Intriguing art is deeply felt at Warwickshire gallery

Running concurrently with Compton Verney’s Bellini, Botticelli blockbuster is a more modest but intriguing exhibition of work ‘from the edges’ by Midlands artists who find it difficult to access the art world.

The work, from an open submission organised by Chichester’s Pallant House Gallery, falls somewhere between art as therapy and art as statement. In an impressive display the better examples deliver an emotional charge that comes from deeply felt and generally strong imagery.

Mary Courtney’s drawing, Drop of Make-up, is a good example. Taking three years to complete, it mimics and personalises the fantastical world of the medieval Mappa Mundi. It lies at the emotionally cathartic end of the artistic spectrum but its formal complexity gives it impact.

This is true of many of the exhibits, the exceptions being work that has an obsessive, hobbyist feel to it. But Mark James clearly measures his work against the highest standards of photography. His Hunstanton in Winter series is just about as good as colour photography gets.

For the purposes of the exhibtion, a number of the exhibitors were invited to choose a work from the Gallery’s famous and now reorganised Folk Art collection upstairs to show alongside their own. This doesn’t always work but the Folk Art rehang is something of a triumph.

Peter McCarthy