johnbunker – Ruminations: Exhibition Reviews

At ASC Unit 3 Gallery

15 to 24 November 2025

CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS?

Taking eight completed pieces out of the studio and re-seeing them, experiencing them afresh and re-contextualised in a carefully considered arrangement might be considered a luxury for some artists. But a room reserved for this purpose at ASC Unit 3 Gallery, a short walk from Bromley-By-Bow underground station, provides such an opportunity.

In turn, John Bunker has invited visitors to come and see the selection, thus creating an exhibition. Add the opportunity to visit his studio, just along the corridor, to see numerous works not displayed alongside works in progress is a real treat. But it’s quite informal and apart from stacking some chairs out of the way later on it’s ready for use. A stock of materials stored in readiness for creative activity over the coming months adds a little more depth to the whole experience of the visit.

In both spaces the visitors can chat socially and also engage in responding to the works displayed. There is certainly an atmosphere of excitement and respect. Everyone seems well acquainted with Bunker’s oeuvre and it’s a compliment that they continue to come back for more. In current artspeak this is surely an interrelational situation. But it’s the actual works on formal display that truly matters today and if there’s a hint or nuance of hierarchy I get it from the four wall-hung sculptures that may turn out to be the precursors of what comes next.

I have been fascinated by Bunker’s work for the best part of a decade after writing about TRIBE. New & recent collages by John Bunker at Westminster Reference Library in 2016 for Robin Greenwood’s much missed AbCrit. A significant number of artists, particularly painters and sculptors, continue the exploration and development of abstraction in the UK. In Bunker’s case, he plays (seriously, that is) in both camps, as the exhibition leaflet explains:

“Bunker’s abstractions are born of eccentric and paradoxical spaces that he has opened up between painting and sculpture. Known for his materially diverse approach to both disciplines, ‘Antinomies’ focuses down on cardboard. Bunker uses and abuses this ubiquitous everyday material by loading paint on its highly absorbent layered surfaces and, at the same time, engaging with it as a highly expressive sculptural material in its own right.”

This appeal, captivation, enchantment and enthralment with the phenomenon of a materially and visually based production of a cultural phenomenon we conveniently call ‘abstract art’ continues – despite the current expectation of a political correctness, a politicised demand from various quarters (including Higher Education), to engage with certain external convictions might blind the viewer to what the actual work contains, attains and demands of the viewer. Which, I guess, is my too wordy way of saying just look at the work! It is kind of purist, sure, but this is the real thing, in front of you – which maybe there is not enough of as we visually consume the (constructed and ready-made) world via the screen.

Fellow painter, E.C. made an impassioned comment on her Instagram account after visiting Antinomies as:

“An antidote to the absurd, bloated gluttony, to the slick gallery shops and to the often frantic, frenzied and disinterested ambitions that can try to batter the life out of making… The kind of making that is about (to my mind) necessary and unfurling change and movement and not an efficiently quantifiable, capitalist product. Than goodness for this.” (EC 2025)

And added:

“I was thinking about the relationship to the wall and painting with some of these works and how they seem to occupy a cusp… slipping in and out of categories… imagining some sliding off the walls onto plinths or the floor. Where do things belong? Category crisis? Excellent!” (EC 2025)

In consciously looking at these works, most especially the wall hung sculptures and the two works on plinths I was captivated too. Comments from fellow viewers enforced this individual and collective sense of how engaging the new sculptures are. The eye/mind submerges into small spaces, pulled along by subdivisions of form and mass. Little distances, ins and outs, that pertains to the actual environment always in and around us. The paint is as much part of, as well as added to, the cardboard structures. The application is deliberately unfussy, hinting at the unpainterly but suggesting a conglomeration of parts or identities within the sculptural forms through the colour changes. There are dimensions that appear solid and still, but if you are in the zone, generate a sense of implied movement to quicken and invigorate. Are these works dedicated to physicality and consciousness? This is joyous and I wonder why. Is there not enough time? Get on with it, Bunker appears to be saying. Let’s make, share, manipulate and engage with materials in the world before we leave. So, yes joy, utter joy.

Geoff Hands