The Beautiful is always bizarre

This exhibition is a selected mixed group show. The title of the exhibition is a quote from Charles Baudelaire and artists were invited to submit work that responded to and/or resonated with the quote. The result is an incredibly diverse selection of work featuring photography, sculpture, painting, printmaking, ceramics, textiles and mixed media work.

From a conceptual sculpture work imbued with wry humour by Jill Gibson titled ‘She lost her libido under the sofa’, and female icons from stage and screen with added hand stitched beards by Sadie Hennessy to complex, surreal, large scale photography by Diogo Duarte and Bex Ilsley, the exhibition celebrates the bizarre and wonderful.

Intricately rendered paintings by Finley Ralph describing children interacting with fantastical toys & monsters in ‘candy’ colours sit alongside a brightly coloured dual image painting by Bruce Rimell informed by visionary dreams which reveals its hidden image only under UV.

There are a number of portraits as part of the exhibition, one by Bren Head, a large scale richly painted, striking but haunting image in contrast to a mixed media rendering of Charles Darwin, by Dan Cimmerman, who was well known for his fascination for the bizarre and wonderful works of nature which both delighted and confounded him.

Printmaking works of a very different nature offer other interpretations on the title. Nicki McNaney uses the book form to offer us ‘The scent of a woman’ via delicate dry point etchings of anthropomorphic perfume bottles, whereas Mary Kuper investigates the etymology of the word ‘Bizarre’ in a print reminiscent of historic illustrated manuscripts.

Artists exhibiting include: Mary Kuper, Garry Barker, Lois Palframan, Bren Head, Bruce Rimell, Bex Ilsley, Dan Cimmerman, Mark Youd, Jill Gibson, Melissa Dawson, Diogo Duarte, Sadie Hennessy, Nicki McNaney, Carolyn Corfield, Enzo Marra, Aphra O’Connor, Adrian Look, Finlay Ralph, Steve Carrick, Tom Barker, Nick Hunter.

“I am very grateful to be celebrating 25 years of Cupola gallery and I feel it is extremely important to keep a sense of wonder and curiosity. This exhibition allowed me to indulge my interest in the bizarre and to share yet more examples of the diversity of talent that exists within the visual arts”. Karen Sherwood, Founder, Director, Curator.

Work for sale.