Michael Craig-Martin, a painter with an unmistakable style endlessly pirated in advertising and graphic design, is back in London after seven years, and this time he's flashing.
His new exhibition includes self-portraits on plasma screens, controlled by a computer programme which keeps changing the colours of hair, eyes, lips, even eyebrows. "It makes the choices, and there is no pattern," Craig-Martin said . "You'd probably have to hang around for about 18 years to see the same sequence again." There are also enormous alphabet paintings. "O is for football," he explains, "so wherever there's an O I had to put the boot."
He is interested in the dividing line between the meaningful and meaningless and the human need to attribute meaning to random content. Craig-Martin has been exhibiting for almost 40 years. His former students at Goldsmiths include Julian Opie and Damien Hirst. "I'm very proud of them," he said, "even though most of them could buy and sell me - and many of them have."
· A is for Umbrella is at the Gagosian Gallery, London, until January 31
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