‘‘112020/Starting to Burn’’, Saskia Leek and Michael Harrison
(Brett McDowell Gallery)
BRETT McDowell Gallery is currently displaying work by Michael Harrison and Saskia Leek. Ostensibly two individual exhibitions, the borders between the two blur with the artists displaying work which shares major affinities of form and style.
Harrison’s five paintings run through several of the artist’s recurring symbols and themes: softfocus figures, stylised cats and hearts, and vague, Woollastonesque landscapes. Colour use is, paradoxically, both pastel and bold, to the point where Afterlife becomes a study of faint forms against a fierce ochre yellow. Change of Plans, with its two enigmatic figures, one facing the viewer and one with facial details erased, is the most haunting of Harrison’s works on display.
Leek’s work has slowly transformed over the years, to the point where abstraction, or at least semiabstraction, is now a major feature. In her nine untitled monotypes, also in strong yet pastel colours, concrete symbols and objects are invoked — notably in two still lifes with joyfully simplistic fruit, and other works featuring glowing suns and flowers — but the actual objects are largely left secondary to the effect of the colour, a fact enhanced by the works’ lack of titles. As important as the symbolism of the images is the gloriously painterly texture which has been achieved in these monotypes.