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Sandy Brown
ACROSS THE ROAD FROM SANDY BROWN'S handsome house, the estuary slides into the horizon and light is magnified by the reflection of the shifting sky on the sea. In the distance, Lundy Island looms. Nearby, beside an unused quay, some of her tallest works stand like sentinels guarding the shoreline. A few paces further on, her studios are set in the generous space of a former glove factory. When her works have finished being made and then fired in her ground floor studio they are transported up, through her painting space, into a large bright, white gallery room lit by vast windows that frame the sea and sky beyond. This is an inspirational setting and the spaciousness is appropriate as Brown's work pushes aside notions of British restraint. Her work needs space. She shares something of this with the painter Gillian Ayres whose joyful exaltation in bright, sticky paint has also broken away from conventions of stuffy propriety. Her first floor gallery has a room that can take expressions of unbounded colour, craggy textures and voluptuous form. It is large enough for her ceramics and paintings to dance wildly within it and for prospective clients to meander around the pieces examining work from all angles.
Brown's new work is strong, brave and challenging. Behind it is a woman who is sensitive and deeply thoughtful. She is physically aware and passionate. She is a gig rower, a formidable and speedy Sudoku solver and a fan of jazz music. Her work is reminiscent of the vigour of Jackson Pollock's flying paint, the celebratory colour fields of both Patrick Heron and Henri Matisse and the compulsive female fertility figures made in ancient and...