The Brian Sinfield Gallery in Burford offers a typically strong line-up of exhibitions this autumn. Four artists, diverse in style, subject matter and influence, four imaginations at work, and each artist using paint in quite different ways, adds up to an exciting few months at the long established Cotswold gallery.
The season got off to a fine start last month with an exhibition of enigmatic Italian influenced paintings by William Balthazar Rose. Now, opening October 12-23, the focus shifts to Yorkshire and Jake Attree’s paintings, which offer quite a different exploration of light, tone, and texture. His trademark heavy impasto gives his work a sculptural or woven quality. So it’s fascinating to learn Attree’s Halifax studio is on a mill complex where carpets were once made. Another Attree trademark is close observation, and in works like Key to the City we see him moving closer to abstraction. Here, as too in View across an Ancient City, red rooftops bisect the picture, grey Minster looms beyond, his love of the city of his birth shines through. Attree gives a talk in the gallery at noon on October 12.
In November we have work by award-winning portrait painter Antony Williams. His work also relies on observation. “Williams seeks truth,” said gallery director Miranda Marks. “He pays incredible attention to detail, his works take forever.” Oliver Cromwell told his portraitist to paint him, famously ‘warts and all’. Williams takes this approach, using egg tempura, painting every hair, line, blemish. This can cause controversy, as his portrait of HM The Queen did in 1996. Exhibiting at the Brian Sinfield Gallery for the first time, Williams shows small and larger works, including the precise pensive portrait of Emma Jane (shown).
Visit briansinfield.com
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here