This exhibition is displayed in a shop window, available for viewing from the street at any time. Artists' names are as shown in the window.

Janet Clarke shows a basket of owlets (baby owls) and a set of greetings cards. The owl display captures their vulnerability and their material looks to be a spongy polymer - something with a strokable texture. This is significant because the artist is blind, and how the object feels to the touch is part of its integrity as a work. Similarly the greetings cards have applied 3-dimensional objects on the cards, giving a touch-sensory dimension to their appreciation.

Stephanie Hedger shows delicate water-colour paintings in delicate shades, of roses and other flowers.

Peter Barnes exhibits a poem included within a half-relief sculpture whose component parts are 3 hoops, web-shaped, in dyed string, within twisted-wood frames - called Dream Catchers.

There are two pictures by Janet Moller, The Cottage, and The Beach; boughs and shapes in crayon on oil paper.

Martin Curtis shows photographs; a poem, Flowers In Bloom (Love?); a poem, How I Became A Nimby.

Denise Ashbee has a prose piece, Vampire.

J White shows four drawings and photographic works: Float - a guitar on a background of clouds; Saucepan; Shapes; Says It All - a man points a gun to a man's head.

A Charles Busby House Resident shows Brighton Photos Day And Night, photographs and prose. The prose piece is in two sections: one consist of separated paragraphs of thought; the other of a poem, exploring thoughts on existence.

An Anonymous artist shows a composite piece including a photograph of 'the wall behind St Bartholemew's Church'; it is called Holier Than Thou.

There are 3 coloured drawings showing the gradual liberation of a rose, by Denise. One frame has a rose behind bars, changing to half-bars, finally blossoming free of bars.

The circumstances of artists are often not relevant to viewing their work, but perhaps the circumstances of this exhibition give a further dimension to this lively collection. The shop window belongs to Sanctuary Housing Group, which provides among other aspects of the group's work, housing for people who are in one way or another vulnerable. The question 'what is art' is often asked, and is never going to be answered definitively. But one answer sometimes given is that a work of art changes the viewer's perception or understanding of the way they've looked at things before. Another is that, just as the eyes are said to be the windows of the soul, a work of art opens a channel between the mind of the artist, and the mind of the viewer. Both are true for this exhibition, and there is a feeling of enlightenment, and of privilege, in seeing it.

Credits: Titles of works as above; Artist names (any corrections please contact Fringe Report as below) in alpha order: Anonymous. Denise. Denise Ashbee. Peter Barnes. Charles Busby House Resident. Janet Clarke. Martin Curtis. Stephanie Hedger. Janet Moller. J White.

Company Credits: Company - Sanctuary Housing Group. Website - www.sanctuary-housing.co.uk.

END

John Park

reviewed Thursday 8 May 08 / 7 North Road Brighton

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008

www.fringereport.com