The O3 Gallery website stated that “The exhibition will challenge the viewer’s sense of what constitutes an ‘ordinary landscape’, as Strother re-evaluates the term ‘ordinary’.”
That was not very promising.
To “challenge the viewer’s sense of what constitutes an x” and to “re-evaluate the term y” are such insufferable clichés of contemporary Artspeak. When are we going to realise that exhibition blurbs like this are ridiculous? Let’s put things in perspective (even though perspective is such an old-fashioned, Renaissance no-no; of course it’s all about the flat pictorial surface that challenges the viewer’s assumptions of how space is constructed). Still, let’s take a look back in recent history and understand that the art of the last fifty, nay, the last hundred years has been about deconstructing our assumptions about this and that. By now, I would not think that many of us have a sense of what constitutes a landscape at all. Anything. Nothing. Anyway, let’s just skip that part and go look at some paintings.
Were this not for the Cherwell, I would not have taken the walk to Oxford Castle based on the blurb alone.
But I did go and it was a lovely, thoroughly pleasing show.
To my fellow freshers out there – yes, Oxford does have a castle, and it is a wonderful mix-up of some medieval bits, a scary 18th-century prison, and modern buildings. There are gardens, flowers, ivy growing on stone walls, and a cute café. Amid all that nice scenery is the O3 gallery, housed in a round tower. It is a precious, tiny place. Strother’s landscapes stand out against the dark wall like gems with their brilliant colours. Also, the gallery attendants are very friendly. They even play music there, which challenges the viewer’s sense of the exclusive art gallery and makes the place seem relaxed and welcoming.
The exhibition includes about 30 paintings, hung one above the other in seeming disarray. The variety of the work is delightful – there are hardly any two paintings of the same format, and Strother plays with combining separate panels into diptychs and polyptychs. Styles range from hazy, colourful abstractions that look like the smell of spring, to realistic scenes such as a meadow by a river or a dark moor at night. I spent some time looking at a painting called Four Days in June, Yellow Walk. It is made out of four square panels representing brown hills over a period of four days. A winding yellow line connects them all, showing the passage of time over an extended walk.
If you care for Georgia O’Keefe, you might like the bright pinks and greens of the more abstract paintings. If you are a free spirit in touch with the outdoors, the realistic landscapes are for you. The exhibition is a great opportunity to spend some time with a friend and chat about poetry and nature. Just no talk of “redefining the term ‘ordinary’,” please.Ani Kodzhabasheva
