I've written about Merrick Belyea's work often over the years, so when approaching the gallery I had the half-baked notion that there may not be anything else I could say. Just one step into the gallery and I realized how very wrong I was to think that way. Belyea continues to reward us with his ability to knock us out with seemingly 'simple' images. His reality is palpable as his imagery allows us to look at the subject with our mind's eye.

Here we have a collection of portraits, some oil on canvas others pastel on paper, two large crucified figures, and two pairs of scarred hands. Belyea's work always hints at the dark underbelly of life, however, if you are inclined to look for it, there is invariably a sense of hope. The comment at the top of the catalogue  states how these works "... portray a humanity under assault from an unseen enemy and ask the viewer to consider who this enemy may be." If I stopped to calculate the 'enemies' of humanity there're be no time to view the art works. So, perhaps because there are two large cruciform images and Easter is nigh, I chose to interpret the exhibition in light of the season.

The thirteen head shot portraits suggested the gathering at the Last Supper. The seven works in orange pastel on black card are stunning. Each face, male and female, has a name. They stare out at us with a sense of honesty that belongs to both the subject and the artist. These chiaroscuro drawings look like they took only moments to produce yet portraits so well executed can only be the result of many years of looking, seeing and drawing.

Belyea has the ability to suggest the figure well in paint, even when he chooses to give us only broad areas of colour to suggest the human form. He allows the viewer to fill in the details of the subject in relation to our own reality. This is noted in the six painted, unnamed portraits where the structure of the skull, rather then details of the face, is recorded. Except for Portrait VI, where hollow eyes can be identified. Is he Judas? or Jesus?

Perhaps both are represented in the two larger paintings, Crucified Figure I & II. Here again we see how Belyea's use of blood colour and black can be interpreted with an assurance of accuracy by every viewer. We don't need to see the scars to feel the hurt, we are the 'unseen enemy'

I may run out of words to describe and interpret Belyea's work but I won't lose interest in the results of his dedicated approach to his artform.