The North Wall Arts Centre, in South Parade, Summertown, really comes into its own when displaying large canvases such as those by Luke Skiffington, which are now on show.

Not all Luke’s works are large — some are only 30x40cms — but his exhibition does include four impressive oils on canvas, measuring 200x160cm, which suit this space perfectly.

The large paintings reflect Luke’s concern with natural and man-made environments, as well as abstract imagery. He generally uses a manipulated structural line drawing as his starting point, to which he adds numerous layers of paint, adding and dissolving paint as the image takes form, to create trickles of paint that weep down the canvas to great effect.

This technique is particularly noticeable in La Mortola, which is one of his large decorative works in oil. He admits that works like this are duplicitous in nature and, along with other references, this suggests abstract art, film and theatre backdrops upon which the action is unfolding or has already taken place.

Abstract pictures such as Iron Palms (pictured) are far more ridged, structured even, despite the fact that they are created from three different mediums: black gesso, oils and enamel spray. Iron Palms is one of several works he has created recently which pull together a number of strands, associations and techniques to create pictures that are more open ended in their potential meaning. Moving away from his preoccupation with landscape, this new work, with its bold, black, sharpened lines, suggests more ambiguous, schematised, pseudo-architectural abstract constructions. It’s certainly quite a development from his previous works.

If you take the stairs at the corner of the gallery, you will discover five delightful untitled pictures worked in pencil and watercolour which Luke produced last year.

d=3.3.1Luke graduated from Goldsmiths College London eight years ago and he is now exhibiting widely both in the UK and overseas. Because the two styles he is adopting at the moment contrast with each other vividly, this young artist is certainly someone to watch. I believe the moment may come soon when he begins to pull the two styles together, and so create innovative and vibrant canvases that will become highly collectable.

Luke Skiffington’s exhibition continues at the North Wall until October 10.