Italian artist Nicola Samori presents this stunning exhibition in conjunction with the Perth International Arts Festival. This artist understands and displays the traditional skills all good artists accept as fundamental to creating timeless art; the use of solid draughtsmanship and earth colours to connect universal myths and symbols with the ideal human form.

Larger then life images seem to open doors to the underworld in the white gallery walls. Blood reds, warm ochres, rich browns and confident black lines that seem haphazard at first glance soon fall into hints or definitions of the classical nude in familiar poses. These are the old gods, the ones spoken of in legend, carved in stone and painted on chapel ceilings.

Samori employs oil, ink and sand on paper, linen, copper or aluminium. His images awaken the mind to mystery as each suggests a snippet of legend, perhaps one we don't know yet somehow relate to. For example Brazier displays a figure holding on its head a large shallow bowl that appears to contain white hot fire. The anatomy is beautifully rendered, however sections of the figure are obliterated, as if  the painted copper surface has been damaged, erasing parts of the image. If we know the legend we can identify who the figure is, if not the nude can be interpreted as either a god or goddess of fire.

Then there is The Command which owes much to Donatello's and Verrocchio's equestrian sculptures. But here the victorious general is replaced by a nude, and the bronze with mixed media on paper. The exhibit is as interesting for its method as much as for its motif. Again the figure may be interpreted as male or female and it is this ambiguity, along with the confident drawing, staining and collage effects that provides a different scenario each time the viewer returns to the image.

Of the larger exhibits we kept returning to the oil on aluminium works Consumption and Smouldering as each tall thin composition has a figure melting into the painted surface while holding firm onto the imagination, thanks to Samori's excellent command of the medium. The smaller textural works and serigraphs also have the power to impress the viewer, as Samori's drawn faces stay in the mind long after leaving the gallery. Fascinating viewing.