Almost Safe For Work Art Exhibition 'Finger' Opens Tomorrow

Patrick Dakers and Hetty Douglas present work with a desperate, personal and historical edge.

Tomorrow night an exhibition of work from two genuinely exciting young artists opens. Peckham-based Hetty Douglas and fellow fine artist Patrick Dakers open 'Finger' at 71a Gallery, Shoreditch which will run until the end of the month. The exhibition — which is Douglas' first IRL showing — sees both artists team up to challenge and question the contemporary aesthetic of sexuality, desire, relationships and gender.  

Here at Complex UK, these two artists have been on our radar for a while, and this joint exhibition is a great way to kick off 2016. Douglas' work is instantly relatable, with scrawled messages like "UR PENG" and "I’m not fucking cute" punctuating bright and colourful canvases — hold tight fans of pink — and suggesting a temporality of superficial relationships and sexuality. What can appear to be flippant and lighthearted is also terribly honest, and a personal message. Dakers takes a slightly different approach, with his work featuring an overarching interest in androgyny and the Grecian sport of wrestling, with each work acting as a study of form, shape, colour and abstraction that sit in stark contrast with Douglas' work. 

Together, they are using this exhibition to embark on "A quest for meaningful love and true identity in a world that screams fuck me and fuck off", which sounds worthwhile, right?

FINGER opens runs January 28 – 31 at the 71a Gallery, with the opening night January 28 from 6pm onwards. Supported by our friends at Converse.

71a Gallery

71 Leonard Street

London

EC2A

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