Art - Phyllis Hall

'Behind the cotton wool of daily reality is hidden a pattern. All human beings are connected with this; the whole world is a work of art and we are part of it.’ Phyllis Hall, the latest featured artist in the Chalk Gallery, quotes Virginia Woolf in her artist’s statement for this exhibition and she has made it her art to discover that pattern. ‘My aim is to enable the viewer to reach beyond the canvas to a magical sense; to depict ideas which cannot be represented by visible means, to make the invisible, visible,’ she says.

The Chalk Gallery is a lovely little spot, but it is located on the one-way system and the works of the featured artist are crammed together in a space next to a door that is kept open in the summer. This is a necessary evil in a gallery showing work from a collective of artists, but sadly it is hardly conducive for the sort of transcendental experience Hall is attempting to emit from the public. I didn’t, then ‘search within the self for responsive ideas and images.’ I did, however love the work. It is colourful abstract stuff, which is richly textured and beautifully composed. I would like to have one on one of my walls, so I could contemplate it in peace. AL