Two contrasting – or are they? – exciting, intense, multi layered and structured exhibitions are currently showing at the Traffic Jam Galleries .
Rebecca Pierce’s at times softly subtle, questioning and haunting works are joined by her thickly layered ,brightly coloured explosive works .
Katherine Wood’s exhibition is full of stormy, tempestuous skies, a dynamic horizon line and questions life and nature.Some of the works have tiny people and trees included .
For both exhibitions we see the artist at work in their studio and some of the artworks both in close up and on display of the works on elegant walls of a home. The Least Possible Resistance exhibition by Rebecca Pierce is a vigorous, pulsating presentation .The works shown glow and sometimes are abstract, crisp and clean with their fetching shapes .Or perhaps softer , more muted but still extremely expressive.
Most of the works are heavily layered full of swirling textures and vibrant colours. At times there is a great sense of verticality .and use of shadows.You see activity at work, and a vibrant explosion of colours in some works , contrasted with soft misty clouds and a melancholy atmosphere for others .
Tropicana and Black Cinnamon are thickly layered and Blossom – With Bees through the Branches – coils and surges upwards .
Blueberry Bombe is an icecream airburst of colourful flowers , while Toxic 15, Self portrait with Poison is in darker more sombre tones , pensive and melancholy , with blonde hair that is streaked with black and huge eyes with green eye shadow. Tulips at Table Cape after Torrential Rains is soft, swirling , misty clouds in pale pinks and blues.
Happy House is bold and dynamic, full off deceptively simple lines, shapes and colours – a large mushroom form dominates the work , with a great sense of verticality. In some ways it is similar to The Son is Shining – sans shadow with its bold deceptively simple shapes and sense of push/pull verticality .
Magic in the moonlight is a turquoise based sea of small flowers in the water and look out for the orange and yellow butterflies .
Shavings 19, 20 ,21 are three highly textured works, flurries of dynamic movement.
Katherine Wood’s parallel exhibition Finding Freedom is full of blustering, swirling seascapes ,full of turbulent powerful skies .
With You Anything is Possible has long vertical lines, stormy clouds and some green patches of beach. There is also a tiny person and a tree.
Free to Wonder consists of relatively neutral tones, with dynamic clouds pushing to the right while rocks, sand etc insist on heading the other way . There are a couple of tiny trees and a miniscule human figure.
Untamed Hearts has an ominously blue sky(, is it at low tide?) at the centre of the work .Lear We can see the sand slightly tilting towards the left. Two very small horses are having fun on the beach while the tide is low.
Learning to Fly has great clouds and crashing waves in neutral tones. A tree with large branches is partly submerged but is surviving.The tiny bird gives the work its name .
In the Now is a striking , frozen white depiction of vigorous clouds , with the horizon line cutting horizontally across the work .A tiny boat is depicted with swarms of insects .
Fire in Me is in grey and brown tones , with stormy clouds and on the beach a tiny tree and person.
Tranquillity is dominated by blue tones for an urgent sky , with a solitary person on the beach .
Just us and the sea is cold and stormy in blue tones with a single human figure on the beach.
Exploring Together has the cold ,flat ,beach stretching towards the horizon with lurking clouds and waves , with a tiny tree and two people .
The double exhibition runs at the Traffic Jam Galleries 18 May – 6 June 2024
Featured image : Take Us To Another World
