Victorian values exposed

These superlatively crafted paintings by Mathew Weir are based on photographs of Victorian figurines, and come with some heavy-duty baggage relating to race, sex and death. They raise thoughtful ideas for discussion, which we can pass over here - doubtless everyone is agreed that racism and sexism are bad, and that death is frightening. In spite of his bravura summoning of difficult content, Weir seems more fascinated by the nature of depiction, particularly the interface between illusionistic painting and photography. Although his new works seem developmentally more ambitious than previous ones, Weir still maintains a fundamentalist commitment to photorealism. Highly recommended.

Neal Brown