A dazzling alphabet

Michael Craig-Martin may use Day-Glo colours for his dazzling new alphabet paintings, but they're anything but childish. In fact, he probably sums them up best himself when he describes his work as being both 'simple and sophisticated': his acrylic colours are applied flatly, his outlines of images painted by template and the text usually consists of no more than single letters and one-word syllables - yet his work is seductively clever.

Like Belgian surrealist René Magritte, who famously painted a pipe accompanied by the words 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe,' Craig-Martin has always been concerned with the disjuncture between concepts and objects in the real world.

Now he has produced a series of large canvases in which letters and words, boldly painted in elegant fonts, are overlaid with ordinary objects such as a sandal, an umbrella or a light bulb. The colours sing out in a chorus of brilliant hues, and while the letters aren't representative of the objects shown, they nonetheless vaguely echo them in shape, so that an A is shown with an outline of an open umbrella.

Elsewhere are a series of computer monitors: a triptych of screens have objects appearing in rapidly changing sequences, while two self-portraits are animated by their changing colours.

Craig-Martin's iconography may be all too familiar but it's undeniable that here, colour and line come together in an exceptionally pleasing and exciting way.

Until Jan 31, Gagosian Gallery, 6-24 Britannia Street WC1, Tue to Sat 10am to 6pm, free. Tel: 020 7841 9960. Tube: King's Cross

Michael Craig-Martin: Alphabets And Sunsets
Gagosian Gallery, Britannia Street
Britannia Street, WC1X 9JD