The Oxford Gallery

Abstract

The Oxford Gallery (23 High Street), a British Design Centre, is an independent gallery presenting a mixture of contemporary crafts and fine art. Its independent status enables it to offer new international graphics, a permanent British design exhibition, and about ten exhibitions of fine art throughout the year. Recent fine art exhibitions have been especially interesting in differing artistic media. The last 1978 exhibition (27 November 3 January 1979) showed Collages by Terry Frost and Sculpture by Ann Christopher. The first show of 1979 (15 January 7 February) had Patrick Scott's recent paintings in tempera in the main gallery, and the lower gallery offered an unusual display of modern printmaking in the Barcham Green print competition. Terry Frost has worked in the medium of collage since 1950. His recent work consists of large static forms, composed of uncompromising colours, frequently using black as a foil. His use of collage is a formal one, emphasising colour and shapes rather than representational values. He is an admirer of Juan Gris, who helped launch collage as an art form in Paris in the 1920s. Black, White, and Blue, is composed of diminishing triangles characterised by the bold play of colour; deep blue is set against matt white against jet black, and the darkest and smallest triangular form holds this play of falling cards in check. In other collages the vertical is emphasized and varieties of form protrude well out of the picture plane, achieving dimensions unusual in Frost's work. Sleek sculpture in bronze by Ann Christopher formed an unusual accompaniment to Terry Frost's collages. The sculpture showed a high quality of craftsmanship. The small 9 inch bronze (number four of an edition of nine) has the highly polished elegance of a natural form, the First Wall Bronze, although only 11 in. high, has the massive quality of a much larger piece. Patrick Scott's recent tempera paintings, silkscreen prints, and nature drawings in ink and tempera in the gallery's first exhibition of 1979 are works of restrained beauty and formalism. The largest painting is the vivid Fount of 1976. A spectrum divides the neutral canvas, wavy pale white lines reaching to the edges from the base. Screenprints on beige, textured canvas, in editions of 25, carry further his experiments with limited colour and undulating lines. In contrast, his beautiful ink and tempera drawings were composed out-of-doors in his own grounds in Ireland. Rapidly drawn on Ingres paper, these variations on the nature themes of falling boughs of trees and grasses use space to achieve an Oriental calm. The touring exhibition from the Barcham Green Printmaking Competition, selected by David Case, Christopher Prater, Michael Rothenstein and Rosemary Simmons, was seen at Christie's Contemporary Arts Gallery last October. A wide variety of contemporary printmaking processes were shown, having in common their use of hand-made paper of various kinds. For the uninitiated, the type of paper and the technique used was noted on each entry, adding great technical interest to the qualities of the prints themselves. The overall prize went to John Vince and John Furnival of the Bath Academy of Art for their clever photo silkscreen print (on Hayle Mill waterleaf HP) of two ancient records; entitled, naturally, Just for the Record. Bob Chaplin's photo-etching Silver-Lining consisting of six plates of varying effects of clouds broken by sunlight over the sea, with the horizon line on a different plane in each, made more imaginative use of the photographic image. The Silkscreen prize went to Wendy Taylor's famous bricks t ed into knots, printed on a rough weave yellowed De Wi paper whose sculptural texture gave to the print the beginnings of the relief form. Some of the most successful entries in the competition contributed to the revival of the mezzotint, first put to large-scale use by Reynolds in 18th century England. Holly Downing's Twelve Boxes (Joint Intaglio Prize) varying views of one box in twelve different plates with a remarkable play of shadows and angles did full justice to the medium. Aquatint etchings also figured in the exhibition.