There’s an understated quality to Leigh Chorlton’s latest paintings in the Whitespace outstation on Howe Street.
His canvases are small, his palette predominantly cool and restrained. The pieces' grounds sometimes emerge through sparely applied paint, giving them a sense of work in progress.
Such effects may partly stem from what Chorlton readily describes as a period of experimentation as he methodically struggled to free himself from artistic block. The paintings vary wildly in subject matter and interest, with some appealing less to this reviewer than others. However, when they work well, they work very well indeed.
I particularly enjoyed the blurred, furry motion of ‘Bee’ (above), but perhaps more characteristic of the exhibition are those paintings demonstrating Chorlton’s interest in geometries.
The attractive blues and greens of ‘Overpass’ soften and flatten an overhead view into an almost abstract study of contending vectors.
A similar vantage point is used in another highlight of the exhibition: ‘Garden’.
I liked also ‘Achmelvich Castle’, whose somewhat jumbled blocks reminded me of those impossible structures beloved by Escher. In fact, the castle’s unresolved distance from the viewer here disguises its unexpected scale in reality.
Other ambiguities attend the painting ‘Exit'. It may be admired as a study in colour and form. But that title – that unpeopled space, the smears of red, the unseen and unspecified destination at the top – left me unsettled. It had a strangeness in its familiarity, a discomfiting premonition of death in some shopping-mall backwater.
Finally, I admired the deceptive simplicity of 'Books'. It may tell part of the story of the artist's hard-won return to productivity. If so, it achieves this with elegant poise and a pleasing absence of histrionics. A sense of measured progression emanates from the stacked tomes, a quiet appreciation of compulsive beauty amid cool greens and that serenely textured violet.
Leigh Chorlton’s Metro continues at 25 Howe Street, noon–5pm, until Thursday.—AM