Much of Minimalism, despite and because of it’s denial of narrative and sentimentality, reinforced certain stereotypes about masculinity. The shiny obdurate materiality of Carl Andre’s copper or Donald Judd’s milled aluminium refused the form, psychology and tactility of Barbara Hepworth, Eva Hesse and Ruth Asawa to name but a few. Despite this determination to resist organicism in favour of material essentialism, Judd’s aluminium and Andre’s copper retain a shimmery sensuality that is at odds with apparent ambition.

Jane Bustin’s newest paintings explore the vocabulary of minimalism with her clear crisp geometry and material choices but she does so not to avoid narrative, rather she uses her material and colour as a neo-symbolist, drawing our attention to their potential for intimacy, for reflection and for the play of light.

Bustin’s arrangement of distinct panels into diptychs and triptychs infer something of 19 th century Japanese traveling mirrors in terms of scale and intimacy. Bustin draws the viewer in very close to inspect the multiple faces, edges and adjustments that she makes to the composition. This has the impact of keeping us mobile as we are compelled to move so as to experience the dimensionality of the works.

The colours she uses carry a boudoir blush about them and then just when you understand that these rest on yet another set of assumptions, Jane has inserted small 70s lenticular images, mostly on to the flanks of the works, where nightgowns slip magically to the floor depending on your movement.

There is humour, irony and provocation in these retro-sexual images but the reality is that these qualities infuse the entire composition with myriad of contradictions.