Collusion at Arena

I've been on a P.V sabbatical really this year- I've only been to a handful, but not only is Arena is on the way home, the obvious dedication behind putting on shows in such a diddy gallery deserves commendation.
A gallery this size (about 400 sq ft) really lends itself to one thing best- a single site specific piece, which is what Rich White and Brychan Tudor have done here.
Not being familiar with Rich's work, and only having seen a few pieces of Brychans (at The Wolstenholme, where he was a member), I came in reasonably unaware as to what was going on, despite the mini-flood of emails and texts of press releases, which always are scarcely read.
After the customary bar visit I loitered in the gallery, half concentrating on the projection. I was surely a prime target for the work, someone who just came to the P.V, and wasn't concentrating on what was going on- I was more concious of getting in the way of one of the four projectors beaming light from behind the audiences feet (I would have preferred if they were hung higher, the illusions would have worked better without people stood in front of the projectors).
Only by switching your focus to the actual wall rather than the projection (thus being of the wall that it is being projected on, but including the view outside of Cains Brewery which was visible in the first few Arena exhibitions before the window was boarded up) do you realize the scale of the build that has gone on. The gallery wall is angled at zigzags outward into the space in a kind of white architectural cubist dream gallery, but the four projections give them impression the wall is flat, a subtle trick of the eye reminiscent of Laurence Payots interventions. The more you look, faint impressions of imagery become clearer, much of which seemingly drawn on the local setting, and businesses surrounding Elevator  Building (where Arena is now housed).
Evidently this was a perfect combination of artists (apparently they didnt know each other before this), as their styles combine to pick out the "unique architectural features of Arena Gallery and draws on the history of the Elevator Building" in a subtle and very pleasing way.  I thoroughly recommend visiting this show, which is on till 3rd April Thursday - Saturday, and hope after Jack Welsch leaves his post as gallery programmer in May, the gallery continues in this vein.