Children and childhood have long been a source of artistic inspiration: their straightforward attitudes and way of seeing the world, uncluttered by the complicated thoughts and ideas that adulthood brings. It is this gentle simplicity that pervades the current exhibits at the Sarah Wiseman Gallery, a small art gallery in Summertown, geared more towards selling than exhibition, although it certainly doesn’t fail to showcase the works to their best.
On display here until the end of May can be found the sculpted wooden toys of Ian McKay and the silkscreen paintings of Catherine Rayner’s Creatures series. Both maintain a childlike frankness that charms and intrigues.
McKay’s wooden toys, well-crafted and mechanical (usually with handles that turn to animate the figures), are most definitely toys that are art, rather than the other way around. They often feature old-fashioned dolls or figurines at play, subverting their topics, such as The Three Graces Eating Candy Floss. It is in his work with driftwood, however, that Ian McKay’s skills as a sculptor and an artist really shine. The set is made up of small wooden ships, moved by handle, set in and around pieces of driftwood of varying size, the largest measuring some metre and a half in length and containing over twenty ships that move in sequence. The driftwood backdrops that form the structure lend them an element of desolate poignancy that contrasts nicely with the brightly coloured, childish boats.
Sarah Rayner’s silkscreen paintings, collectively titled Creatures, deal mainly with those that may be found in a rural garden, focusing on hares, rabbits and hedgehogs. At times her artistic style tends a little bit towards the static, becoming reminiscent of Beatrix Potter illustrations, but in her best works there is an energy and vitality to her creations that lend them real power. In Eva, for instance, the hare is slightly abstracted in form, but the impressionistic nature of it captures an animalistic sense of the creature.
The only letdown of the exhibition is how similar a lot of the works are. Driftwood toys are certainly interesting and strangely affecting, but the variations are mainly in size and minor details, rather than in overall appearance; two pieces may be identical save that one has a small model yacht and the other a small model liner. The same is largely true of Rayner, who sticks to much the same subjects throughout the series. Overall, it is interesting and strangely beautiful, but it’s hard to avoid the feeling that one gains as much from the window display as one does the entire exhibition.
