“If there is an element, in all this, of wresting something from catastrophe, it’s perhaps epitomised by Yip’s semiabstract paintings rooted in violent celestial phenomena, explosive lightning etc, which avowedly have their roots in Gilles Deleuze’s thoughts about how painting might emerge from what he terms, a little gnomically, a ‘catastrophe’ in the early stage of making, but also track back to premodern eras in which such events in the sky were read almost as premonitions and were politically instrumentalised by leaders, fake news of yesteryear. It might also be appropriate that they relate to atmospheric conditions, because Yip’s entire show is a climate, an airspace crackling with ions, rather than a statement.”

Martin Herbert on Alison Yip, for LOTTO