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New English Art Club Annual Exhibition is at the Mall Galleries |
Alone under the
English skies
A LONE fishermen gets to grips with his trusty boat on a shingle beach.
Is it the tides, depleted stocks or simply business as usual? Jason Bowyer’s painting, the highlight of a new exhibition of English artists at the Mall Galleries in the West End, prompts so many questions it could be a riddle in the back of a newspaper.
Bowyer seems to be wrestling with the idea of what it means to be alone and, perhaps more presciently, questions about our national identity.
Running with that idea a step further though, where are these Englishmen alone in the world with nothing else in their lives but the beach, the sea and the sky? With such men apparently a dying breed in our service-based economy, is it even natural at all?
These are questions you can ask yourself as you wonder around the excellent New English Art Club open exhibition.
This year’s show includes a celebration of the 90th birthdays of well-loved artists Bernard Dunstan and Diana Armfield. The couple, who met at art school during the war, had lost touch until Diana saw a painting of Bernard’s in the 1947 Royal Academy Summer exhibition.
The New English brand, as it were, represents the very best of British figurative art and there is plenty on offer for fans of the genre.
JAMIE WELHAM
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