I'd never seen his work before except in reproductions and online images. His work is larger than I had thought, and powerful too, in a lot of ways. The last time I'd been at the Gallery in that space was Colin McCahon's huge sheet-like works and Shane's aren't so disimilar in that they look at landscapes and writings, light on the dark.

I was suprised at the other works outside the collection - Tissot, William Blake, Marc Chagall and a couple of Picassos. All and all it was a nice day at the Gallery. For all the time I worked in town I didn't visit it, and now i don't I want to make an effort to make it a regular item in my diary.

I don't know enough about art to blatheron about it here - although a brushstroke here, or a fall of tone-on-tone there doesn't stop me flounsing on at the Gallery - I would like to share one of my favourite quotes from Hyacinth Bucket of the BBC Comedy Keeping up Appearances "I don't know much about art, but i do like a good frame that doesn't gather much dust."

Okay so here I am, June 1st and I've come back to this entry because I am going to say what I was going to say at the time of writing but got the confidence *wobbles* about sounding like a complete pratt. I was standing in front of his 1995 work "View". Looking at it I could hear the click-clack of a train on the track - the repetitive lines and the landscape made me think of traveling by train. Of a journey - maybe, one journey and the mountain growing larger as the destination came closer; or maybe a journey that is repeated every day - seeing the same landmarks, hearing the same sounds day after day making the same journey - maybe it was time I could hear between the click-clacking/the basketballing/the tick tocking of this painting. Is it a journey we all make? back to our home? to work every day? Maybe it's the journey of a culture through the landscape that is changing and the culture's changing/notchanging/vanishing over time.

I don't know a damned thing about art, but I know a thing when I see it. Shane Cotton has that thing.