LONDON, ENGLAND.- Rockwell presents Gavin Nolan through June 26, 2005. Gavin Nolan's recent paintings are perverse and contradictory. Delicately rendered territories of water and earth recede into atmospheric perspective. Waterfalls, rainbows, sunsets and whirling vortices are glorious and resplendent. It is possible to be lulled and subdued by such seductive scenes, however more often than not one is reminded of the cruel explosions of flesh and sinew which tortuously or languidly snake and stretch across the surface. Figures are brutally rendered; appearing before and aft torrid splashes drips and smudges. Occasionally the stark physicality becomes gargantuan, blurrily receding into the wonderful trippy landscape. One element plays host to another. The rains, clouds and waters of the land play over and emit from bodily orifices, entwining the bony limb like supports which combine to dissect the canvas into a patchwork of negative space. The result, a cyclical, elemental synergie between body and environment. Sources including science journals, medical books and news clippings ensure that the fantasy that is created has a stark and alarming resonance with the world at large.

In a series of smaller canvasses, disparate elements combine more resolutely to form freakish portraits. The various characters develop personalities and traits. Seemingly demanding of their creator ("make me look beautiful") to the point that Nolan seems bizarrely to have gone easy on his nightmarish subjects. As in so many portraits of course, true personality cannot help but caustically seep through.

Nolan's dialogue is appropriately diverse. The delicate brushwork of gaseous clouds (or in one painting a swirling, Baroque gust) is at odds with brutally applied splashes, swathes and scumbles. Despite this contradictive language, the rigorous glazing and twisted compositional tricks combine to harmonious effect. Discordant, disquieting and beautiful.