KURT BEERS IS probably unique amongst owners of commercial art galleries in London because he was once a ‘Mountie’, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His gallery in Little Britain (near the Smithfield meat market and the Barbican) specialises in showcasing contemporary paintings created by up-and-coming artists and those in mid-career. Often, the gallery shows the works of painters, who are not yet well-known, but deserve to become better recognised.  Until 23 May 2026, Beers has an exhibition of works by Alice Herbst.

Alice was born in Sweden in 1993. She studied art at the Stockholm School of Fine Art, and then at the Gerlesberg School of Fine Art. Her show at Beers is called “The Whispering Game”, and is a collection of paintings made between 2025 and 2026. As soon as I saw the paintings, I liked them. Excellently executed, well-composed, and intriguing, they are highly original: a breath of fresh air. Without knowing exactly what, I felt that each painting told a story. What that story was intended to be by the artist did not matter because the viewer can make up his or her interpretation of what was being portrayed.

In many of the paintings, masks can be seen, either being worn or just on their own. In a couple of paintings, faces were partially obscured. Why the masks and the hidden faces are so prevalent would make interesting subject matter for a psychologist. Another feature in Alice’s paintings are depictions of paintings within the paintings. For example, in one picture a masked woman seems to be holding a bunch of flowers. After a moment, one can see that it is not a bouquet in her hand but a board with a painting of flowers upon it. In another painting, a still life that includes a vase with flowers, the flowers appear to be a painting of flowers on a board, rather than real flowers. These types of images within images and the profusion of masks make Alice’s paintings more than pretty pictures, and give one cause to wonder.

As with all the shows we have viewed at Beers, Alice’s paintings were well-displayed on the whitewashed walls of the gallery. Though far from the large group of art galleries in Mayfair, Beers deserves regular visits.