Summer Exhibition 2010

'Fifteen grand, that pink one up there,' said the lady, pursing her lips.
'We've seen better,' said her male companion.

As ever, this year's Summer Exhibition is exhilaratingly eclectic, with something to cater for all comers and all tastes. Picking three favourites out of the thousands of entries is never easy, but here nevertheless are my choices for this year, in reverse order:

3.  Departure (archival digital print)
     Güler Ates

A veiled woman in a striking blue dress ascends a flight of white stairs, bent forward in an attitude of haste. Ates's composition is dynamic and enigmatic. Why the urgency? Where is she going? Why is she headed upstairs if she is leaving? The picture is devoid of clues, and all that we have is a glimpse of a pregnant moment, of bustle reduced to an eerie stillness.

2.  Last Snow Sixhills (etching)
     Melvyn Petterson

Petterson's monochrome etching is of a hill silhouetted in the slicing rain, with a wide muddy lane dominating much of the foreground. There is something bleak but beautiful in the wet, windswept landscape, and the tyre tracks in the mud seem to emphasise the lonely desolation of the scene.

1.  Acceptance (video installation)
     Bill Viola

It's been a while since I've encountered Viola's work but 'Acceptance', his submission for this year's Summer Exhibition, reminded me of how quietly compelling it can be. The short film, shot in black and white, depicts a naked, middle-aged woman with cropped hair stepping out of the darkness into a light space where water starts to pour over her. It is clear from her frown and silent gasps that the experience is not pleasurable. For a few moments the flow ceases, and a fleeting smile of relief spreads across her face, but the flow soon starts again and her distress returns. 'It's drenching her,' comments Ann Christopher on the piece, 'and she doesn't have much choice. But there are religious undertones: it's a kind of filmed late baptism.' There were also more sinister parallels, I thought, of shaven-headed women being sent to 'showers' against their will.

Honourable mention to David Mach for 'Silver Streak', his sculpture of a chest-thumping gorilla made from metal coat hangers, which drew appreciative cries from the younger public ('Wow cool - look at his face!'); Ruth Dupre for her glass and wood entry, 'Butchery', with its four vitreous slabs of meat oozing off the sides of a table into black, bulbous drops of putrefaction; and Chris Coekin's giclée print 'The Altogether #2' depicting four workmen in dark overalls, right hands extended in cross-handshakes while their left hands clutch their tools of trade.