MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
A POPULAR theme in 19th-century painting is the depiction of domestic interiors as a “gilded cage” in which women are pictured as ornamental objects.
Trapped psychologically or physically, they’re the subject of iconic Pre-Raphaelite and British Orientalist paintings by artists such as Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt and John Frederick Lewis.
Their works are on show in the forthcoming exhibition The Enchanted Interior at Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, alongside works by their female peers such as Emma Sandys and Evelyn De Morgan which challenge and subvert the idealisation of women as captive damsels or passive beauties.
MIRANDA RICHMOND relishes the gloriously liberated art of Roy Oxlade, and traces his method back to the thinking of David Bomberg, his acknowledged teacher
SIMON PARSONS applauds an artist who rescues and rehumanises stories of women, the victims of violence, from a feminist perspective
JAN WOOLF ponders the works and contested reputation of the West German sculptor and provocateur, who believed that everybody is potentially an artist
KEVIN DONNELLY accepts the invitation to think speculatively in contemplation of representations of people of African descent in our cultural heritage


