Alex Uxbridge Recent Paintings 10 March – 8 April 2006 The links between all manifestations of Uxbridge's talent are primarily a matter of mood. In his earlier works, exhibited at the Boundary Gallery three years ago, everything pervaded by a species of melancholy depicted in a selection of his typical characters at a cocktail party or making love under the full moon. In more recent pictures, Uxbridge turns with renewed interest to 'pure' landscape. He says that his landscapes in the past used to be filtered through memory, but now he also paints directly from the subject, in the best Impressionist, plein-air tradition. He still chooses, though, places that seem suffused with melancholy, the deserted parts of the Anglesey coast or the disused copper mine, and when there are figures included they generally seem isolated, gazing wanly out to sea. Meanwhile, his 'town' pictures have moved further away from on-the-spot observation, relying now on memory, or even outright invention, as in the imaginary 'Cities at Night' . Maybe Uxbridge's back-story throws some light, maybe not. He is one of five children brought up in the Anglesey stately home, Plas Newydd. Settled in London, he went into publishing, and then set up his own business. It was not till he was in his thirties that he enrolled in art school for four years, since when he has devoted himself completely to painting, and spends part of his time in a very remote cottage on the coast of Anglesey. To many it will sound like an idyllic existence, and possibly even to his conscious mind it has been and is. But there are clearly demons to be exorcised. Long may they lodge in his unconscious, provided he is able to let them out in art of such vibrancy and power. Boundary Gallery 98 Boundary Road London NW8 0RH tel 020 76241126 www.boundarygallery.com