Oxmarket Contemporary are delighted to welcome Gary Spratt, who won the Open Painting Prize with us last year. Gary’s Exhibition will focus on his larger paintings made in the last couple of years. They are about his home, or anyone’s home, with tables, chairs, doorways, and a variety of other items as their subject. The formal or abstract nature is in tension with a figurative idea, both of which came about during the making. The things or objects in the images often carry personal meaning. For instance, the kitchen table was made by Gary’s Father and his Grandfather’s chairs feature prominently. There’s an idea about inheritance, in the things that we may bring forward. Gary’s painting’s are mostly oil on canvas or charcoal on paper. Although he favours oil paint, he doesn’t think that it really matters all that much with regard to the painting itself. Painting is slow, oil paint is slow to dry, so it works for him.