Lesson Learned

Could try harder, shows potential, lacks motivation, a delight to teach, does not apply themselves, a star pupil, easily distracted, 10/10, tendency to day-dream… ahh, the memories and sounds that resound on parents’ evenings.

But now, nestled in a quiet corner of Oxford Castle Quarter the shoe is quite firmly on the other foot.

O3 Gallery opened Art Teachers’ Exhibition (title underlined in red ink with the barely decipherable scrawl ‘lacks imagination’ beside it) to the public on Saturday and the show will continue until Sunday, February 19.

Presenting a countywide art and design league table of practicing what you preach this show offers up an interesting concept, and the opportunity for art students to make the most of this rare opportunity to see a showcase of their teacher’s works laid bare, open to constructive criticism (don’t forget the visitors book) in O3 Gallery.

With more than 20 teachers’ works on the wall, being performed, and pinned to dress-makers’ models, this exhibition presents an eclectic mix of contemporary art practice.

Years at art school have reinforced just how subjective art can be in terms of personal preferences, and I maintain that it’s incredibly difficult to hold different genres up alongside one another and compare them in terms of skill and execution. That said, most people know talent and intrigue when they come across it – and there’s a lot of it spinning around the cylindrical space of O3 Gallery.

One of the artists, Nicola Belson pointed her work out to me, a dramatic photographic portrait, and joked that in her opinion it’s far from one of the strongest pieces in her portfolio, but obviously the one that spoke loudest and clearest to the curator.

For me, accomplished art has to work on many levels but ultimately convey the same, or at least similar, message to every viewer. On that note, perhaps the most arresting, and certainly one of the most accessible works in this exhibition, is the large, Lucien Freud-esque portrait of a man hung high in the lower gallery. Bold, sculptural brush-strokes carve the figure into, and out of, the canvas in this accomplished artwork.

Below the aforementioned painting Rhiannon Evans danced around the space on Friday night, entangled in the physical and metaphorical web of her site-specific installation and happening. Taking her inspiration from the history of the Oxford Castle Quarter, Evans uses rope and thread to demonstrate concepts of capture and attempts at escape. Visitors can watch this ordinary looking lady reenact this struggle in O3 Gallery on Wednesday, February 1, 6-6:30pm and Saturday, February 4, 2-2:30pm (I’d recommend timing your visit).

One work that jumped off the wall at me was Ok So She’s A Dog by Lewis Saunders, whose graphic, pop-art inspired print and equally punchy title hints at consumer society. This provocative print has been hung on the staircase at O3 Gallery and while the colour and content draw the viewer in, the concept of the work is repelling, and flips the viewer backwards over the banister rail. A powerful piece of work.

Other notable work is that of Jane Strother, whose practice is utterly delightful. Her carefully composed washes of colour and masterful mark-making dance airily across the picture plane. Strother leads the viewer on a sensory journey through her work.

Commenting on her practice, she says: “…beginning with the physical experience of being in a place and subsequent first painted response – recogniseably landscape painting complete with perspective and local colour. The journeying will take me beyond this to a painted evocation of a less tangible feeling of what it is like to be there.”

And she certainly achieves this as her work delicately took me by the hand and led me through her highly atmospherically charged abstracted landscape.

It was also interesting to see Isobel Jasmine Baugh’s textile art included in this exhibition, and receiving much attention at the private view.

Undoubtedly beautiful and highly accomplished I barely gave the work a second look, and upon reflection, this sums up the horses for courses nature of creative practice, and the struggle art teachers must experience introducing students to the subjective world of art.

Who’s to say what is good or bad, or merely indifferent, when one voice transfixes a viewer’s gaze and attention in a way that others are oblivious to? Is finding an artist whose work one admires the same as falling in love, and if so, surely that’s a good thing?

Some say variety is the spice of life, it certainly gives us something to talk about, and this exhibition presents a great opportunity to view dramatically diverse works by educators from across the county spanning university lecturers to primary school teachers – those paid to open up minds and imaginations to the exciting, diverse world of creative expression.

Other participating artists and familiar names include: David Bliss, Sue Calcutt, Patricia Drew, Shirley Eccles, Marianne Fowler, Robin Hepworth, Neil Mabbs, Hannah McCague, Thomas Nicolaou, Korky Paul, Adrian Pawley, Caroline Ritson, Wendy Roylance, Francesca Shakespeare, John Somerscales, Michael Spring, Kieran Stiles, Morag Anne Taylor, Andrew Walton and Sharon Wyper.

* O3 Gallery is a free entry art gallery in Castle Street Square, Oxford Castle Quarter. Call 01865 246131, email info@03gallery.co.uk or see 03gallery.co.uk The exhibition continues until Sunday, February 19.

Opening hours are: Weekdays 12-5pm and weekends 11am-4pm.