Visual arts: February figuration

February, for all its wintry faults, is often a good month for exhibitions, and this year is no exception. There are currently several shows at London's public galleries - namely Bonnard at the Tate; Bacon at the Hayward or the RA's "Art Treasures of England" - which shouldn't be missed. It is also the time of the year when commercial galleries come back to life; there are a number of new shows this week which look well worth a visit. In particular, I recommend Paul Storey at Jason & Rhodes and Stephen Chambers at Flowers East.

Actually I don't like Storey's pictures very much. I do like the way that he paints, in a physical sense, and I admire his single-minded approach, but there's something about his complicated, crowded images that I can't quite stomach. They're meant to be bizarre, of course, with a kind of poetic grotesqueness reminiscent of Hieronymous Bosch, but there are always just a few too many twisted, elongated limbs for my liking. Such reservations probably say more about me than about the work, and I have to admit that he looks more impressive with each new exhibition. The current set of pictures take their themes from a mixture of Greek and Christian mythology. All very strange, and not a little disturbing.

Stephen Chambers, whose recent paintings are unveiled at Flowers East on Friday, is another figurative painter whose work has a disturbing flavour, although the reasons for it are rather less obvious. Not for him the way of tortured flesh; his figures are shadowy silhouettes with piercing eyes, shrouded in swarms of dots and set against intense fields of colour. I can't recall seeing an exhibition of his paintings before, and I haven't seen this one yet, but I greatly enjoyed a show of his prints at this same gallery last year. His are pictures about looking and watching and being watched. At a glance, they seem simple enough, but they have a lingering oddness which suggests that there is more to them than first meets the eye.

Paul Storey, Jason & Rhodes, 4 New Burlington Place, W1 (0171-434 1768) 18 Feb-21 March; Stephen Chambers, Flowers East, 199/205 Richmond Road, E8 (0181-985 3333) 20 Feb-29 March