemporaries 2026 is on at the South London Gallery, and if you have not been yet, this Easter is your window.

This year’s theme is Connection. caught me in dialogue with sculpture, work that borrows its language from architecture, but with a narrative and concept a building cannot have.

A few of the artists pictured here:
1-2: William Braithwaite
3: Ali Cook
4: Timon Benson
5: Ally Fallon
6: Makiko Harris
7: Alia Gargum.

01/04/2026

The Hayward Gallery has transformed into a site of visceral tension. Chiharu Shiota’s sprawling webs do not simply invite you to look slowly; they recalibrate something in the collective psyche.
Each photograph here captures a distinct psychological shift as we moved through her environments. The black-thread installations carry the heaviest charge.
Full review on the site. Link in bio.

La Hayward Gallery se ha transformado en un espacio de tensión visceral. Las redes expansivas de Chiharu Shiota no te invitan simplemente a mirar despacio; reconfiguran algo en la psique colectiva.
Cada fotografía aquí captura un desplazamiento psicológico distinto mientras nos adentrábamos en sus entornos. Las instalaciones de hilo negro son las que mayor carga emocional concentran.
Reseña completa en la web. Enlace en la bio.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life / Yin Xiuzhen: Heart to Heart
Hayward Gallery, London, UK .gallery
17 Feb – 3 May 2026

29/03/2026

Surviving the webs of life

Beyond simple memory, the Hayward Gallery hosts a visceral confrontation between Yin Xiuzhen’s sociopolitical textiles and Chiharu Shiota’s psychological webs. A staggering dialogue between the world we have ruined through rapid modernisation and the body that must endure it....

Beyond simple memory, the Hayward Gallery hosts a visceral confrontation between Yin Xiuzhen’s sociopolitical textiles and Chiharu Shiota’s psychological webs. A staggering dialogue between the world we have ruined through rapid modernisation and the body that must endure it.

29/03/2026

Sobrevivir a las redes de la vida

Más allá de la memoria, la Hayward Gallery acoge una confrontación visceral entre los textiles sociopolíticos de Yin Xiuzhen y las redes psicológicas de Chiharu Shiota. Un diálogo asombroso entre el mundo que hemos arruinado bajo la modernización acelerada y el cuerpo que debe resistirlo....

Chiharu Shiota y Yin Xiuzhen en la Hayward Gallery (2026). Una mirada crítica a las instalaciones textiles de gran formato que exploran el impacto de la modernización en China, la fragilidad biológica y el territorio de la supervivencia.

21/03/2026

Artworks in continuous transformation

Takesada Matsutani’s exhibition at Hauser & Wirth London explores over six decades of work shaped by a tension between control and release, where materials are pushed to the point where form begins to emerge on its own....

A focused review of Takesada Matsutani at Hauser & Wirth London, examining his use of vinyl glue and graphite to explore control, chance, and transformation across decades of practice.