Two black artists have been brought together for this exhibition. They share common interests in race and representation – and they also happen to be friends. There’s the Somalia-born, Australia-based Hamishi Farah, whose lurid, dappled paintings might be described as van Gogh for the era of the selfie. His pictures of a puppy and toucan – named ‘George’ and ‘Helen’ respectively, after white friends – are cheeky and subversive. They’re also frankly hideous, and the old caveat – yes, but they’re meant to look hideous – will test your patience.
Los Angeles-based Aria Dean, meanwhile, takes a sidelong approach to portraiture. In a photographic diptych she blurs out her face along with that of collaborator Aallyah Wright, while her film of the Mississippi river acts as a kind of stand-in for her family history and, by extension, herself. Are these two pals a good pairing? Not really. Is it all so tidily theorised that you’ll spend as much time looking at the gallery’s literature as the art itself? Probably. But that’s okay. Try to focus on the latter: some of it’s very good.