Morgan Falconer, ‘Michael Stubbs at Entwistle Gallery’, London, UK, What’s On in London, January 23-30, 2002

Stubbs’ contribution to Richard Salmon’s recent Vivid exhibition really stood out, and this solo show is well deserved.  Much current abstract painting either seems light, fey or prissy, or has too much of the tinge of lifestyle design to seem really beholden to itself.  Stubbs, however, stands out as robust and individual; his work looks mature and serious, and it gives that rush of exhilaration that we go to the galleries hoping for. 

The colour is what first blazes on the retina: bright hues appearing like burning lava on the surface, while the viscous colour is exquisitely graduated to give a smoky quality as well.  The comparison is unfair to Stubbs, but his hot forms have the feel of the leaping wax in Lava Lamps - they look frozen just for a second.  The beauty of the surface is also fused with a feeling for solid form: by building layers on the white backdrop and suggesting their intrusion on the surface, he conjures solid abstract shapes as a foil to the thinness of the foreground.  There are hints of fruit - slices of lemon, maybe - and strange abstract coils.

Content is always the acid test of abstract painting however, and while Stubbs eludes the easy gesture to older Modern work that sustains many other painters, his work does seem uncertain.  It does have the power of the best contemporary design, in the way it energises the viewer and leads you on to reverie, but it needs something as serious and robust as its forms to really make it compelling.