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Thoughtful exhibition at Halcyon Gallery looking at how three artists use national and political figures and imagery to look at identity.

The show included a classic set of Andy Warhol’s Chairman Mao screen prints which fascinatingly reproduces an image in different colourways so it ceases to have its original meaning and an impact. These were shown alongside some powerful portraits of individuals wrapped in flags by Mitch Griffiths, from a soldier in conflict to a vulnerable young woman in an American flag. The works are so highly finished and realistic I had to check online that they were paintings not photographs.

However my favourites were Dominic Harris’s digital butterfly works. In the one shown here butterflies make up the American flag but if you touch the surface they break free and fly around the image. In another they fly away and return in a different colour. Larger individual works hung together react to sound and fly away if you clap or shout. Thank you to the security guard who showed me how they worked and pointed out that the butterflies are digitally painted with manual brushstrokes in several layers. I could have played with them for hours.

Closes 31 May 2021

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