Dispatches from the Field

Brighton was an enlivening and uplifting, well-curated show, characterised by really strong, engaging painting, which had a raw quality and a naivete. Anita Kavaja created tender paintings often set in domestic spaces depicting human relationships. Elisha Enfield used a really exciting painterly touch – washes, stains, disturbances of paint and curious lighting – to form […]

Derby was a mixed bag. In Photography I liked the deadpan documentation of Samuel Deffley, whose series ’91 Campion Street’ depicted objects with a painterly touch against a tan background, reminiscent of American tromp l’oeil paintings, Wes Anderson’s way with objects and the dangerously bland backgrounds of Francis Bacon. Similarly deadpan, and with an in-built […]

Held at the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane the show sprawled out across 5 large spaces – the work was not densely arranged and each artist got their generous quota of space. The Illustrators displayed their works in a concertina, (snaking down a large space that also contained Photography) which acted as large scale portfolios, […]

It was clear that students at Oxford Brookes had been encouraged to think on their own terms, taken heed of this and moved swiftly onwards.  The show was characterized by the adventurous and individualistic. Often one finds, as is natural in any community, that certain influences become predominant, and at Brookes it was clearly influence […]