On June 14th the E R Burrowes School of Art (BSA) Tutors’ Exhibition closed. The show featured the work of nine of the school’s tutors with artwork ranging from painting and sculpture to collage and interdisciplinary work. I can only compare this exhibition to that of 2022; in 2023 the photos I saw from one of the exhibitors could not tempt me to brave the insanity of the East Coast Highway traffic. This year I was enticed. In fact, I left home specifically to see it.
Last year, I saw in the few photos circulating several large-scale works I had already recently seen, on more than one occasion. This year, the few images I saw in promotion of the exhibition showed fresh work. I was encouraged. And I was pleased when I visited, to not only engage with new work, but also to not be confronted by visual clutter. So, while the 2022 exhibition was cluttered and in need of editing, this year’s exhibition did well in needing neither. Most of the work was given space to breathe and as a consequence allowed to speak and be seen.