Galleries - September 2011

work is characterised by free, naturalistic brushwork, Roger’s more structured compositions owe a debt to his architectural background. Abstracts by both are at Tremayne Applied Arts, a gallery which, with its choice mix of 20th C. art, craft, ceramics and design classics that includes furniture, is always worth a visit. If Ruskin once accused Whistler of ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face’ what would he have made of Belgrave Gallery’ s Urban Art Show – edgy, provocative street art that includes Banksy? You have until September 5 to decide. The ensuing show, from September 12 teams paintings by John Emanuel – richly worked canvases that inscribe the nude and the shapes derived from it within a context of landscape or interior to create masterly paintings of almost sculptural gravitas – together with Alice Mumford’s meditative and painterly still lifes. Pip Palmer To some degree Sax Impey’s work has always been concerned with the elements – the abstract energies compelling sound and movement – but in this exhibition (Millennium from September 16) a journey from Ireland to Portugal across tempestuous, ‘phenomenal’ seas provided him with the opportunity to experience the extraordinary power and force of the ocean from within its precarious cradle. The resulting paintings are vast, formidable and hugely exciting, paradoxically combining an almost photographic realism (which may have you reaching for the ‘ Kwells ’) with a fluency of composition that brings to mind Hokusai’s predatory, crashing waves. Titled ‘Storm’, this exhibition might well have had the strap line ‘actualizing the elements’, too alliterative perhaps, but it gets us there. Anthea Richards and Roger Tonkinson also find inspiration in the elements but while Anthea’s As I was going to St Ives As summer slips almost imperceptibly into autumn, St Ives similarly morphs from holiday hot-spot to a less frenetic but, with the September Festival getting underway, a no less audible cultural hub. Though focusing mainly on music and literature, in St Ives the visual arts rarely take second billing. Until September 13, Millennium has new work by Lisa Wright; it is her first show in Cornwall for five years. In the interim she has exhibited in London and had a two year residency with the RSC which resulted in the ‘Histories’ – large, stridently powerful illustrative paintings. In this exhibition she has re-engaged with a gentler narrative and the more lyrical themes with which she is most at home. The colours here are stronger and less naturalistic than in the past, creating a dreamlike world of heightened atmosphere and intensity, an Eden where her figures are able to encounter childhood’s “moments of wonder”. 12. GALLERIES SEPTEMBER 11 Images previous page from left: A leksandr Dashevsky ‘Luggage Locker’ from the Cells Series at Erarta. ©John Craxton, ‘Pastoral for PW’, 1949 at Tate Britain. Graham Crowley from the Drift Series at Atkinson Gallery. Richard Corbett, ‘Still Pool’, at New Leaf Gallery Images this page from top left: Sax Impey, ‘After the Dawn (Port)’, 4 x 8 ft at the Millennium Gallery. Adam Neate, ‘Pray’, 2005, oil on cardboard, 31 x 19 cms. Alice Mumford, ‘Warm Studio’, 2011, oil on can- vas, 100 x 100 cms both at Belgrave Gallery. Roger Tonkinson, ‘Distant and Close Land- scape’ (detail), acrylic on board, April 2011 at Tremayne Fine Art ART INST IVES The colours here are stronger and less naturalistic than in the past