In the socially critical paintings of Benjamin Senior (b.1982), the viewer is positioned as an unseen observer, watching people exercise, socialise, or mingling on London’s streets. Working primarily in egg tempera – the primary painting technique in Western art until oil paint superseded it in the 1500s – the British artist builds up each picture with dozens of meticulous layers, carefully balancing colours to give his imagined scenes an exaggerated, dreamlike quality. Thank U Next depicts a seated male at a bus stop and two females absorbed in their smartphones, oblivious to a billboard advertising an Ariana Grande perfume. Addressing contemporary alienation in an image-saturated culture, the composition’s sharp vertical lines emphasise the characters’ disengaged lifestyles. Women distracted by devices also feature in Colour Play, where Senior riffs on the word ‘colour’ by highlighting the disparity between two Black women and a window display of white mannequin heads with vividly coloured wigs.