While weary travellers passing through Paddington Station in London await Spencer Finch’s artwork of clouds to uplift their day when the new Crossrail Station opens, a short walk away across Edgeware Road Finch’a work fills two floors Lisson Gallery in Lisson Street in anticipation of what is to come.  Many of his works, such as ‘Darkness (Artist Studio February 16 & 17 2019)’, ‘Blue Violet’, ‘Rainbow (Dunedin)’, ‘Colour Test – III’ and ‘As Blind Men learn the sun (passing cloud)’ are diptychs, while ‘Colour Notes (Winter)’ is a long series of 25 works, all demonstrating his interest and exploration of natural forms and phenonema, while the most subtle of all, appropriate for springtime, is his large installation ‘Falling Cherry Blossom’ faces out onto the London streetscape with a solitary tree and the sky beyond bringing nature into the gallery.

Walk along Bell Street to the other Lisson Gallery and the naturalism of Finch’s work gives way to the precision of Channa Horwitz.  As you enter, the atmosphere created by the white walls, the diffuse natural and artificial lighting is immersive; as clean as a scientific laboratory to show her precise mathematical drawings in pen and ink, disrupted however by a distracting noise which draws you downstairs to a light and sound translation of one of Horiwitz’s ‘Sonakinatography’ works by Haroon Mirza.

These are reminiscent of the precise mathematical patterns which, as a young architecture student, I had to draw in my first year of studies, but taken into another more complex and refined level determined by self-determined rules, most being in black and white, but a few having the introduction of colour, plus movement in her film ‘And Then They Were None’.  Fascinating to explore, especially the large works which change subtly from tile to tile.