ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
Armed with Madness: The Surreal Leonora Carrington
by Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot
SelfMadeHero, £19.99
HAILED as “the last of the surrealists” when she died in 2014, Leonora Carrington’s paintings and sculptures display her unique use of symbolism mixing influences from Catholicism, Surrealism, early Renaissance techniques and Aztec and Mayan mythology, in a unique blend of subtle colour and expert draughtsmanship.
Advancing from the male-oriented focus of the Surrealists, Carrington’s work explores the role of women, often in domestic settings, elevating it to the realms of the sacred.
Like the work of other female Surrealists, Carrington’s work resonates much stronger in the 21st century than her male contemporaries.
GAVIN O’TOOLE is enthralled by the colourful portrait of a woman who pioneered a path into the tough, magical world of journalism
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
JOHN GREEN welcomes a remarkable study of Mozambique’s most renowned contemporary artist


