Sweltering in the apparently never-ending heatwave of July in London, you spotted beach huts, loungers and towels around a pool.  What bliss, to be able to lie and relax and chill out with friends.

All that’s missing was the water as Palm Springs came to London with American artist Oren Pinhassi’s plaster palm trees, pool-side huts, loungers and towels on the ground floor of Edel Assanti in Fitzrovia.  All you needed to do was immerse yourself in the space and imagine the sunshine, the warmth, the sound of the water, and of course the gay guys who have popped elsewhere for the moment, taking their Martinis with them and who would be back to continue cruising at any minute.

While upstairs you had to imagine the people around the pool, downstairs the energy was pulsating out of the walls as half-naked bodies crashed into each other, sitting, running, flighting, playing and doing acrobatics and sports, as another American artist, Emma Cousins, explored our views of the human body, some beautiful and some ugly, some young and some old, some athletic and some not, some slim and some fat, in ‘Mardy’, with bodies intertwined in different energetic and violent ways, some almost sensual in character and some uncomfortable to the viewer.

Both of these artists were showing at Edel Assanti for the first time.