Paintings by Martin Laurence @ Frames Gallery, Norwich. By Richard Inman.

Paintings by Martin Laurence @ Frames Gallery, Norwich

By Richard Inman

The paintings of Martin Laurence, full of energy, light and colour, express the dynamics of landscape while breaking free from orthodox perspective.

Summer Beach, painted in mixed media on paper, expresses the tensile masts of yachts diffused in a haze of summer. Colour rendered in impasto vibrates in conflicting temperatures – yellow, violet, cerulean amid fragments of white.

In Nightfall, Moray Firth, a dark cool sea is punctuated with intense blue, warm white, touches of brilliant red.

The Chinese blue sea gradates into Venetian red at the horizon where the sky in deep orange lightens into viridian. Shafts of light descend in orange and cerulean.

Port Isaac is an acrylic and collage on canvas. A speckled under-painted texture (flecks of blue and violet over a light-blue wash) enriches the layering of colours. Houses flow to express the form of the landscape, the structure frenziedly drawn in deep orange, burned sienna.

Facades accentuated with brilliant white are rhythmically dotted across the scene. Areas of crinkled tissue add excitement, while sculpting undulations of the landscape.

A series of three-minute paintings caught my eye, being reminiscent of John Constable's Buildings On Rising Ground painting in 1821.

Cretian Landscape is a vast picture. Strips of canvas glued to the surface excite areas of diverse treatment. Catholic touches of gold add to the exotic.

The exhibition runs until March 1.