James Dodds & Guy Taplin

Lovely exhibition of complementary work by James Dodds and Guy Taplin.

James Dodds’ work was lovely large paintings of boats out of the water in a neutral space. The pictures are very detailed without being hyperreal. It was interesting to see that Dodds had been a boat maker as the work seems to show a real love of boats as objects. I particularly like his pictures of the inside of the boats as they almost take on an abstract quality.

Guy Taplin’s contribution was fun driftwood sculptures of groups of birds mounted on blocks of wood with metal supports, hence his section was called “Birds on a Wire”. I loved one set of birds in flight with one large bird at the back and a convoy of five smaller ones swopping down. It had a nice sense of perspective and movement.

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