Galleries - July 2010

23. GALLERIES JULY 10 CHRI S INSOLL New Gallery Portscatho Cornwall TR2 5HW T: 01872 580 445 drawings evoking birds in flight or Jo Welsh's bizarre and vaguely threatening, almost Bosch-like etchings and you will sense the range and frisson of the selection. Padstow Studio rarely hold exhibitions as such: artist/owner Sarah Adams works upstairs and shows a range of excellent work in the gallery below – Rachel Budd's landscapes and textiles by Kim Bentley (who designed for Paul Smith, Liberty's and the V&A but is now going it alone) are two worthy recent additions. But this month the focus has to be on Sarah's own work – large, panoramic views of coastline and caves, often the same view repeated but in changing light emphasising different details, different extra- ordinary textures. A large oil from the 'Buttress' series which was 'Viewers Choice' at the Royal West of England autumn show and a further study that won the Meynell Fenton prize at 'Discerning Eye' are here, as are other remarkable paintings from the series. A small but perfectly formed treat awaits visitors to Tate St Ives where 'Object: Gesture: Grid' contextualises St Ives within the wider framework of mid-20th C. European and US art and traces the influences and interplay at work between the two. It's a real ooh, ahh exhibition and is, or should be, something of a crowd puller, drawing as it does upon the Tate's own collection of British and international work of the period and bringing key pieces (overdue some might say – the last time was ten years ago) to this far flung home of British Modernism. Until September 26 the thinking of Nicholson and Hepworth is illuminated by the presence of Picasso, Braque and Brancusi while cross-currents of painterly expression are made real by the likes of Pollock, de Kooning and Rothko. S arah Adams, ‘Buttress 2’, oil on linen, 75 x 180cm at Padstow Studio. Maggi Hambling, ‘Laughing Wave 1’, acrylic on paper, 2009, 12” x 16” at Wills Lane Gallery. Ben Nicholson, ‘Five Circles’, 1934/62. Jeremy Gardiner, ‘Mellow Sun, Wheal Cotes’, acrylic & mixed media on panel, 30 x 46cm, both at Belgrave Gallery. Constantin Brancusi, ‘Fish’, at Tate St Ives. Elizabeth Hunter, ‘Woman by the Sea’, 50 x 50cm