It's All Greek

It’s 1964, you’ve seen an advert for a holiday villa in The Lady, it’s owned by a widowed amateur artist.

Enjoying a whimsically privileged life, she spends half her time in her Grecian villa, half in a fisherman’s cottage in St Ives.

The advert boasts beautiful light, views over olive groves to the mountains and a bohemian atmosphere. You book, fly, rock up – with baited breath, this is the 1960s!!

Dumping your heavy cases, you fiddle with the lock, the doors swing open, and a veil of dust greets you, dancing in the glaring sun; you look inside, the room appears dark, but you make out the vague shapes of paintings on the walls.

These paintings hang today in the gallery space on the walls of the Jam Factory… well, they don’t actually, (these are new works by London based artist Isobel Pravda)… but on viewing these works in the back room at the Jam Factory, you could be forgiven for believing that story!

Isobel Pravda has a BA in Acting from the Central School of Speech and Drama, and I feel there is a certain confident flamboyance present in the execution of her works.

Pravda hadn’t picked up a paintbrush since her A levels, before moving to Greece for a short spell, and it shows.

However, inspired by her surroundings she sought a creative outlet to channel her energies – enter the easel. Whether borne from her eastern European heritage, or subconscious undertones of her drama-based education, Pravda’s emotive work and paint handling hints towards that of the German Expressionists, her palette and the feeling of theatricality, towards Paul Nash and the Neo-Romantics.

There is a clear, and pleasing understanding of the human form in Pravda’s work, an understanding more sophisticated than that of ability to depict nature.

Pravda’s grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, actor, director, and painter played a pivotal role in the artist’s creative spirit.

This lady exposed her granddaughter to the galleries of London and Europe, and there remains a beautifully childish naivety in Pravda’s work, a liberal approach that screams of the positive sentiment.

The Jam Factory’s gallery manager Afroditi Aparti commented: “This was Isobel’s true art school and these European experiences feature heavily in her work.”

Corfu to Corinth presents interpretations of the olive-skinned human form, domestic interiors, and the Greek winter.

Accurately depicting a warm, natural light, and clear, cool tones, Pravda possesses strong observational abilities, and a commitment to storytelling.

Some works are questionable in quality, though one can feel the determined passion of this painterly raconteur grow, and develop in skill through the works in this exhibition.

It is a skill that allows the viewer to forgive the inclusion of several works in this exhibition, causing you to pause and enjoy the silent symmetry echoed in the glassy surface of the water in Painting 11 and soak up the poetry of the man-made angular rooftops of Painting 12’s triptych that sit scorched, and sun-drenched, jarring against the curvaceous, wild landscape beyond them.

Corfu to Corinth isn’t a great exhibition, but it’s a pleasant one; and after you’ve dried off, and thawed out in the Jam Factory Bistro, perhaps enjoyed some roasted plum tomato and basil soup, and a glass of red (or two), the exhibition just might take you back to that holiday you had.

For me though, Corfu to Corinth left me with a slightly funny taste in my mouth, the type you can’t quite put your finger on… a bit like Ouzo doesn’t taste quite the same once you’ve got it home.