Alan Cristea, London, 13 April – 30 May 2015
As a welcome break to the sobriety of the General Election, head to Cork Street to see a collection of joyous new paintings (below) by eminent abstract artist, Gillian Ayres RA. The show sets new canvases in the context of four significant paintings from Ayres’s 65-year career as an artist, including Sabrina (1978), a wonderful mass of coloured daubs that looks as if one of Seurat’s Pointillist masterpieces has been magnified 500 times. Prints with similar jostling shapes in vibrant colours will also be on display.

The Approach, London, until 19 April 2015
A master of ambiguity, John Stezaker splices vintage photographs to make new, enigmatic compositions. His latest show in London presents black and white filmic scenes superimposed with solid black geometric shapes, as if obscured by the light from a projector.

Camden Arts Centre, London, until 21 June 2015
American artist Jo Baer was a key figure in 1960s American Minimalism, but made a step-change to figuration in the 1980s. This show tracks her career from stark square paintings of the 1960s and 70s, consisting of white canvases bordered with black, to a new series of paintings that depicts cryptic scenes, some peopled and highly symbolic. Inspired by the ancient marks of man in Paleolithic caves, the series ‘Towards the Land of the Giants’ (below) is a vast leap from Baer’s earliest work.

Peckham Platform, London, until 7 May 2015
The Cass Bank Gallery, Aldgate East, London, until 7 May 2015
Soon billboards across the country will be plastered with artworks encouraging us to vote at the General Election. Artists Jeremy Deller, Bob and Roberta Smith RA, Fatima Begum and Janette Parris have made commanding, text-based poster-works to persuade the non-voters to vote. The posters will appear across the UK, but the originals are on display at Peckham Platform.

For those engaged with the state of the arts, there’s a chance to delve further at Cass Bank Gallery with their exhibition and programme of events, ‘The Arts Emergency Response Centre’. By confronting critical challenges facing the arts, education and their funding, the artists are urging any new UK government to put the arts at its heart. Bob and Roberta Smith RA is central to the programme, as well as celebrities and well known musicians including Jarvis Cocker.

Slate Projects, London, 11 – 26 April 2015
A group show of contemporary approaches to geometric abstract art, this exhibition takes in work by Tess Jaray RA, as well as two current second-year RA Schools students, Rhys Coren (Midnight Cocktail, 2015, below) and Robin Seir.

Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 11 – 26 April 2015
The subject of Dutch photographer Viviane Sassen’s exhibition at the ICA is the remote rainforest village of Pikin Slee in the country of Suriname, on the northern coast of South America. Its community live with no modern luxuries, nor running water, but the simplicity of their lives appealed to Sassen. The ICA show the results of her trip, including photos of people in profile, details of bodies, snippets of daily life and images of nature’s wares. Warrior (2013, below) frames rainforest leaves in a painterly way to evoke the form of a flexing spear-thrower.

Eleanor Mills (@slinkissimo) is Assistant Editor of RA Magazine.