Entering the two-room exhibition space at what used to be called Garter Lane One, for the new show of drawings by 15 artists, that age-old feeling was present that these are not paintings but drawings. I know I shouldn’t flinch at the dark greyness of ink and charcoal and I shouldn’t think of drawings as just sketches for paintings but there you are. So, it is no wonder that I am drawn to the colours in Richard Slade’s pastels and charcoal on paper. A Variable Sky is full of fury and winter and rage. Bog, Evening Light and Small Bog By The Sea seem full of life, action and attractiveness.
I step quickly away from the primitive, almost purile, colouring book of Arno Kramer’s 8 panels at under a grand each. Nice work when you can get it and John Shinnors is asking E10,000 for four small panels.
The beautiful blues in the Jill Dennis watercolours Blue Thistles are reassuring on a sharp chilly day and the robust branches of Jim Sheehy’s Winter Trees are salutary and solitary.
Joe Wilson from Bolton fascinates with his industrial landscapes of Railway Stations.
The wonky unpainted moon in Philippa Sutherland’s Full Moon bothers me enough to go back and study it again and again and then I stand in admiration of James Savage’s MOOR (pencil on paper). Stand close to it and it’s a puzzle, move back and back and it is a vista of detail. Here was the essence of the exhibition – Into Landscape.
Exhibition runs until Saturday 23rd February. Open Tuesday to Saturday 11am to 5.30pm.
