SKIN Deep is a new exhibition that brings together four contemporary artists whose painted surfaces play tricks with appearance and reality.

Harriet White has exhibited extensively, has twice had work included in the BP Portrait Award and the Holburne Portrait Prize and was shortlisted for the 2013 Threadneedle Prize.

Her hyper-real close-up portraits shimmer with detail.

She said: “My work involves large scale paintings reflecting conflicting senses of intimacy and glamour. The staged set-up and synthetic colour serve to emphasise the artifice, detaching the paintings from reality and suggesting a parallel world of Hollywood cinema and highgloss fashion photography.”

Heather Wallace paints satirical, theatrical social scenes which tell unexpected and slightly unsettling stories.

Drawing influence from Spectacle and History paintings, she creates work that merges contemporary culture and art history.

Her recent work looks at narratives of British culture, exploring myths and ideals of Britishness.

Clare Chapman's abstract images are both seductive and a little grotesque.

“I want the paintings to remain uncertain,” Chapman said. “They depict something you want to place somewhere, but owing to their inherently abstract nature you are frustrated in doing so.”

Chapman lives and works in London. She gained the Gordon Luton Prize (Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers) in 2001, the British School at Athens'

Prince of Wales Bursary in 2004 and was a John Moores Finalist in 2008.

Mike Newton creates brooding compositions using traditional methods of oil paint on canvas and on wooden panels.

Though his education and industry background is in mathematics, Newton has since retired to pursue an artistic career.

He has recently completed his PhD in Fine Art Painting and works from studios in London and Oxfordshire.

Skin Deep is at Salisbury Arts Centre until April 6 and is free to enter.

More information at salisburyartscentre.co.uk.