SARAH MAYHEW takes a look at a varied collection of artists’ works on display at Oxford’s Old Fire Station.

Mummy, is the lion making that noise, or the lady?” a small voice asked as she gazed into the monitors of Charlotte Freeston’s installation I’ll Have What She’s Having, her own puzzled reflection looking back at her through Meg Ryan’s eyes.

Freeston’s installation playfully dismantles and re-assembles the famous scene from the film When Harry Met Sally, pairing it with footage of a restless, gaping mouthed lioness.

Behind this work, high on the wall, hang two large light-boxes by Freeston and Valeska Hykel.

The work possesses the aesthetic appeal of candy-floss; you want to touch, lick, taste it, but you know it’s not going to do you any good, and you’re left curious as to whether there’s much more to it than the initial allure of the glowing fluorescent aesthetic. Regardless, it’s undeniably sexy (in a gratuitous way).

Infinitely more intriguing are Valeska Hykel’s screen prints. Precariously pinned on to re-claimed and recycled frames Hykel’s eye-catching icons draw the viewer in through the, at times ornate, at times brutal, veils of colour and ornate layers of contrasting imagery.

As I stood in front of these works I felt transported to a sandy land, taken on a journey to a place where I would discover new teachings, potential new life directions and a certain confused sense of freedom. I was interested to learn from the curators of the exhibition that Hykel had been raised among “a bizarre mix of Christians, Buddhists, atheists, psychic healers and colour therapists,” that had in turn shaped the contradictory aesthetic values in her sense of the world.

Other, somewhat meditative, work came in the shape of Sebastian Thomas’ prolific display of wall-mounted works that greets you as you enter the gallery from Gloucester Green, and draws you through the exhibition.

Thomas’ collages of curiosity piece together fragments of pop-culture, past and present, with dystopian voids, a sense of free-fall, in trepidation and hyper real scenic assemblages.

Asking the viewer to consider technology’s potential impact, economically, sociologically and environmentally, Thomas certainly has some big ideas, and I would imagine he needs help sleeping at night (or perhaps it’s in the twilight hour that he finds his inspiration); though he does manage to hone these ideas - perhaps not succinctly into a small series of works - but certainly across the breadth of works on paper that stand strong across this exhibition (and they are epic ideas).

This quietly grand display also works to neatly draw the other artists’ works together as a more unified whole than they might otherwise appear to be.

Interesting how some works just pass you by… and I’m sorry to say that I glanced at and proceeded to walk on by Tinhead’s illustrations, perhaps owing to a slightly obnoxious interview given in Bristol-based CRACK magazine (15th issue).

However, if you’re a fan of the Foals (you’ll recognize his work from the sleeve of their debut album Antidotes) and want to see their artwork first hand, come and get it!

Finally, feeling like a pastiche on Kirstie Allsopp’s Homemade Home I get the sense that Amy Honour may have hidden razor blades among the soft and fluffy stuffing that makes up her pretty wall-mounted piece My Life is Complete… Looming ominously over the viewer I wish there was more of Honour’s work in this exhibition, after all, less is not more as far as Kirstie’s concerned.

It’s an eclectic exhibition; the works share a certain socio-political pop aesthetic, and that is interesting insofar as an Oxford-based movement is concerned. But is it that challenging, or that interesting?

Well, Blessing Force have been gaining a lot of attention across the country, and what they’re doing as a collective is certainly of interest, but I wonder if it really is a case of security in cross-disciplinary numbers. View the artists’ work as stand-alone and you’ll come across a few gems within this exhibition, but the works are presented as a collective of artists, musicians, and writers.

Blessed Force don’t generally, present themselves as stand-alone, and if this work is anything to go by, I’m not entirely convinced many of them could to the same degree that they enjoy as a collective.

* The exhibition continues until Friday, February 24, at the Old Fire Station and Gallery.

See oldfirestation.org.uk email shop@oldfirestation.org.uk or call 01865 263980 It is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am-5pm.

Admission is free.