Art through a peephole

Most portraits follow you with their eyes; when you walk past a Chuck Close, you sense every pore is moving with you. The American artist, who specialises in hyperrealist images of faces, was forced to adopt a grid technique for painting after a blood clot left him paralysed in 1988.

This exhibition shows both the grid portraits and a series of eight tapestries created last year.

Made by transferring daguerreotypes on to cloth using modern Jacquard looms, the tapestries have the eerie look of the Moon landing photographs. Close has admitted to viewing the human head as a giant landscape, and these monumental images bring elements of the lunar surface to facial features.

It's not the most flattering of mediums: the metal plate of the daguerreotype picks up every imperfection so that even Kate Moss has dermatological difficulties. Each tapestry is out of focus beyond a circle of sharpness, giving an impression of viewing the subjects through a peephole.

Downstairs, seven large-scale paintings piece together skin pigment like needlepoint. Each grid square contains a multicoloured shape that appears to move. As a whole, they're currently forming a face - but they threaten to set off on different paths at any moment.

Despite their size, and the microscopic closeness with which they're depicted, Close's sitters somehow seem removed. Whether it's the kaleidoscope or the peephole, we're always seeing them through another lens. Fiona Macdonald

Until Nov 17, White Cube, 25-26 Mason's Yard SW1, Tue to Sat 10am to 6pm, free. Tel: 020 7930 5373. www.whitecube.com Tube: Green Park

Chuck Close: Family And Others
White Cube At Mason's Yard
Mason's Yard, SW1Y 6BU