WITH Q, DENZIL FORRESTER, STEPHEN FRIEDMAN GALLERY, LONDON,

For 4 many years, Grenada-born, London-based painter Denzil Forrester has examined Black British culture through his wealthy documentation and composition of London’s West Indian community within the Eighties, to Jamaica’s reggae and dub club scene. His latest show, With Q is a survey of his works on paper from the last 40 years and latest paintings. Importantly, the show’s title addresses the racist incident involving a 15-year-old Black British schoolgirl identified as Child Q, who was strip-searched by police in a case that raised (much more) questions on police and their oppression of the Black community.

A 2022 painting titled “Q” places the varsity girl amidst an empty nightclub, surrounded by three policemen, in parallel to considered one of Forrester’s best-known works “Three Wicker Men” (1982), created within the wake of his friend Winston Rose’s death in police custody. He first began drawing in nightclubs where he sit, observe, and move charcoal and pastel across the paper in his sketchbook, capturing the scenes he saw, each drawing was began and accomplished within the length of a record, often 4 minutes.

Denzil Forrester’s With Q at Stephen Friedman is running from March 10 until April 8 2023