It’d be nice if sex was always as hot as it is on TV, but the average person shares more in common with the awkward figures in John Wesley’s erotic paintings (1980-2000) than anything Hollywood produces. And that’s what makes these works so infinitely relatable. The naked lesbian hanging out in the mountains, the balding dude nervously eating out his mate, the tired eyes of the woman staring at her partner—it’s not sexy, but it is real. Or is it? Wesley renders all of his paintings in his trademark, flat, cartoonish style, thus giving the work an air of lightness. Some of the paintings are even laugh out loud funny, which, in a gallery tour around Chelsea, is surely a great note to end on.
— Paddy Johnson