LAURA BRUCE, Love and Other Machines @ New Art Projects, London, E8 – Really like this space (rather like the running water feature) love the way the four rooms allow a show to breathe, and I do like descending those white stairs to be greeted by the latest offering to be found in this very white-walled basement gallery.  .

The Latest offering at Fred Mann’s new gallery is a solo show from American artist Laura Bruce, four open plan rooms occupied with a solo show that really does strike as you descend those stairs. The large framed drawings are the things that strike and demand the eye first, an eye taken straight in to those leaves and layers. Symbolism can be a dirty word, but there is something of that in here, expressionist, whatever it is, there’s something rather strong here, without ever being twee there’s something a touch magical, otherworldy – no scrub all that, we’re dancing around architecture once more and Laura Bruce’s new show deserves more than to have us mislead you

“Laura Bruce makes work about the relationships between nature and myth. Her paintings, drawings and sculpture represent transitions between the real world and another plane. They morph between reality and fantasy through the use of abstraction, her “Drips dropping, spinning, and evaporating”. Her images burst with blobs and the bubbles that break down the barriers between the landscape and another imaginary world”

The highly worked drawings are the delights of the show, large pieces that explore both drawing itself and the layers of leaves that can hold so much within if you really want to look beyond the surface. Her paintings are tactile, the sculptures almost child-like, no, not child-like, the sculptures have the quality of a child’s toy, and yes, four rooms but it all flows as one. Beautiful hang once more.    .

“Alongside her paintings, drawings and sculptures, Bruce will exhibit a series of “over–painted works” using old prints that depict a romanticized idea of nature, Bruce places a Disney-like or cartoonified layer on top of the very serious and history-laden images. Here Disney meets Casper David Friedrich, Mickey Mouse meets the Young Werther”.

Three shows in and the life of Fred Mann’s New Art Projects space is looking rather good. The gallery has delivered again, the drawings in here really are something to explore in the flesh, explore rather than just see – these are definitely pieces to explore, these are trees to climb, leaf growth to peer through.  The sculptures are a delight, the paintings leave this viewer a little more reserved, I need to got see some of those paintings again – some of those paintings are rich and wonderfully alive, others maybe just a little too far in to an other-world I can’t quite connect with, need to go see the paintings again, the drawings though, those drawings really are worth going to explore again and those sculptures are a delight… Another good show at New Art Projects   (SW)