Exhibition Reports

We hope during the run of the exhibition to publish some writings based on the images in the show and our reactions to them. To give a flavour we include below a piece relating to a previous environmentally themed exhibition ' Take to the Trees'

"Raven" by Margaret Jackson

"As she goes through the exhibition, the visitor reaches the back wall of the gallery. She turns her head to look at the painting that takes the centre place. .

Her expression changes and she shudders as if caught by a sudden chill wind.

‘I hate it,’ she says. ‘It’s evil, I couldn’t have that in my house!’

I stand back and consider the painting; needless to say, there is no red spot next to it.

On the blank, white wall of the gallery, the painting seems to throb with life, dominating completely the works around it. The canvas is under-painted in a dense shiny black, creating the illusion of a ‘black hole’, sucking light and life from its surroundings.

The shape made by the grey rocks forming the background resembles giant bleached skulls, or the heads of pagan idols, making the hollow appear as the courtyard of an abandoned temple.

The black, spindly outline of the rowan looks like a skeleton, still wearing its ragged shroud, or perhaps a priestess, guardian of the temple, standing at the entrance; but is she beckoning me in or warning me off?

The circle of shocking, vivid red that dominates the central ground looks like a ring of fire, like a lava flow, or the fires of hell itself. Is this a lost entrance to the underworld?

And then, as my eyes focus on the two outsized black feathers lying in the middle of the ring, the ring becomes a sacred circle, and my mind turns to the ‘black cockerels’ of Lancashire witch-lore; to Satanism and sacrifice.

And I make a mental note to set all this down as soon as I’m out of the gallery."

Excerpt from Pictures at an Exhibition" by David Jackson