Zoe Cameron sets up a challenge for herself and her audience in this show - where does she fit into Modern British Art? By all accounts she stands counter to modernism, observing life and modern society with painted stories that remind us of how to live a good life.

THE ART ROOM Topsham Exhibition consists of two bodies of work with the same philosophy underlying both, all timeless and of universal significance.

Cameron's imagery openly draws on her childhood. With isolation amongst grown ups, she became an observer of others and her closeness with nature and animals grew. She developed into a shy child and adolescent who at school and local church loved religious studies for the imagery the moral tales prompted.

Her grandmother was a great influence as a story teller, giving art books for Zoe to look at in bed “The Birth of Venus” by Botticelli and Hogarth's “Shrimp Girl” are among Zoe’s early memories.

Zoe Cameron: Show respect and consideration for all living things

Zoe Cameron: Take care of your mind and body

Zoe Cameron: Fortune and the tired man

Previous work by Zoe Cameron can be seen on her Portfolio page

“The Sister” collection of 18 paintings took Zoe more than a year to complete. The subject matter came from long distance conversations she had by phone with her younger sister Naomi. As the older sibling Zoe often found herself trying to dispense words of love and wisdom. One night when the artist had been ill in bed with a migraine for several days the 18 titles came to her in one go.

The paintings have titles like “Don’t carry regrets from the past”, “Take care of your mind and body” and “Show respect and consideration for all living things”. Many of these paintings are quite small to create an intimacy when looking into them, encouraging us to reflect on our own adult wisdom and experience when looking at the perhaps less than informed characters in her compositions, rather like a single frame soap opera.

The second part of the Exhibition consists of site-specific paintings based on Aesops Fables. “The Fable Wall” has 28 paintings, hung in 3 tiers increasing in size, one row above the other on the gable end wall of the Gallery. This form of presentation is a response to the time Cameron has spent working and studying in Italy, absorbing the work in churches and palaces by artists like Giambattista Tiepolo or Paolo Veronese.

The imagery and content of her work owes more to her interest in human nature and artists like Longhi and or Goya (to whom she makes a reference). This collection is on stretched canvas with the exception of the two shaped works. All of the Fable paintings remain unframed to achieve a cohesion when they are hung together.

This Exhibition is the culmination of 3 years work for Zoe Cameron with a career in painting that extends over 35 years. Her oil paintings are recognisable with figures often pulled from different time frames, exploring contemporary and universal subject matter, the imagery gleaned from her own childhood or borrowed from someone else's.

In this Major one woman show Cameron presents to us a room full of ‘Life's Truths’ as she puts it. The world may be following its path but this artist treads her own, inviting us to follow and recognise ourselves and elements from our own lives within the 46 works in this exhibition.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see all of these paintings hung together in the space for which they were planned.

18th September to 31st October 2010 • Zoe Rebecca Cameron • Life's Truths

The ART ROOM Topsham is open 11am to 5pm weekends or by appointment