Because it echoes our humanity, visual art can touch our minds and emotions, from the profound to the playful. In the collection of well produced drawings, paintings, ceramics and constructions exhibited here you'll find works that tend to be more witty then weighty however they will not vacate the mind after leaving the gallery.
Brooks offers a rogues gallery of characters we've all come across at one time or another. Employing black ink on white, and accented by blood red lips, the artist draws faces with flair, and decided attitude. Eleanor with her spiky hair and long thin neck reminds me of an emu as she doesn't look the least bit 'flighty'. And I do appreciate the ladies with the long eye lashes and how they flirt with the viewer. These drawings reveal the artist's sense of fun as well as her sure command of the medium.
Strano reveals a more subtle sense of humour, and a lesson in repetition with variation. He offers single portraits of eighteen young rabbits. Each small but finely painted canvas is executed in the same colours to present the same subject in the same pose but these are not carbon copies of a single image. Examining the row of young rabbits we discover every one is an individual, which is why each has it's own name. The differences are minor but once found quite obvious, as is the case with sibling in any large family.
Mitchell's Sofa Series offers a dozen candy coloured images of couples relaxing on a sofa. The sofa is the same shape in each small painting while its pattern and the room in which it sits, the couple and their poses in relation to each other, and the frames are different. This is a room of happiness from beginning to end and although there is no faulting the artist's drawing and painting skills, I would like to see a variety in the couples and their relationships. For example, when the artist allows his happy Running Man to travel through a series of different landscapes it provides the viewer with more food for thought.
Cinquini caters to different appetites with her collection of paintings. The series Exotic Window offers spicy colours that invite the viewer to dip into her warm strong flavours and enigmatic imagery, and have us wanting more. In comparison, her two pale blue works, Stayed and Vaulted Choices, seem underdone and bland. I wasn't satisfied but perhaps they're just not my taste.
Dito's Salt Lick series is quite tangy. It involves four wall constructions that make a significant comment on the rural plight in a unique and creative manner. A wall of salt is built on a mirror to form a valley in which is found a wooden model of some man-made rural 'necessity'; a fence, a wagon, a house or a bridge. The compositions invite us to investigate and absorb the message. The artist creates intriguing works of art that make relevant statements without repelling the viewer. He also makes fine ceramic works for the other artists to decorate in good fashion.
This exhibition will evoke a laugh and make you think, it's a good show, it puts us in touch with our humanity. Congratulations to all involved.