Donald Urquhart, Maureen Paley

Donald Urquhart’s career began among the nightclubs and glitter of 1980s Paris, and in his latest show of drawings and sculptural works the Scottish-born artist pays tribute to these years of flamboyant escapades and the band of characters that accompanied him.

Maureen Paley, Bethnal Green exhibition

In Urquhart’s trademark style, the boundary between truth and fiction is tantalizingly uncertain. DJ Harvey, gypsy moths, the Montmatre catacombs and his mysterious friend ‘Pearl’ all blend within these drawings in his defiant inscrutability, even in our ostensibly information-rich age. Urquhart’s bombastic story-telling is matched by his decadent approach to materials. Prepare to meet evocations of rose-coloured silk, black India ink and experimentation with graphic typefaces. In Urquhart’s ardent desire to combine nostalgic subject matter with innovative form, part of this London contemporary art show’s potency resides in its very obscurity.

Urquhart's iconoclastic approach to the position of artist-creator could not be a better match for the ever-experimental East End venue of Maureen Paley.