Kirby's Play Time

The Flowers Gallery in Cork Street, London, is currently showing John Kirby: Play Time. The title is ironic, because Kirby is exploring gender, sexuality and race through his paintings of deadpan children holding toys against bare backgrounds. Whether his subject is a nude boy or a girl with a bow in her hair, the same blank stare meets your gaze. It reminds me of the movie Village Of The Damned (1960) adapted from John Wyndham's sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos (1957). "Beware the stare that will paralyze the will of the world" warned the cinema advert. Maybe that's what inspired Kirby to create his weird portraits. So beware! CLICK for the blurb.