Lucy Cavendish
8 - 31 October 2008
Stove, Evening, 2008
51 x 40.5 cm
In her fourth exhibition at the gallery, Cavendish presented a wide variety of oil paintings that reaffirmed her position as a leading artist in the field of representational art. Large still-lives of flowers and intense studies of interiors and everyday objects are coupled with atmospheric views of Morecambe Bay and other areas of her native Cumbria. Following a period in Tobago, there are a series of works that present this Carribean Island.
Cavendish makes an intuitive and highly-charged emotional response to the visual world. She entirely rejects current extremes of deconstructivism or realism in order to super-charge representations of those things and places closest to her with her own sense of purpose. To that end, even small objects can be blown up on a giant scale and filled with a powerful impression of liveliness. The resulting images draw the viewer in to the picture space with increasing intensity.
Times art critic, Rachel Campbell-Johnston named the exhibition the number one show to see in October 2008. She wrote, 'Recent works capture the silver-grey of our seas and the damp green of our landscapes with lyrical sensitivity.'