Len Tabner Messum’s, 8 Cork Street, London W1, until 1 December
For those of us who live in the British Isles there are two unassailable facts. We are island dwellers who live surrounded by turbulent seas. Our emotional lives, in other words how we experience our existence and express ourselves, often have recourse to rich literary and visual traditions centred on two subjects: the land and the sea. The progenitors of a visual sensibility were Constable and Turner. Both artists pushed the boundaries in terms of how art materials could be handled, and how subject matter, such as farmland, mountains, beaches and the sea, and the intrinsic four elements (air, light, water and earth), could be interpreted as an expression of sentiment and awe. How we could experience these subjects today lies at the very heart of Len Tabner’s paintings, and it is not surprising that cultural commentators have compared his art to both Constable and Turner.
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