When Tim Severin decided to take an artist along to record his voyage around the islands of east Indonesia last year, he could hardly have made a better choice than Leonard Sheil. Sheil's large 1995 show of expressive seascapes and marine images had revealed a painter with a fresh, energetic vision of how the sea might be painted.
The fruits of Sheil's journey, on which he painted between stints of acting as quartermaster and cooking, will soon show up in book form. For the moment, however, Sheil's offers a dazzling show of watercolours and mixed-media paintings inspired by the journey.
Sheil's blend of paint and non-paint materials is a little less anarchic than formerly, but his pictures still have plenty of gritty, bold texture. Sometimes the pigment seems to have been loaded with a sandy dust, but the painter's favourite method of introducing texture is with layered paper. Sections of fine papers are bonded flush, or bunched into strenuous ridges, or so overloaded with watery colour that they assume a felt-like texture. All his techniques have in common, however, a sense of the complex powers of water to rent or bond or irreparably denature.
Far more than in Sheil's previous show, the sea appears to have been condensed into an idea rather than a collection of forms. There is a strong presence of blues and green, but for the most part the colours rush off into far more agitated shades. Whether in No Shadows, on which operatic reds and blues defy a snowy field of spume, or in the more directly fervent America, Sheil's painting remains an enticing voyage all by itself.
Closes November 22nd.