Art seen

"Frank", Jenny Gillam (Blue Oyster Art Project Space); "The Rituals of Control", Emma Febvre-Richards; "Geodesic Sound Helmets", Cara-Ann Simpson (Blue Oyster Gallery) 

[1] Geodesic Sound Helmets, by Cara-Ann Simpson.
The Blue Oyster Gallery presents three artists whose reflective works focus on the character and meaning of technology in the modern world. The venue is enigmatically transformed by innovative media and the thoughts which are awakened run deeper than can possibly be mentioned here.

Gillam's work queries the cultivated gallery setting by presenting multiple small screens revealing a little dog named Frank trotting around the empty gallery.

He tilts his head and sniffs at speakers which puzzlingly play bird calls; we relate to his charming curiosity as we begin to correlate our own behaviours and expectations when met with novel surroundings and unexpected sensory experiences.

Nearby, Simpson invites the beholder to place their head inside her large yellow "Geo Sound Helmets".

Activated by breath, and in reference to global communication, these hypnotic helmets create an authentic psychological and sensory departure from our physical location as we are transported by city-sounds from around the world.

Alternatively, Febvre-Richards considers technology and learning. The familiar and laborious ritual of rote-learning is transformed into a blend of digital automatism.

The effortless, but not yet flawless character of the electronic era evolves on paper as we observe progressively refined, infinitely baffling and yet aesthetically satisfying printed encryptions.

• Works by Manu Berry, Pauline Bellamy and Max Bellamy (Bellamys Gallery)Geodesic Sound Helmets, by Cara-Ann Simpson. 

[2] Spoonbills, by Manu Berry.
This family-run coastal gallery maintains a strong focus on local landscapes and familiar feelings. There is a vivid sense of location as connections to the living world are expressed though prints, paintings, photographs and installations.

Pauline Bellamy has the rare ability to capture the essence of an impression without over-working her medium. Her near-abstract brush-work and heavily applied paint generates volume, crafty tonality and recognisable sites without gratuitously stating every detail.

Significantly, she gives the viewer credit by inviting you to project your own insights and memories on to her serene vistas.

Film-maker Max Bellamy exhibits an installation and a photograph. The latter, named That's Life, portrays your typical corner-shop advertising frame; the kind which features scandalous cover-stories beneath chipping paint and outdated logos.

They are weather-torn and their ephemeral character struggles to survive nature's more enduring elements; the punning title reveals the allegory behind this poignant situation.

The opposite walls don the woodcuts of Manu Berry and Spoonbills is particularly memorable.

His birds exude determination and their persuasive movement is enchanting.

This artist's careful palette, spatial sensibility and stylish line-work gives his subjects distinctive appeal, while the suitably breezy atmosphere (harnessed throughout the exhibition) sympathetically echoes the gallery's coastal backdrop.

• "Homeward", works by Julie Greig (The Artist's Room)

[3] The Joy of Freedom, by Julie Greig.
"Homeward" is a selection of works which draw upon full-time and self-trained artist Julie Greig's affection for animals and landscapes.

Each character depicted has had a personal connection with the artist and audiences who might fear "chocolate-box imagery" will delight in the dynamism of these works.

This artist portrays a flash of decisive action, a moment of calm reflection, and sometimes timeless circumstance.

Every composition is sophisticated and self-possessed, demonstrating an acute awareness of perspectival principles through dexterous handling of the media.

No line is final, no colour is pure, and Greig's manipulation of both oil paint and pastels produces a visual realism which has the presence of gravity, texture and light firmly under its thumb.

Perhaps the most elegant aspect of Greig's work is the subjects' relationship with the often ambiguous background.

The Joy of Freedom is a pastel piece depicting two white horses in gallop mode against a dark, green and black background.

It is non-specific in time and place, and remains devoid of both human presence and finite narrative cues. This means that rather than appearing static, the subjects appear to be performing an eternal motion - this is a lyrical sight which is most difficult to exhaust.

- Franky Strachan