18 March - 16 April 2005

15 Sep. - 14 Oct. 2006

Secret revealed by Andrew Lambirth: THE SPECTATOR , 26 March 2005; p.52
" ...
Hot tip: the painter Jeff Gibbons (born 1962) is showing an impressive selection of paintings at Art Space Gallery. Those who have followed his progress through brief sightings in London churches (most recently St. Giles Cripplegate) and at such crowded venues as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the John Moores, will realise the nature of the treat in store. Gibbons, a thoughtful and intelligent painter, makes images of apparent simplicity. He favours unstreches canvas, which he imbues with a strange and compelling sense of place, conjured forth by the exact placing of a schematic chair, table or window, a line or two or a smudge for context, and very often the addition of a written quotation or a single word. Gibbons is marinated in the works of great poets and novelists - Eliot and Henry James spring immediately to mind when viewing this new body of work - but will extract as much resonance from the German words 'Herz' (heart/hurts) or 'Unrichtig' (wrong/write) , as from a passage from The Ambassadors. Although intensely painterlyand unprecious, Gibbons's work also sounds the literary note so beloved of the English ear, but without relying on narrative."