This is a group show, entitlted Prints from the South Pavilion, the pavilion being the base for the artists involved. It makes a substantial exhibition composed of 65 pieces by ten artists, who cover a wide range of print-making techniques. The work of two is described here.
K. J. Layden uses mono-print to create powerful, bleak pictures in Milton Keynes at Night and Milton Keynes in Bad Weather. In the first, two birds perch on a skeletal street-light, whose glow is doing battle with an stormy black sky. In the second the battle continues with the scope of the light reduced and a solitary bird remaining.
Dogs feature heavily in Virginia Margerison’s work. In some she captures the animal essence of the black Labradors she uses; in others she links the dogs to myth and legend.
Her collograph Black Dog of Whitby (above) portrays the local legend of the dog that portents disaster for the town and its fisher-folk. The first impression is of a large black dog trampling and crushing the town while seeming to encourage a storm at sea. On closer inspection the gentle nature of the beast comes to the fore and the malign intent melts into doggy playfulness.
In her lino-cut of the starry constellation Bootes, Chara and Asterion, two black Labradors become those hunting dogs, raring to cross a deep blue sky beneath which nestles the dark skyline of Oxford.
The exhibition is at the Sewell Gallery until March 30. It is open every day.
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