BOUNCING OFF CAVE WALLS is a solo exhibition of work by Haley Craw, exploring transforming bodies and psychological spaces that bounce between tenderness and rage. Using charcoal, pastel, and oil paint, she works intuitively to allow figures to emerge through line, colour and gesture. Charged openings reoccur in her work, shapes that imply an ambiguous borderline between the internal and external physicality of the body.

The world of Hilma af Klint borders dimensions, you feel your feet are small enough to stand on the centre of a blooming flower’s stigma, or large enough to step over wild meadows. It is an inward looking gaze that searches for meaning through visual perception, through relationships to the natural world built in precise form and vivid, dancing colour. In her work, abstraction reflects reality more precisely than what is observable on the physical surface.

While advances in AI have us collectively pondering the significance of human touch and emotion in art making, being guided through the Sainsbury Centre’s collection with feeling, touch and instinct felt fundamentally necessary. Living Art highlighted the emotional resonance left by the artist's hand, the knowledge expressed through the body in the manipulation of paint, stone and clay. It was refreshing being guided by feeling through the collection, to try and break down the barriers that can make museums feel elitist or inaccessible. Why should a museum be a quiet place, a place without touch, a place without strong displays of emotion?