Art - Duncan Bullen

For the last month Duncan Bullen’s subtle, peaceful abstract paintings have made the Star Gallery a calming haven for peace-loving Lewesians to collect their thoughts. They are going down on Sunday, so this weekend is your last chance to experience the meditative effect these works can have on you. The artist spends several weeks every year in Santa Caterina, a 16th century former hermitage on the island of Elba. His visits to this spiritually rich haven have been central to the development of his unique style. Bullen’s works, painted in oils and watercolours on wood and paper, are usually shaped as circles, squares, cruciforms or quatrefoils. They seem to contain, in their subtle tonal gradations, a depth of spiritual power stored within their frames. They seem to change as you move around the room.

In the prologue of Night Prayers a critic writes that looking at his work is like ‘being at the still point of the turning world.’ He has recently published a book of the work he has produced in the hermitage, entitled Night Prayers. ‘The prayer and ritual that have been said for centuries seem to get into your skin. And into your soul, if you are watchful and prepared to watch in quiet expectation,’ he says of the experience. The next exhibition at the Star Gallery, from April 29th, will be rather different: a collection of colourful silkscreen Cuban film posters from the 60’s to the present day. AL