All commercial galleries tread a fine line between indulging their own taste and marketing works that sell. Happily, the Union Gallery on Broughton Street has a knack of combining the two without compromising on quality.
Their latest exhibition (which runs until 14 February) is called 'Small and Perfectly Crafted'. All the works on show are modestly sized and moderately priced. That aside, the pieces – by over 20 contemporary artists – have little in common. There is an exciting range of approaches which defies simple categorisation. It is easier to concentrate on four favourites.
Jean Hall's delicately poised compositions caught the eye here in December, and she returns this month with two more exquisite oils. 'Japanese Girl on Indigo' (above) combines gorgeously bold blues and reds with exquisite detail and stillness. In this painting there is little perspective, but nevertheless a layering of fabrics which points to a line of attention, thought or contemplation. Hall's precision – the almost ritual care with which her forms are chosen and placed – suggests that painting for her is itself a kind of rite, a physical evocation of an inner space.
[img_assist|nid=1472|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=113|height=200]Very different in style are Imogen Alabaster's intriguing and vibrant squares using mixed media on canvas. They resemble visions – perplexing and often rather feverish – and encode intensely personal statements about the artist and her relationships. These I am in no position to decode, but her work still speaks. In 'Bury My Dreams' (detail, right), two submarine penguins plunge through the greeny deeps leaving trails of bubbles rising behind them. The image is beautifully rendered, the streamlined convexity of the birds almost touchable. These are not the comical performers seen through glass at the zoo, but mysteries remote from us, purposeful and at ease in their own cold, darkening medium.
[img_assist|nid=1470|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=637|height=640]Siobhan O'Hehir also paints water, in this case using oil, wax and collage to create 'Flood II' and 'Flood III' (below). These pieces certainly complement each other, but are independent. No explicit narrative is at play, although one's imagination inevitably weaves a story linking the viewer to the hills in the distance. There is much to admire in O'Hehir's technique here, her economy in conveying the pearly greys and reflected skies of winter. In fact, 'Flood III' left such an impression on this reviewer that it later unexpectedly featured in a dream about Cramond Island and the misunderstanding of tide tables, from which he did not emerge well.
Finally, we come to Cathy Campbell's 'Two Glasses', an oil on board whose title – for no reason I can fathom – does not mention the vase slap bang in the middle. The photograph below (a detail) fails to show the painting's beautiful subtlety, the way its objects are lifted in light, unbalanced – liberated – by the diagonal band running behind and through them. A great deal of skill went into making it appear so simply lovely. AM
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