Galleries - April 2012

and the Road to the Isles', following a recent visit to the Scottish Highlands – by David Prentice, one of today's leading landscape watercolourists, who arrived at this prominence via a rigorous abstract early career, which is reflected in the strength and form of his later work. A dog sculptor I know admits that most of her sales go to people who want to cherish the memory of an old friend. Gallery Pangolin 's Best in Show: The Dog stretches the genre to include a jackal, a wolf, a hangdog, a stardog and a rawdog. No Astas or Uggies here, but humour and warm feelings aplenty. Down at the Rabley Drawing Centre , just south of the M4near Marlborough, you'll find abstract landscape drawings, 'The Oldbury Chapters' from Tim Harrisson, with stone sculpture installations too, plus smoke fired vessels by Joanna Still (until 21 April). Lastly, advance warning of a Fine Art weekend (4-7 May) in the grounds of Wilton Castle in Herefordshire. Organised by Beckford Fine Art, a consultancy set up to promote and advise artists, and to provide the link between maker and buyer, this will be a chance to buy work directly from exhibitors. Something for everyone, whether you're a devotee of William Tyndale or Hugh Grant, both erstwhile Cotswold residents: the same house in fact. John Nash and Eric Ravilious became friends while teaching at the RCA, and visited Bristol in November 1938 on Nash's recommendation that it was 'a good place' to paint. They would walk down to the docks to watch the cargoes of tobacco and timber being unloaded and examine the paddle steamers laid up for the winter. So engrossed was Ravilious that he almost got run over by one of the Harbour Railway trains: 'Lucky for you I saw you, old cock, or you'd have been a box of cold meat!' The exhibition at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol ('Eric Ravilious: Going Modern/ Being British' until 29 April) which explores his perspective on the social, cultural and physical landscape of prewar Britain, also sees the launch of the latest in the Mainstone Press's brilliant series on this much loved artist. Sarah Drury landscape around Derbyshire's Peak District, that land of dry stone walls and hill-hugging clouds. The natural world also inspires Celia Lendis 's spring exhibition, followed by the haunting work of Tasmanian Troy Ruffels, whose digital prints have earned him international attention. There is something other-worldly in the images he derives from nature, and I wasn't surprised to find this quote attributed to him: “There are other pathways we may travel in life – another level of appreciation, of understanding, of communicating with the world we inhabit – other than the one that is sold to us as being real.” The Art Gallery in Tetbury has work inspired by if not another world, then another continent. Charles Willmott, who specialises in capturing dancers on canvas, will be showing his latest series based on Midnight Tango , staged at the Aldwych Theatre. If your tastes run to less active pursuits, and a spell pulling up weeds or unpacking the garden furniture is as much exercise as you care to contemplate, then perhaps the catalogue of Architectural Heritage will be more your line. I've always fancied an obelisk, but they can supply everything from birdbaths to wellheads, by way of plinths, statues and staddle stones. Not far away in Moreton-in- Marsh, at the end of April (28th) the John Davies Gallery will be showing new paintings – 'Skye Page 20: H ans Vangsø ‘Thrown stoneware fluted jars’ at The Stour Gallery This page from left: Lewis Noble ‘Sun but Rain coming at me’, mixed media on canvas, 56 x 56cm (detail) at Campden Gallery Michael Cooper ‘Wolf’, bronze, Edition of 5, 143cm high at Gallery Pangolin C harles Willmott ‘Midnight Tango’.The Art Gallery Close shave BRISTOL 24. GALLERIES APRIL 12