Quite a diverse collection of exhibitions in the one venue yet each in their own way offers visual interest and different levels of satisfaction.
Rossen fills the ground floor gallery with a large body of work. Using the acrylic medium on canvas, card or board the artist takes us from the shore, into the surf and under the sea, on a tour of a bright watery world. Ladies Morning Swim has bright forms dwarfed by the expanse of blue ocean and sky, their colourful costumes reflected on the wet sand. Here the medium is pulled evenly across the card to offer a smooth and flowing surface like the water it represents.
More agitated brush work is found in the violent surf of Wipe Out. All we see of the surfer is the lower part of his legs, feet up, in the blue below while the tip of an orange board peeks out from the churning white crest. This wave rider doesn't seem to have the same ease in the ocean as does the cheeky Penguin who glides peacefully just beneath the surface of a green ocean.
Rossen's beach scenes delight but it is her small portraits of fish that offer the most interest for their imagery, surface treatment and colour. The artist paints identifiable characteristics of the species then goes on to give each a sense of individual character.
Up stairs we are greeted by Nielsen's Gauguin-inspired images. Heavily outlined figures are set in a landscape of arbitrary colour. The imagery suggests the exotic, not erotic, approach to love, sensuality and fertility. We know this because each work is accompanied by a written explanation of its inspiration or intent. The work is fine however the colours in the reproductions on the explanatory notes are cleaner and brighter than those of the originals. Perhaps if Nielsen lifted the key of his palette to equal the scanned images, these large paintings would have greater visual impact.
Land's mixed media abstractions of well managed colour, tone and texture, are inspired by the hues and patterns noted on the surface of sea, coast and desert as viewed from above. They present well as a collection. The colours are impressive and exploring the artist's technique provides a certain level of interest. The artist mixes various art media with sand then pushes it around to create uneven surfaces of smooth waves and rivulets. They are gentle, sublime works that would have a more impressive effect if Land punctuated her surfaces with the occasional harsh or jagged ridge.
Chapman presents his first solo show of works completed in the past 13 years. It is interesting to note the different styles and subjects matter but what holds the exhibition together is the undoubted talent owned by the artist. He works the oil medium to suit the subject. For example in Sun Bleached he produces a textural surface depicting warm yellow sand with cool purple pockets of shadow. Then in Be True, where the mood is one of gentle contemplation, the surface seems as smooth as the slipping water.
This artist's forte is definitely portraiture. Works like the The
Artful Boxer and What Women Never See draw us to the canvas
and demand our close inspection of the surface before we step back to decipher
the subject's personality and life story. What we find is complete satisfaction
from any distance and faces that stay in the mind's eye long after leaving
the gallery.