Anne James finds familiarity in Andrew Hood’s work

Based in Bristol, Andrew Hood’s specialism is creating landscapes and cityscapes using a mixture of expressionist and impressionist mark making, his brush strokes and strong ink lines telling the stories. Hood has been showing his work in Oxford for the last 10 years, over which period of time his paintings have become familiar to, and collected by, Oxfordshire residents.

This exhibition celebrates his first foray into painting in Oxford itself; one that he anticipates will be the first of many. In this body of work, Hood paints for people who both love and know their Oxford, people who rejoice in the ancient and historic city itself, and also in the hustle and bustle of Oxford today.

Trained as a draughtsman, he has put those skills to work to create the bones from which he develops powerful images — powerful thanks to his observational drawing and ability to break down to the essentials. The majority of work on show is in oil or oil and acrylic, the exceptions being Taylorian, St Giles, and Cornmarket Street, Junction, small pieces executed in situ in oil and ink, where cleverly executed linear tracery in black ink gives both emphasis and perspective to the underlying vibrant colours of each.

High Street, Oxford, in oil, although larger, was again executed in situ. In it, Hood celebrates the buildings on each side of the High in an explosion of pinks and blacks, which fade to optimistic ethereal blues, with the street itself darkly leading the eye towards the back of the picture and on to Heading-ton, Cowley, London and beyond.

Hood is a tall man and he executes most of his work on his studio floor. This enables him to create an elevated perspective, and an overview of places, buildings, people and activity.

Street Corner, Oxford, is observed from the top of Carfax Tower with the intense activity of the busy crowds observed from a dispassionate aerial perspective, their trajectories traced by the clever use of arc and line. City Centre, Junction Cornmarket, captures the same pivotal crossroads from a terrestrial perspective in which buildings lose their commercial selves rather celebrating their architecture in glorious golds with the muted outlines of individual people moving between them.

The exhibition is at the Sarah Wiseman Gallery, Summertown, until November 23.