Some Strange Magic

Welcoming in a new year is often a time of mixed emotions, and 2021 is particularly exemplary. Perhaps you’ve shirked resolutions this year, except for making sure to take some daily outdoor exercise.. With the winter air getting sharper and the sky a cooler tone of grey, the season seems to be the best sundial of change.

Yet, why not start the new year by turning to something really new… like art? As famed cartoonist Bill Watterson once said, a new year is like having a big white sheet of paper to draw on! With art there’s always something renewing and creative to tap into, allowing one to draw on fresh reserves.

The works below have been picked for their vitality, colour, and strongly abstract elements which put the world into an entirely new light. They’re often puzzling – as Madeline Rolt’s charming, wonderland-esque sculpture “The Vestibular Sweethearts’ (2020) shows. Iain Andrews’s “Witches Nest” (2012) similarly works up a rollicking mythological scene, with figurative and craquelure details reminiscent of Early Netherlandish painting.

Geometrical abstracts are also there to lose yourself in – Lewis Deeney and Lindsay Mapes experiment with doing and undoing their paintings, whilst Toni Harrower and Olga Bezhina have played with three-dimensional textures.

In each case, there’s some strange magic happening in these pieces which we hope will make your 2021 bright and propitious.