Embassy Gallery - Members Show

This annual exhibition of works by members of the Embassy proves once again that while their policy of openness and inclusion leads to a huge variance in the quality of work, their shows can be amongst the most vibrant and surprising in the city. The one constant in this melee of creativity seems to be a tendency for artists to revel in their own wit, with visual puns seemingly high on the agenda. Paulina Sandberg's Lie-brary Naturalia – ostensibly a sleeping bag stuffed with nature books – errs far too close to self-indulgence for its own good, while Zoe Fothergill's Conceptual Art, which depicts the fertilization of an egg, will elicit a wry smile. Richard Whiteley clearly did not die in vain. Elsewhere, the absurd chunkiness of Patrick Jameson's Metal Paper Aeroplane seems to contain a particularly blunt kind of profundity – for me this was the work which seemed to most successfully encapsulate the gallery's modus operandi. Jane Anderson's Ever Been Dumped uses a large pencil image of a kitten with a bandaged leg to pull at the viewer's heart strings, whilst Sandy Christie's depiction of the day that Paul Carter told his students about "the time he tried to stop the sea" is a touching tribute to a sadly departed luminary. [Lucy Faringold]