Galleries - September 2011

temporary British craft. For though they do have a substantial range of excellent contemporary paint- ings and prints, it is, above all, their representation of ceramic artists such as Wally Keeler and Richard Batterham, textile artists Margot and Anne Selby and jeweller Lesley Strickland, that gives this gallery its particular character as essential viewingin a city rich in artistic choices for the collector. NU Back to School Created to fulfil a promise made in the trenches of WW1 by artists Borlase Smart and Leonard Fuller that if they survived it would be to live and paint in St Ives, the re- opening of St Ives School of Painting is good news for art lovers and students wishing to hone their skills in inspirational surroundings. Situated since 1938 amongst the fishing lofts of Porth- meor Studios (later neighbours in- cluded Heron, Frost and Barns- Graham, who used its facilities) the courses have attracted artists and students nationally and from abroad ever since. Extra work- shops, field trips and drop-in ses- sions are scheduled during the September Festival. PP abstraction, he never allowed it to become a stylistic straightjacket however, as some of the remark- able semi-figurative sculptures here make clear – not to mention a superb group of drawings and paintings. All is not Lost The Cafe Gallery has long pro- vided a wonderfully lively and experimental space for London’s emerging (and more established) artists and this new, all female show, entitled ‘All is not Lost’, curated by Emily Druiff of Peck- ham Space, is no exception. Invi- dious perhaps to pick individual names here, but works like Kate Yoland’s installation of superhero- cum-warrior masks guarding a flickering bombardment of video images, Jessica Voorsanger’s witty Christmas Card project ex- ploring concepts of celebrity and Martina Schmucker’s haunting screen-installation, giving an only partial view of a woman reclining beyond, suggest the show’s anarchic but optimistic point of view. Applied in Bath Situated within the short pe- destrian street of Margaret’s Buildings – the 3 or 4 galleries in it make it a sort of mini-hub of the Bath gallery scene (see also p58) – Gallery Nine is the only one to specialise in the best of con- Teresa Lawton Born in Poole, trained as a painter at Winchester School of Art, Teresa Lawton has never strayed too far from the Dorset landscapes that have come to form the core of her subject matter. However, in this new show at Highgate Cont- emporary , she has shifted her gaze from the wild uplands of the Isle of Purbeck where, until rec- ently, she used to live to the (as she sees it) more structured, man- made landscape around Dor- chester to which she has latterly moved. Entitled ‘Along the Roman Road’ – the ancient Ridgeway track on her doorstep – this new series shows a clear development towards a rich, densely-shadowed landscape, the skies merging with the fields to create subtle and densely atmospheric paintings. Peter Thursby Just moved for the third time, The Art Room – Topsham launches its new, more purpose-designed space with a really handsome show, effectively a retrospective, dedicated to the sculptor Peter Thursby who died earlier this year aged 80. Highly appropriate too, given Thursby’s lifelong connec- tions with the West of England and nearby Exeter (where he came to live) in particular and the exhibition gives a properly rou- nded sense of his always ex- ploratory working methods. Trained in the spirit of post-war Images from left: T eresa Lawton ‘Moon Struck’ at Highgate Contemporary. Peter Thursby, ‘Head’, 1960, at The Art Room - Topsham. Jessica Voorsanger, ‘Christmas Card Project’ at Cafe Gallery. Walter Keeler, ‘Iconic Tea Pot’, at Gallery Nine. 13. GALLERIES SEPTEMBER 11 THUMBNAILS

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