Bobinska Brownlee New River, London
On touch: Paintings | J.A. Nicholls
JA Nicholls delivers portraits of awkward emotions and moods, as much as faces and bodies. She’s never shied from portraying uncertainty and ambivalence, whether about gender, the female body, desire or ageing. This question of how we put ourselves together was explored in collage paintings for many years. ‘In Touch’ demonstrates the synthesis of Nicholls’ ideas and a self. There’s a looseness and cohesiveness without loose becoming careless. The main difference from earlier work is a joyful risk in the handling of the paint. Review by Cherry Smyth