RA Magazine's pick of this week’s art events (5 - 11 April)

_{Hughie O'Donoghue RA, 'Night Swimmer', 2012. Carborundum. 158 x 130 cm.} Royal Academicians on view:
Hughie O'Donoghue RA University Gallery & Baring Wing, 5 April – 17 May 2013
Gillian Ayres RA Turnpike Gallery, Leigh 6 April - 1 June 2013
Mick Rooney RA takes part in Spring Show Fosse Gallery 8 April - 4 May 2013
Three Academician painters feature in new exhibitions from this week; taken together, their different styles are testament to the enduring breadth of the art of current Members. Hughie O’Donoghue’s transcendental images of floating figures feature in his recent monotype and carborundums on display at Northumbria University’s gallery in Newcastle. Gillian Ayres’ works on paper – full of suggestive, semi-figurative geometric shapes – are on view at the Turnpike Gallery, Leigh, near Wigan. Mick Rooney contributes paintings to the spring show at Stow on the Wold’s Fosse Gallery, including a diptych of wrestlers climbing into the ring and a gouache of a visit to the fortune teller.

_{Liane Lang, 'Poster Boy', 2012. C-type print. Edition of 3. 70x90 cm.} Liane Lang
Art First, 11 April - 11 May 2013
Former RA Schools student Liane Lang (class of 2006) fabricates life-like mannequins and then photographs them in intriguing or symbolic situations. The subject of a show at Fitzrovia gallery Art First, the German-born artist has produced a new body of work following her residency in Memento Sculpture Park in Budapest, which is home to discarded Socialist-era monuments. A huge statue of a Hungarian worker, wrought in weathered metal, strides out – but does not notice as he steps on one of Lang’s figures.

_{Celia Paul, 'Madonna and Child', 2011. Oil on canvas. 50 x 50 in.} Celia Paul
Marlborough Fine Art, 10 April - 4 May 2013
A series of fourteen paintings by the contemporary British painter Celia Paul was recently on view in an exhibition at Chichester Cathedral, which coincided with a show at the city’s Pallant House Gallery that paired Paul’s psychologically astute portraits with those of Gwen John.

Based on the Stations of the Cross, this spiritualist series is presented in London next week at Marlborough Fine Art in Mayfair. Some other recent pieces on view will demonstrate the range of Paul’s figurative practice, which includes affecting interiors and landscapes.

Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi
Chisenhale Gallery, 5 April - 12 May 2013
The Chisenhale Gallery has enjoyed some notable successes of late, its exhibitions of James Richards, Ed Atkins and Helen Marten last year affirming the gallery as a destination to see some of the most interesting emerging contemporary artists.

_{Nasrin Tabatabai & Babak Afrassiabi, 'Seep', 2012. Installation with video. Co-commissioned by MACBA and Chisenhale Gallery and presented in partnership with Delfina Foundation. Courtesy of the artists.}

Its new show sees Rotterdam-based collaborators Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi present their first UK solo show. Their videos on view examine BP’s operations in Iran; focusing both on the physical site where oil is extracted as well as the reference point of a 1940s BP propaganda film, which was intended to extol the virtues of the oil industry despite the facts to the contrary.

_{Rachel Whiteread, 'Detatched 3', 2012. © Rachel Whiteread. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photo: Mike Bruce.} Rachel Whiteread
Gagosian, 11 April - 25 May 2013
A reminder: next Thursday is the first day of Rachel Whiteread’s exhibition at Kings Cross’s Gagosian Gallery.

It’s now twenty years since the artist produced her seminal sculpture House by casting an interior of a Victorian abode. For a fuller preview, click here to read Ben Luke’s recent piece for RA Magazine.

Sam Phillips is a London-based arts journalist and contributor to RA Magazine

• Royal Academy of Arts