I wandered into the Saatchi Gallery the other week expecting the usual parade of conceptual nonsense and came away pleasantly surprised. The Inflorescence exhibition is still ticking along in Gallery 4, running right through to 26 July. No frantic last-minute extensions or cancellations, just a straightforward continuation of work that actually celebrates flowers rather than using them as a Trojan horse for something grim.
The show pulls together new pieces from artists who featured in the venue's 2025 Flowers exhibition. Think Nick Archer, Faye Bridgwater, Ryan Callanan, Lottie Cole, Daniel the Gardener, Jo Grogan, Rose Electra Harris and Galina Munroe. Instead of chasing the latest ideological wind, these creators seem more interested in the straightforward business of capturing beauty and arrangement. Inflorescence, as the botanists will tell you, simply means a flower or cluster of them on a stem. Here it serves as a handy umbrella for work that respects craft over trend.
A welcome dose of visual sanity
In a contemporary art world increasingly hooked on messaging and ephemera, there's something quietly defiant about sticking with flowers. These aren't lectures in disguise. They're paintings, sculptures and objects that remind you why people have been painting blooms for centuries. The Saatchi has form in this area, and this follow-up feels like a deliberate stand for aesthetic traditions that actually connect with normal human appreciation rather than alienating it.
Entry requires a ticket to either the RHS exhibition or The Sun and The Moon, which makes sense given how these shows overlap in the building. After 18 June you need to book ahead anyway, so plan accordingly if you're thinking of popping in. The place isn't exactly empty this summer.
Meanwhile over at the Barbican
Not everything in London's July art calendar follows the same path. Across town the Barbican has Delcy Morelos's origo, a 24-metre-wide installation in the Sculpture Court made from soil, clay and fragrant spices. It runs until 31 July and marks the first major public outing in Britain for the Colombian artist. The work draws on ancestral Andean and Amazonian knowledge about humans and the earth. After a decade without anything in that courtyard, it's quite the return.
Both exhibitions, whatever their differences, keep the focus on natural themes and materiality at a time when too much contemporary output drifts into abstraction or sermonising. The Saatchi one in particular feels like a quiet win for those of us who still believe visual culture should reward looking rather than require a manifesto to decode.
