Anj Smith @ New Art Gallery Walsall

Painting provides a platform where time, space, gravity and perspective can be shifting and unstable. Within this malleable construct, Anj Smith is endlessly inventive and creative, bringing together diverse and disparate objects  and environments. The familiar and the unfamiliar, the contemporary and the archaic; all interweave to create intense and often psychologically charged works. Rich in detail, colour and texture, the intricacy of these works invites a slowing down and an offer of respite from frenetic consumption.

The title of the exhibition, A Willow Grows Aslant the Brook, references Shakespeare’s Hamlet and specifically the site of Ophelia’s retreat and eventual death.