Charlie Holt Artist: paul critchley @ gallery oldham.......9 july til 25 september

paul critchley has lived and worked in mainland europe for the past 25 years or more in hollland....spain..barcelona and now italy....close to rome......his work has its roots in realism and surrealism....he is a creator of quirky worlds within worlds.......over the years paul has developed a series of works that explore a mysterious world of secrets and subterfuge....it is akin to de chirico.....landscapes and townscapes peopled or not by enigmatic events....that are often rooted in his own past........doors open into other nether worlds.....many works have movable parts doors ...through the.window is the landscape that you see the real landscape or are we being tricked by the artist......paul is a story teller a narrator....in the tradition of edgar allan poe.......he draws us into his world....what is that telephone doing in a drawer.........who is the voyeur in the cupboard....over the past 5 years or so he has been on working on a major project.....a depiction of his apartment in barcelona..... he is a master of perspective and he manipulates paint in a trompe l oeul manner.....he convinces us of his portrayal of reality....they are not merely photographic representations but an interpretation of his view of reality....they are inhabited by re representations of everyday items and given a new significance in the narrative in which they are shown....there are layers and layers in the works....plots within subplots..............

this is the apartment in bcn....the current show in oldham.is another realisation of the painting as series of rooms containing a juxtaposition of images....from the light switches....to an ironing board.......and a mirrored cupboard with drawers full of telephones........he tells a story that you can try and unravel...or interpret......he collects objects that he paints for the paintings.....they are constructed into a myriad of different shapes....that are the objects.....two cut out chairs connected by a real telephone cable with a painted telephone....