Perhaps the most startling feature is the artificiality of her colour. Metallic greens, acid yellows, and electric blues combine to emphasise the fact that the paintings represent something staged a man made. She uses the colour of the spotlight, rather than the colours of the sun.

For all that Raphael captures a great deal more than a glamorous façade. The joy of the melancholy that fills her characters is real enough. This results in a fascinating tension between unnatural figures with real emotions. Raphael explores this paradox of fiction, this facet of performance art that causes to be moved by something they know to be unreal, with beautiful results.

The paintings demonstrate a great ability to capture movement and colour a performance.

Colourful bold and sensitive paintings.

Results are colourful and joyous.

Pictures which are brilliant and throbbing with life stand out gloriously all of which have a special quality, transcending the ordinary.

Pictures which are brilliant and throbbing with life, stand out gloriously, all of which have a special quality, transcending the ordinary.

The first thing that strikes the eye with Wendy Raphael's paintings is the profusion of colour and the dazzling explosion of light.

Wendy Raphael, born in Hyde in Tameside, is its leading living artist.

She is fascinated by the concept that reality consists of so much more than what is physically apparent. The result is a collection of paintings that capture the movement of her subject in a vivid and colourful way.

The boldness of colour, generosity of scale, are as striking as the breadth of her talent.

She can paint faces and also capture force and movement. Her subjects are often colourful in garb and dramatic poses retain their individuality. I found her large oil painting “Snake Woman and Firebird” poignant and beautiful. The two women, real people, in spite of the circus costumes and their powerful sensuous appeal, are together and yet moving in different directions. In a shadowy tent interior behind them, barely seen at first, and yet skilfully delineated, is a moustached man with very natural posture, the extra detail which turns one’s admiration to joy.