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From: Mark Ridley Category: ArtExhibitions Date: 21 August 2009 Time: 02:03 PM Review: This is a very enjoyable show with some really good pieces. The show consists of some interventions on found images, drawings and paintings on paper, photographs and a series of small sculptures. The drawings and paintings are quite enjoyable to look at, both for their material qualities (the mark making, the way the paint has soaked into the paper etc) and for the little strange narratives the artist manages to set up in each work. The best works, in my opinion, are the interventions. The image of the horse with its mane cut and displaced so that it covers the horse’s eyes is just great! Same with the LOL piece in which the artist painted two Ls on the sides of a round face. And the small found statuettes on which the artist has added his own clay figurines are both smart and funny. Basically the artist’s interventions enable you to see something different in each of the existing pieces. Each piece is turned into a stranger funnier version of itself. But for the humour to be effective, I think the intervention has to be quite intelligent. I think the artist achieves that with some works. Probably through close observation of the original pieces he manages to intervene in ways that are quite effective. Exhibition info: Mathew Sawyer Swallow Street Gallery (www.swallowstreet.com) July 16 - August 29