On Master of None, and the Art of Not Knowing
The Diary of an Art Advisor
Over the past few weeks I've watched Master of None on Netflix - one or two episodes at a time, often on the Northern line, travelling to and from the gallery in Cloudesley Square. It really struck - especially that second season, Francesca and Dev. It glows with an off-centre realism - romantic, poetic, but never sentimental.
I don't want to deliver spoilers, but there’s no resolution, no summing up - just the quiet discomfort of two people who might have found something extraordinary, or might have drifted, hesitated, misread. The screen fades to black before we know. But that not-knowing is precisely what gives it weight.
It affects same way the best artworks do - not with a thesis, but with a feeling. Something half-formed and lingering. Not truth, exactly, but something like it. There’s no neatness, no messaging, and yet it communicates so much.
Master of None does this again and again. It handles big ideas - love, race, culture, identity, failure, friendship - not with didacticism, but with something much rarer: openness - a generous kind of ambiguity. It’s intelligent without being rigid. Funny without being flippant. Poetic without trying too hard. And it trusts its audience, in the same way the best artists trust the viewer: to dwell in the uncertainty, to finish the story, or leave it unfinished.
I’ve been thinking about that as I move between shows and studios, between the rhythm of a packed Tube carriage and the strange, still light of a painting. Art, like romance or memory or sitting on the edge of a life you’re not sure you’re ready for, often happens in the margins. Not in the plot, but in the moments that resist plot entirely.
This is the quiet engine of much contemporary painting - especially the kind I find myself drawn to. Work that’s in no rush to explain itself. Take Hannah Murgatroyd’s new show, or Marilyn Hallam’s interiors, or even Stefanie Heinze’s anarchic line - there’s a kind of trust in the viewer built into the ambiguity. You’re not being shown something, you’re being invited to sit beside it - puzzled, implicated, enchanted.
That doesn’t mean it’s vague. Quite the opposite. The strongest works are full of exaggeration. Hyper-real forms, or impossible colour. A woman’s arm too long for her body, or a hand grasping at a nothing that feels emotionally exact. Like Francesca’s wide eyes in that final scene: almost theatrical, but not artificial. Heightened, but grounded. The way longing can be.
We often think of exaggeration as distortion. But it’s also how we make inner experience visible. Art uses exaggeration not to lie, but to get closer to the truth that lives just outside language. Like the feeling that follows you after a conversation you didn’t quite finish. That’s the territory we’re in.
There’s a kind of bravery in making something open-ended. It goes against the grain of how we’re taught to communicate. It invites misunderstanding, or indifference. But it also invites magic. Master of None knew that. And so do the artists I work with. They’re not here to clarify. They’re here to deepen. Art, at its best, doesn’t resolve, it reverberates.
If you're in London this weekend, and want to see superb examples of just that kind of painting then come to Cloudesley Square as part of the London Gallery Weekend.
London Gallery Weekend is the world’s largest event of its kind and unique among global gallery weekend events in the breadth and diversity of its participating galleries. The event takes place over three days, each focusing on a different area of London. Free for all to attend, it provides an opportunity to discover and explore London’s world-class gallery scene, celebrating the city’s diverse cultural and creative communities. An extensive programme scheduled by galleries specially for the weekend includes talks, family workshops and special events. Blackbird Rook will be open from Wednesday - Sunday to coincide with the programme.
An Unbidden Quest | Hannah Murgatroyd
Blackbird Rook, The Florence Trust, Holy Trinity, Cloudesley Square, London N1 0HN
OPENING TIMES AND EVENTS:
Wednesday 4 June: Open: 11 - 6PM
Thursday 5 June: Open: 11 - 6PM
Friday 6 June: Open: 11 - 6PM
Saturday 7 June: Open: 11 - 6PM
Sunday 8 June: Finissage event with the artist - open: 11 - 6PM
Come and join us for drinks and to meet the artist and curator.