Art is everywhere, in everything we look at and especially in the things we don’t. Keith Coventry shows us, in his latest exhibition, that it is the artist who puts the images, which lurk outside our conscious vision, into a frame and under bright lights. Peeping Tom is the latest exhibition at the Vegas Gallery, London. A collection of eclectic images varying in medium, style and subject but all united by a common concept  – the Peeping Tom.

Featuring an ensemble of artists from Tracey Emin to Joanna Kirk; curator Keith Coventry conceived of the idea for the exhibition in recognition of the 17^th century tale of Lady Godiva.

Married to Earl Leofric of Mercia, Lady Godiva protested against his tyrannical taxation of the people, to which he retorted that he would lower the taxes when she rode nude through the streets. Thus, she issued a proclamation that the townspeople should remain inside with their windows shut and rode horseback through the town, cloaked in nothing but her hair. The sole person to infringe her proclamation – a tailor – became known as Peeping Tom.

A recurring motif is that of horses, in reference to the horse on which Lady Godiva chose to stage her protest. These equestrian works are themselves a manifestation of the diversity of exhibited art work. Emer O’Brien presents the innocent black and white profile of a white horse. A small television loops a short film of a woman riding a horse across a deserted landscape. And Jeanine Woollard, alluding to Lady Godiva, by photographing a nude woman straddling a cloth backdrop, with a horse painted on it - creating the illusion that she is astride the steed and simultaneously breaking that illusion by revealing its warehouse setting.

This is a show about voyeurism and the room is filled with voyeurs. Art galleries fulfil the desire to look, in a socially acceptable environment. However, certain images that, in their natural environment, would be socially unacceptable to look at, present conflict.

Looking unseen through the Queen’s kitchen window, whilst she washes the dishes could never be acceptable, yet the gallery makes it possible. And like a rabbit caught in the headlights, we are transfixed, unable to avert our eyes, held there by curiosity and the knowledge that in the context of a gallery, we are safe to pry into these windows. The artists place us into the uncomfortable shoes of the Peeping Tom.

Using the title Peeping Tom, Keith Coventry arouses expectation in images that would otherwise be ambiguous, suggesting underlying meanings. Peter Rourke’s small painting of a modest cabin in a field, an image of sanctity, is set against the backdrop of the Peeping Tom allusion, and new meanings start to suggest themselves. Who is the Peeping Tom? Someone in the field that shouldn’t be, secretly watching the cabin? Or am I the Peeping tom, staring through this framed window?

This is very much an exhibition of people as it is of art, of observers as much as observing, in a room filled with people who not only wanted to see, but also to be seen. The concept of ‘Peeping Tom’ is a fascinating and provoking one: the artists are not just shining light on the dismissed but on the shunned; making us see something different… something terrible, beautiful, comical, enlightening. This exhibition broaches a sensitive subject that can make a person feel both empowered and vulnerable It is an accomplished compilation.

 Peeping Tom - Group Exhibition, Vegas Gallery, London

18th February – 28th March 2010