Walls of Jericho

I went on a cultural mission to see some galleries last week in Oxford's trendy area, Jericho. It was a bit of a disaster, one of the galleries was closed because of an event, another had its door locked for no apparent reason and a third seemd to have closed completely!

However, after a very long walk along the Woodstock Road I managed to find the North Wall Arts Centre (embedded in the north wall of a boarding school). In the foyer was a fabulous exhibition of paintings and line drawings by South African artist Catherine Charnock. They were predominantly based on an area of woodland, but there were also a few paintings of urban scenes. together with cars, street furniture and brightly coloured city imagery.

The small black and white line drawings were exquisite but the paintings of the woodland were brilliant, layered in bold colours using a wide variety of methods of application, including a lot of drips. The drips of paint and other marks extended around the edges of the canvas - as she says in her blurb exploring "the dialogue between the paint and its canvas support".

Thank goodness I made it that far, the one exhibition was just the tonic for sore feet and a frustrating afternoon!!