Spellbound

Red Dot Exhibitions
School of Art & Design, 68 Hope Street
22nd November – 2nd December 2005 (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm)

Reviewed by Adam Ford

Over the last eighteen months, Red Dot have achieved on a shoestring what many publicly-funded galleries in the city have failed to do – put on consistently interesting exhibitions. Their latest effort – ‘Spellbound’ – is one more example of this pattern.

John O’Neill should be well known to Nerve readers, having provided the breathtaking backdrops for our last two covers. Those paintings – ‘Clown Hospital’ and ‘Summit of Despair’ are shown here, as is ‘Paradise Lost’ – a furious rendering of the corner of Paradise Street and its permanently red traffic lights that is scratched through with a bleak fury.

The work of Michelle Burrows has also impressed me greatly in the past , and with ‘Gormley’ she has continued to do so here. She leaves Antony Gormley’s cast iron figures behind on Crosby beach, her photo is tinted with acid colours and draped in a spider’s web.

Sue Milburn has created two very abstract canvases which dominate one side of the gallery, imposing themselves upon the viewer and demanding attention. In ‘I’ve Forgotten’, vertical stripes of colour gradually give way to a daunting blackness, whereas ‘Not So Anymore’ sees great big waves of blue sweep all souls up in their vigor and animation.

If that’s not enough then Ken Ashton, Leon Jakeman, Colin Serjent and Claire Stringer also contribute some intriguing pieces to what is yet another must see exhibition from the team.