ARTISTS TALKING

Prince Charming, Siamese Orchid, Blue Danube, Rare Earth, Sublime Sun: these could be clothing labels, rare plants or race horses. In fact they are part of the list of colours in Shelflife – the centrepiece of Matt Golden's solo show that combines lo-fi aesthetics, minimalism and elements of seventies' conceptualism.

Chosen for their likeness to trashy novel titles these colours are presented amongst thirty or so others painted on solid books made from MDF; dumbly representing the lifestyle choices that we make through the household colours with which we decorate our homes. It's a wry joke on how our consumer society is led by faceless marketing execs, and the kind of deadpan humour that penetrates this understated show.

Many of the pieces use ordinary domestic materials and text to quietly subvert their usually ordinary functions. Pin Drawing utilises the aesthetics of mass- produced plastic pins – overzealously fixing a sheet of A4 to the wall with dozens of drawing pins, creating a shimmering optical effect. Weekend Rocker – a sample of fax machine – repeats endlessly through headphones resting on a plinth on A4 sheets, a distant reminder of mindless office labour, a momentary escape into an imaginary clubland, and a track that could be filed neatly under Experimental at the local record shop.

However, a piece that uses immigrant street traders to write the phrase – in metal wire – All Men Are Equal But Some Are More Equal Than Others is less convincing. The chrome aesthetic fits the show, but opens up questions of power and control in a way that is thoroughly absent from the rest of the work.

Similarly, Two Words also seems only surface deep, but far more enjoyable. It's catch-22 style text – the phrase 'two words' written in the centre of an A4 page – emanates restrained schoolboy humour. Denying the viewer any meaning beyond the obvious pun, the joke also lies in the ridiculousness of attempting such a thing in a gallery context.

Self-contained and simple in conception, the majority of the work here has a playfulness and lightness of touch that bounces between throwaway and serious. Though at times you feel that some of the work is holding back too much is does pose a serious enquiry into the everyday things with which we choose to surround ourselves – from banal office stationary to popular music.