Under the stewardship of Jillian O’Brien, this exhibition shines with the vibrancy of spring.
No more so than Jo Smerdon’s ‘Wattle on a Sunny Winter’s Day’, a snapshot of the flora, that, at present, brightens our days.
There is in many of the works in this show a sense of looking forward to days of relaxation.
O’Brien’s own modest charcoal sketch ‘Lazy Days’, a small monochrome depicts a long winding and lazy river that draws the eye into its peaceful flow and transported this viewer to a small dingy drifting its course.
More lavish work is found in frames from Gabrielle Nicoll, who joins a legion of land and seascape painters inspired by our majestic environment.
We are lucky to live within such wonderful scenery, so it is natural for it to attract artists drawn to it as a subject.
It is that vast pool of artists that drives the quality and indeed the diversity of landscape painting in the valley.
Nicoll’s style is one of light and forbidden tactile texture.
While some landscape painters seek a smooth finish in which the light seems to radiate from within the frame.
Central to Nicoll’s seascapes is a delicate sfumato that seems to conjure a light from without.
As if to hold the rays of the sun by command.
Her graduation of complimentary colours renders paintings like ‘Peace’ as if a swatch of summer that would attract the sunshine into the gloomiest of rooms.
Perhaps a little overcome with the light and warmth I found myself thinking how typical it is that painters of land and sea tend to be dominated by warmth and summer light inviting them outside.
Then I came to Nicoll’s ‘Cold Day,’ reminding me that it’s not always so idyllic.
Further to disrupt the swooning of seascapes and yearning for summer and time on the river is Aga Mouasher’s work in which an abstract scape is framed and overlaid with triangular wooden offcuts, like cast-off architrave.
‘Surrender’ is an old intriguingly clever work.
It is not all lazing around in this show though, and not all two-dimensional.
The jaunty ‘Sail Away’ from Nicoll is a delightful gestural sailboat motif on a cushion, while Nicola Oliver’s ‘Lost’ is a powerful bust displaying a fearsome depth of absence. How a textile material can be moulded to express such profound emotion baffles this reviewer and I’m left marvelling at this artist’s skill and vision.
I want to finish this review with a look at John Osborne’s ‘Apple Harvest at Franklin’ and in turn wake us from the malaise of the earlier frames.
I don’t think it’s a new print although John has mentioned he is developing more story to his work.
This frame is split roughly into a diptych just offset from a furrow that runs between rows of bountiful trees that works to underscore the composition.
It is peopled by caricatures of pickers, bringing the work to life in a way that the viewer can almost hear the banter and songs as they travel the orchard.
A well-realised work.
If art can bring calm to our lives, there are many pieces in this exhibition to still us.
