SOME exhibitions behave politely, hanging at a respectful distance from the viewer, but ‘Expressive’, the current members’ exhibition at Oriel Q Gallery in Narberth, leans in, lowers its voice, and insists you feel something.

It does not ask for consensus. It asks for attention.

The works gathered here seem to have been given leave to misbehave: to scrape, blur, bruise, shout, whisper, contradict themselves. Painting rubs shoulders with sculpture; abstraction flirts with figuration and then retreats again.

Across the walls, blues brood, greens mutter, ochres flare and recede. Canvases feel worked-through rather than worked-on. Gesture is everywhere: sometimes muscular and declarative, sometimes tentative, almost apologetic.

The figurative works, when they appear, do so obliquely. Faces emerge from paint like memories half-recalled; bodies are cropped, pressed, turned away.

Meanwhile, the physicality of the sculptural pieces grounds the exhibition, reminding us that expression is not only chromatic but tactile, weighted, stubbornly real.

Importantly, this is not an exhibition striving for polish. Its strength lies in its unevenness. Some works arrest immediately; others require patience, even generosity. But taken together, they form a convincing portrait of a community of artists engaged in looking inward and outward at once, unafraid of ambiguity, and refreshingly uninterested in trends.

Oriel Q Gallery has long been a vital space in Narberth, but ‘Expressive’ feels like a small recalibration – a confident, messy and alive members’ show.

You leave not with a single image lodged in the mind, but with a sensation: that of having walked briefly through other people’s internal weather systems. And that, in these cautious times, feels quietly radical.

(The above thoughts are highlights from a review by Hildegard Wildebeast.)

‘Expressive’ is on display at Oriel Q until March 7. Open Wednesday to Saturday, 10-30-4pm, the gallery is situated at 11 Market Street, Narberth, SA67 7AX.