Kitchen counters, the dining table and home decor feature in a new exhibition in Islington, exploring domestic life in 2021.
'Around the Table' is the latest show at No 20 Arts, in Cross Street, and features artworks by Camilla Hanney, Lauren-Marie Haywood, Januario Jano, Jocelyn McGregor, Anna Perach, and Loreal Prystaj.
The artists have all found inspiration in the domestic spaces in which we have all spent many long hours over the past year. The works blur boundaries between the body, and the space it inhabits and food it consumes.
Based in London, Camilla Hanney is an Irish artist working through sculpture, ceramics, and installation. Works on show include 'Indelicate Delights', a banquet table whose spread includes, on closer inspection, parts of the human body, creating a tension between temptation and revulsion.
Lauren-Marie Haywood draws on her personal history, celebrating her Caribbean heritage, while reflecting on historic and contemporary struggles. In 'The Blacker the Berries', resin blackberries in hanging baskets carry "stereotypically Black" features.
From Angola, Januario Jano lives and works in Luanda, London, and Lisbon, exploring cultural and personal histories. The show features 'Untitled (M004)', a mixed textile work, as well as the short film Musseke, in which the artist recreates the ritualistic processing for food of the edible root cassava.
Cumbrian artist Jocelyn McGregor creates sculptures, installations, and stop-motion animation which offer glimpses into fictional, hybrid worlds. 'Casserole' portrays a space that is part unmade bed, part dining table and part forest floor.
Ukrainian-born, Israeli artist Anna Perach lives and works in London. Drawing on memories of Soviet domestic environments, she employs a technique called tufting to create hand-made carpet textile sculptures, such as the female form of 'Frida'.
London-based American artist Loreal Prystaj's 'Nude Pepper' wallpaper and upholstery reveals itself to show not a green pepper, but the artist's own body. The accompanying scent, though, is unmistakably green pepper.
'Have You Dined Sufficiently: Plate Collection' takes decontextualized illustrations from step-by-step cookbooks.
Entry is free, the exhibition is on until June 26, and the gallery is open 10am to 6pm, Tuesday to Sunday.
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