Jericho Freeze: Jericho Gallery

3:17pm Wednesday 3rd December 2008

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This exhibition comprises an interesting and complementary mix of work and media by nine local artists. The gallery window is dominated by a larger- than-life female figure by Rachel Ducker, made from coiled wire: hair akimbo, she is clearly more concerned about exercising than meeting and greeting.

Clare Bassett, lithographer, has created images of other large women, some singletons, some grouped, all seemingly comfortable and confident. But Mothers, showing six mums on parade with babies, challenges the public personae of those mothers through the deportments of the babies. The six are formal and almost presidential, relaxed to the point of lounging, very vulnerable and suppressed, outgoing, and cradled and protected.

Lizzie Hurst, by contrast, avoids people; her silk paintings, delicate in their turquoises and greens, are punctuated by loud explosions of colour. Ladybirds splay their limbs across the fabric, and fish swim in formal patterns. Designed as wall hangings, these pieces would be immensely wearable.

Susan Avery continues the natural world theme with her water colours of landscapes and plantings including Sunflowe and Fig Tree.

Morna Rhys depicts the natural world in a number of her etchings. In Beneath the Skies (pictured) she uses delicate and ethereal blues to create dark dusks reminiscent of the cool end of a hot days. In contrast her Dusk provides a world bathed in dusky pinks, where two safe mounds cradle skeletal trees, whilst protective clouds and a comfortable sun settle overhead.

Also on show are engaging oils paintings and lino cuts with a 19th-century Parisian feel, by Annie Newnham, and photographic images by Caroline Seymour, and paintings and prints by Neil Drury.

The gallery, in in King Street,is open Wednesday to Sunday and the show is on until December 21,