Galleries - May 2018

fiercely worked, irregularly shaped and ripped visceral landscapes unmistakably breathe the experience of light and space, wind and rain that, so to speak, went into their making. Then you turn to the young ceramicist, Tanya Gomez (her first show here) and find in the creation of these delicate, thin walled pieces, often made on the wheel in several sections, the torn porcelain often left untouched and untrimmed, the consciousness of natural phenomena, the sea in particular for, as it turns out she lives by the sea and is an experienced sailor. And the sculptor, Anthony Scott; his animal pieces are made witha similar intensity, working from sketches “changing, fleshing out the character of the piece” as he puts it, filling them with that sense of the Celtic mythology he feels to be suchan essential part of their being. Nicholas Usherwood Of the many galleries in the town Belgrave St Ives is the one to watch when seeking work by artists associated with St Ives and the Modernism it engendered. Recent shows have covered artists such as Sven Berlin, Patrick Hayman, and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham as well as contemporary artists working locally. This month the gallery’s flagship exhibition celebrates the legacy of the town with a group show combining some of the great and the good – Hepworth, Heron, Hilton, Frost – with work by others who were also active in those ebullient post-war years. As such it’s a chance to re- evaluate painters such as John Barnicoat, Harry Ousey and Bob Crossley, who working in the penumbral shadow of the greats, have perhaps been overlooked. Take your eyes from that distinctive Hilton line for a moment and look at Barnicoat’s pen drawing of the harbour; St Ives may well have been a broader church than once was realised. Pip Palmer AND FINALLY. . . Showing at this month’s London Original Print Fair are Long & Ryle and also Pratt Contemporary with work by Ana Maria Pacheco, Alison Lambert, Hugo Wilson, Marcus Rees Roberts and Kristian Krokfors . Meanwhile The Landmark Arts Centre’s Spring Art Fair also this month, is an opportunity to view a wide range of work in all media by some 100 exhibiting artists. painter-heroes, and one that, quite coincidentally, also features serious childhood illness. Diagnosed as a baby with a heart condition, the school art room, presided over by a twinkly ex-military art teacher, became Roberts’ playground rather than the sports field, and there poring over art books, he came across three painters who led his thinking: Tom Coates, Fred Cuming and Ken Howard. Move forward two decades to 2018 and here he is exhibiting with the first two of them and their close associates, Tom Coates’ wife Mary Jackson and his daughter Julie Jackson. For all of them, that tenacious tradition of tonally based plein air painting that goes right back to Sickert, Steer et al, the sensuous and truthful rendering, through gesture, texture and colour of the sensations, that come from standing in front of nature, are everything. Pure pleasure. A Welsh-based landscape painter, an Irish sculptor of animals and an English abstract ceramicist; at first sight this month’s group show at Beaux Arts Bath would seem to indicate no obvious or immediate connections but look a little closer at their work and their background and some subtle, poetic resonances gradually begin to emerge. For example David Tress’ MAY 2018 GALLERIES 9 from left A nthony Scott ‘Study for Etain VI’ Beaux Arts Bath Kyffin Williams ‘Rough Sea, Trearddur Bay’ The Albany Gallery Andrew Roberts ‘Untitled – Blossom’ Gallery 8 Terry Frost ‘Three Graces’ Belgrave St Ives Marek Zuławski POSK Gallery S t Ives names Bath trio