On Saturday I went to the Edward Burra exhibition at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. I didn't really know what to expect. Burra struck me as a strange artist. I couldn't quite understand why he had chosen to paint so much in watercolours. To me, oils would have been better. (I guess that is his choice!)
A good example of his style is Striptease, above. There is an almost-cartoony style to certain elements – for example, the clown above the stage, his eyes rolling towards the performer. Then there is a huge sense of menace that's hard to explain. It is a combination of the ugliness of the audience and most of the characters, their lurid green faces, the leering grins and, most of all, the bright eyes gazing fiercely in different directions, like spotlights - fierce rays of light criss-crossing like Kitty Krause's lightboxes (below).