If painting is an illusion of reality, what is then its raw, gestural, underpainting-like form? I thought of this while looking at the documentation of Lisa Brice’s current solo show at Sadie Coloes HQ London and thinking about how the South African artist regularly puts the viewer in a position of observing something that we had no business being part of. It feels as if getting a peek at this raw form of a gonna-been-painting further emphasizes the intensity and depth of the said voyeurism and intrusion.
I remember the 1st time I saw Brice’s work comprising Bar Games presentation in London back in 2023. I felt I was looking at something that I stumbled into uninvited, but I still couldn’t keep my eye off it. It felt like the protagonists of the works had a ball, and if they came to life at that moment, they certainly wouldn’t be pleased w me staring at them. Later that year, I saw her Paris show and was completely sold on this unique attitude and ambience that she’s constructing around her don’t-give-a-fuck muses, regardless of the format or technique (both of which often further intensify it).
I have to say I didn’t see this show mentioned as much as some other painting blockbuster exhibitions that opened around Frieze week, but we do know that such an outcome is more about a good PR agency rather than the art/artist themselves. Keep Your Powder Dry (what a title!) features three distinct groups of works arranged sequentially in the spaces, guiding the viewer through a perspective on an architectural horizon. The doorways, screens, and window-like peeks into humid, smoky bars let us have a look at scenes we’re not part of, filled w confident protagonists doing their thing. Getting ready to box, helping out a friend by holding a mirror, or just killing time at the bar, their posture and expression oozes determination and self-assurance. And the way that is captured and presented through almost calligraphy-like brushwork or in the haziest reflection on a wet bar, reveals both the gravity and the intensity of the gaze and perception as subjects of these rubbernecking visuals.
Text by Saša Bogojev
