The Alleynian 702 2014

the searing landscapes of David Bomberg, Max Mortiboys produced arguably the finest paintings in the exhibition: five brooding, romantic portraits of the Surrey countryside in mixed media, using paint, ink, plaster, varnish, sawdust and pencil sharpenings in gradated layers. The finished sequence seemed almost magically rough-hewn from bare, Heathcliffian rock: obdurate yet glisteningly passionate. Finally: John Winter. These last words are rightly reserved for his stunning ceramics displayed with delicate, crystalline elegance in four black- framed boxes alongside text and ink drawings offering a kind of elliptical counterfeit image. The four small fastidious pieces, distant relatives of the German painter and sculptor, Anselm Kiefer, were majestically beautiful in their levels of detail, colour palette and interdependent symmetry. In microcosm, the deftness of technique and mercurial imagination here evident in four tiny, perfect shapes might well be considered the hallmarks of the entire exhibition.

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