Dorothy Cross’ ‘The First Supper,’ is comprised of 12 unique, hand-blown glass chalices each covered in a thin layer of liquid silver.

Throughout the 1990’s Dorothy Cross’ remarkable body of work sought to create a very particular and provocative beauty by repositioning the physical body and desire at the centre of Christian mythology and iconography. Cross’ 1992 work ‘The First Supper,’ can be considered a key work that exemplifies the artist’s approach at the time. The work makes playful reference to the Last Supper, both its religious origin and its representation through art history but this is the First Supper and here the twelve objects prefigure the twelve apostles. Here the twelve participants are ambiguously gendered as their forms suggest both phallus and breast. Here, each object can be read as a chalice or a teat, as symbolic or bodily, as male or female.

'Arms', by Dorothy Cross features a gold gilded, bronze cast of the right and left arm, each with the index finger held in a pointing gesture. This gesture is a recurring motif in Dorothy Cross' work which can be seen in her ‘pointing the finger’ series of photographs from 1994, or later work like her 2011, 6 ft long bronze stalactite, ‘Earth’.

Mark Francis’ ongoing fascination with the ‘mysteries of the universe’ provides the point of departure for his recent paintings.  The invisible energy which powers all cosmic activity including our very own existence is given form and structure in these new paintings; 

 'As a starting point, I visualise the universe is made up of a loosely structured grid where order and chaos can reside. As the work develops, this quickly gets lost or moves aside in the painting process. I like to visualise the paintings as the photographic moment capturing the birth and death of invisible energy'.

Over the past thirty years, Francis has made paintings of this singular optical intensity – powerful, apparently abstract combinations of concentrated patterning and stark colour contrasts that are in fact principally based on what the unaided human eye lacks the power to see. His work draws significantly on discoveries about the form and substance of reality that result from technologically enhanced vision.

In 2020 Callum Innes started a new body of work with Quinacridone Gold as a primary colour.  In sharp contract to the prevailing condition of this year these new works radiate with an incandescent light.

Callum Innes' paintings are highly disciplined. His process is a careful balance between applying and dissolving paint, using the act of redaction as a creative gesture. The result are compositions of painterly determination and uncertain spaces of residual luminous colour combining the controlled authority of the monochrome with ever-present traces of fluidity and an always-apparent tendency towards formal dissolution.

In his recent series, 'Arizona' Brian Maguire continues his critique of contemporary capitalism, painting images based on events at the southern border of the USA. Some five years ago Maguire began to research the annual fatalities of Central American migrants in the deserts around Tucson, Arizona. The numbers of those who have died are frightening, the recent annual average is 145 deaths. In September 2019 Maguire made contact with the Chief Medical Officer of Pima County who allowed access to the images of the dead which were originally created by law enforcement. From 500 cases Maguire selected 90 as an archive from which to create these paintings. The dead remain anonymous to protect the families privacy.

In the new body of work, Daniel Rios Rodriquez continues his exploration of personal symbolism in greater depth and on a much larger scale. These paintings are built up collages of painting, found objects and ornate wooden frames articulating landscape, still life and pattern while continually informed by his surroundings, the American south-west. The artist's Mexican-American heritage and his interest in pre-Columbian iconography inform this work that celebrates colour, vibrancy and materials in a unique and intimate way.

25 years after the genocide in Rwanda a unique initiative pairs perpetrators with their victims - where they raise a cow together, in an effort to reconcile and develop a sustainable future.

The initiative 'Cows for Peace', that brings the people together in reconciliation workshops is run by an organisation called CARSA who are also building a museum for peace and reconciliation to spread the project to other rural communities impacted by the genocide. 

This new painting is part of a series the artist began earlier in 2020 during 'lockdown', rooted in the physical world but attempting a departure from it with an intensity of energy, bold lyricism, and Tomasko's distinctive unabashed sense of colour. Under the collective title ‘Hold on to yourself’ these paintings echo the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' song of the same name that cries out for a future where one can lie down with and hold another person again. 

Marcel Vidal's paintings exploit photorealism and extreme cropping to create images that are often disarming and unsettling with an ominous beauty.    

In this new series created in 2020 Vidal has turned his attention to details of tents. These works continue the artist's interest in the push and pull between highly crafted representation and extreme composition. The tent paintings offer the satisfaction of detail and perfectly rendered fabric while generating frustration by withholding information or a wider comprehensive view. In so doing they act differently at different distances, seen as colour-field abstractions from a far and forensic observation up close.