DEWSBURY Art Group’s Spring Exhibition at Batley Art Gallery has some high quality work with everything from acrylics and watercolours to textiles, etchings, linocuts and pottery.
Among the landscapes, Damian Clark’s gloriously coloured Burning Skies (oil) is the most striking, but there are plenty of other worthwhile efforts, like J A Hartley’s snow-filled Yorkshire Winter scene and a gouache in familiar style by Bruce Mulcahy – another snow scene, featuring the buildings of Dewsbury.
Malcolm Jones provides some painterly and realistic images of Caphouse Colliery, while David Wood’s Surprise Fall (oil) is another of his successful all-green paintings.
Late afternoon, St Mark’s Square, an acrylic by Trevor Pittaway, is a delightfully-lit study of the famous Venetian location, capturing the architecture and crowds in magical style.
John Lewis’ Reflections of the Rebel Within is a highly atmospheric, all-blue acrylic with a man walking the city street smoking a cigarette with his hands in his pockets.
Also smoking a cigarette is a J A Hartley’s British icon, Michael Caine – a powerful portrait here – while the same artist’s American icon, Madonna, is shown in typical pose with head flung back and sporting bright red lipstick.
The exhibition, open Mondays to Saturdays, runs until March 6.
