John Newberry: New Colour Compositions

About

Thirty years after leaving his teaching post at the Ruskin School, John Newberry returns to Oxford with an exhibition of figurative oil paintings. They demonstrate his search for an alternative to perspective in large paintings – the use of Parallel Projection – and of colour to construct forms and space without shadows.

Japanese prints give inspiration for the flat colour shapes, for the subject matter of everyday life and for the diptychs where movement springs from the changes between one panel and the next. Animated scenes include football, crowds (such as the “Westgate” diptych), builders on scaffolding, biblical episodes and the harsh reality of world events.