Álvaro Pemper’s Las Contorsionistas paintings exude sensual happiness – full bodies, full gazes, generous colours. The bodies fold, refold and contort until they occupy every corner of the image. They are enclosed within the rectangle of the image; there is nothing beyond the limits of the frame.

The influences are legible and worn openly. Egon Schiele is the strongest presence – the angular, twisting limbs, raw unidealised nakedness and nervous lines are direct descendants of his figure studies. Gustav Klimt shows up in the decorative elements – spiral and floral border patterns, gold accents, lacquered screens, geometric textiles framing the figures in flat ornamental fields, and Gauguin surfaces in the Tahitian colour harmonies and the recurring mermaid-and-tropical-flower pairings. There’s a Japonisme thread too in the folding screens, kimono-like patterning, fan and vase motifs, and occasional Chagall-like weightlessness where figures float or tumble against flat colour grounds.

Just as the body is held in the frame, Pemper’s women can be seen as being trapped in rectangular cages. The bodies often seem to be crushed against the transparent walls of the frame. The faces, breasts, buttocks and genitalia all inhabit the same plane, twisted, filling every corner.

This selection of Pemper’s paintings includes some paintings from the late 1990s to 2004 which are not part of the Las Contorsionistas series, but have many of the same qualities.