The current exhibition at the Traffic Jam Galleries is specifically about works on paper. Ten artists are featured, all with different work practices and approaches to their art.

The umbrella title of the exhibition is The Drawing Room and it features over forty works by various artists, including North Sydney Art Prize winner Edgar Schilter. The exhibition explores what it means to use paper as the particular medium of choice and the freedom of expression that this allows.

Jo Chew’s works are vivid and immediate, with an ominous, eerie feel. Chew favours strong cropped close up compositions often with birds as her subject.

Some of Sally West’s strong and dynamic ship paintings are included.

Phillip Stallard’s works are abstract, with bold, emphatic brushstrokes. Colour is used strongly and his paintings range from very dark to quite bright tones.

Karen Farmer’s works are amazing, all black and white drawings but they look like tone drop out photographs. They are unsettling, often capturing cityscapes full of graffiti, a stark portrait of our dirty urban environment.

Some of Danielle McManus’ sweet, rather romantic and imaginative works with their idiosyncratic style and huge eyes are included.

Anthony Breslin’s startling 3D works are boldly vivid bright and colourful, reminiscent of Jackson Pollock’s  action paintings  with their swoops, swirls and wonderful sense of line. His Beckoning the Bits  series come across as sinister, and the exhibition also includes two of his portrait pieces.

Rebecca Pierce is represented by a couple of her wonderful vibrant and colourful landscapes with their bold, singing line.

Julie Hutchings delicate, dreamlike work along with her work with children and circuses.

Kathryn McGovern’s delightful work is full of amazing detail and with its use of dots appears to be  strongly influenced by the work of Seurat and the Pointillists. Her favourite subjects in this exhibition are cats and rabbits and a fantasy world that includes flying pink zebras.

A highlight of the exhibition however would have to be the astonishing works by Edgar Schilter using charcoal and graphite. They appear heavily Renaissance in style ( think Durer for example) – incredibly detailed large drawings featuring objects unexpectedly trapped in a jar (for example an oversize piece of wood, a ship in a storm). Also included are two antique sculpture like faces.

All in all, a very exciting and intriguing exhibition. Traffic Jam Galleries current exhibition is on view until the 3rd December at 41 Military Road, Neutral Bay.