Josephine Breese

Despite reports that we are slowly inching our way out of the grim economic climate, the realities of setting up a business at the moment remain daunting. Not to be discouraged, however, Zero10 Gallery has come up with an unusual and intriguing recession buster. Their living room.

In the absence of a suitable gallery space, Johann Bournot, Director of Zero10, decided to launch his venture from the comfort of his own home. This is by no means a conventional pop-up initiative. The Bournots' life goes on as usual around the show, with none of their furniture or family photographs removed to emulate the clean lines of gallery display. Regardless of this, the works of Bournot's leading artists including Adam Ball, Piers Secunda and Henrijs Preiss are shown to full advantage here.

Three small works by Preiss are hung in a triangular formation over the fireplace. The Latvian artist's collation of modernist abstraction and medieval religious symbolism is exploited in this context. The domestic proportions of the work and space imply the personal devotion invited by the original culture of icons. Lit from above, however, the brightly painted surfaces and electric colours of the hieratic varnished patterns assert a contemporary reworking of their theme.

Similarly, Piers Secunda's works are well suited to this intimate environment. His extraordinary treatment of paint as a material whereby it can be poured, moulded, set and cast, renders his works irresistibly tactile. The industrial components of paint are explored, addressing subjects and processes. Pennsylvania oil fields are hazily picked out in crude oil on a sleek plane of industrial floor paint. Anchored to the wall with a cast paint hook, Secunda's exploitation of the medium shows paint to be alarming in its strength. We are invited to handle these works under the attentive eye of Bournot and even the artist, an allowance that larger spaces cannot monitor and therefore disallow.

The inclusion of two small prints by Gavin Turk and Jake Chapman owned by the Bournots before the exhibition, however, seem out of place. While in line with the ethos of including work that they admire, these small prints are interesting in themselves, albeit out of sync with the less well known, more substantially represented artists.

The contents of commercial exhibitions ultimately have the potential to wind up in someone's house, so to see them installed like this shrewdly aids this visualisation process. The intentionally organic growth of Zero10 spread by word of mouth, should draw in a curious and well-targeted audience. While this concept suits the selected artists in this instance, notions of aesthetic autonomy or an artwork's status beyond the buyer come to mind. The experience is flattering to the viewer but not easily accessible due to its lack of visibility. Zero10 openly admit their objectives of providing a personal and elite environment, which does not prioritise these anxieties. What is more, they achieve an effective presentation of art they respect, without the works losing credibility or bite.