Watercolours by Nancy Nichols at the Masterworks Gallery, Camden.

@EDITRULE:

Nancy Nichols, whose watercolours are now to be seen at the Masterworks Gallery at Camden, is a technically proficient watercolourist still feeling her way as an artist.

My desire to encourage is, perhaps, unnecessary on this occasion. Three quarters of the 21 works on show had been sold by the time I arrived at the exhibition on the Monday following the previous Friday?s opening. The red stickers looked like a plague.

Ms Nichols? work varies from almost illustration quality genre works to abstractions. I come down four square on the side of her abstractions or most of them.

?Jungle Abstract? leads off the show and is derived from tropical leaves, mainly Paw-Paw. Like all her large abstracts, it is beautifully executed and the impression is of hot damp weather cooled by verdant vegetation. It is a work in which one can luxuriate.

Queen Anne?s lace is the derivation of ?Queen Anne Batik?, where white tracery flowers and green foliage rise above a deep purple ground in a burst of enthusiasm.

This burst of enthusiasm is characteristic of almost all the large abstracts. ?Galaxy of Fireflies? is another such, as is the splendid, rich, orange and green ?Wild Things? where a colour scheme that might easily have verged on the crude was controlled and almost subtle.

?Orange Explosion?, however, gave enthusiasm a rein at the expense of control.

Some of the small abstracts and these were tiny, three inches by three inches, on the other hand tended to muddiness.

?Nasturtium? and ?Field Flowers? were the victims of this tendency, while ?Dream Field? and ?Summer Field?, the inspiration for which seemed to be from ?up north? rather than local, were cleaner in execution.

The best of the very small works seemed to me to be the exquisite ?Seascape? an impression of ?l?heure blue? of haunting quality.

The illustrative work, while of unexceptionable execution, seemed to me to lack the inspirational quality of the abstract works.

?Letter from Grandma?,where even the anatomy was informed and well executed, lacked the necessary emotional fundamentals for success.

?Rooster and Bodyguards? searched for humour but failed to achieve it and where the subject was illustrative, the background was an impression, achieving an uncomfortable sense of dislocation.

?Potato Harvest?, an illustrative work of a characteristic blue agricultural truck being loaded with sacks of potatoes by a depressed looking worker lacked any obvious message.

I liked both abstract-cum-surreal works, ?Tiger? (fish) and ?All One?, a face contained in a floral field, but again felt the message was lacking.

Here is an artist, new to me, where my sense is that she has a real affinity for the abstract and manages to convey her message better in that style than she does otherwise, an excellent technical facility notwithstanding.

Despite the advertising, the show is not in the Rose Garden Gallery where we are accustomed to going, but on the other side of the new set of galleries, over on the left as you arrive. Don?t be frustrated. It is an interesting and worthwhile show.