Camden Town - my view in pictures

Bold colours

Eccentric architecture 1

Towards and back - reflection

Filmstrip 

Eccentric architecture 2 

Rusty boot - the shoe motif repeats throughout Camden town

E.T stuffed??

Scorpio shoemaker

I like dragons; they are regal, majestic, ferocious and can burn everything to
ashes.

Recurring shoes

Paradox

Net-ty view 1

Net-ty view 2

Net-ty view 3

Monet's The Water Lily Pond ? (without the lilies of course)

Bumpy ride

Ripples Rip the Reflection

Mysteries of the universe

Planet of the apes?

Did Mercury lose his shoe?

Coat of Arms - the Stable royal-'ised'.

Freedom

A streak of white

If anything, Camden Town definitely has the urban edge.

February 15, 2012

The National Portrait Gallery is a perfect venue for learning about portraiture, its importance throughout the ages and most importantly, how portraiture went into a whole new phase of expression during the 20th century.

As from the 1960s, the world knew of a new prosperity after a devastative war; new artistic movements  emerged, promoting art which reflected modern society and its changing standards, like Pop Art, Abstract Art and Conceptual Art. During the 1980s however there was a revival in figurative painting, and the result was a profusion of styles which, together, formed this gust of wind which veered portraiture to a whole new direction. This, was a new turn in contemporary art history.

The 1960s-1990s section of the National Portrait Gallery is the best place to analyse how depicting portraiture in the 20ieth  was a challenge. Sketches of certain portraits are shown herein as well as notes recording what was pertinent about each and every one of them.

DAVID SYLVESTER

by Larry Rivers (1923-2002)

oil on canvas, 1962

KENNETH CLARK, BARON CLARK

by Graham Sutherland (1903-80)

oil on canvas

Portraits of LADY DIANA (1981) & PRINCE CHARLES (1980)
by Brayan Organ
acrylic on canvas

FRANCIS BACON
by Ruskin Spear (1911-90)
oil on board, 1984

BILL MORIS                                                                                        Self Portrait of LEON KOSSOFF  

by John Keane                                                                                                               oil on board, 1981
oil on Inkjet printed cotton mounted on canvas

PAUL McCARNEY

Mike's BROTHER

by Sam Walsh (1934-89)

Victorian Family Portraits

THE ROYAL FAMILY AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE

by Sir John Lavery (1856-1941)

oil on canvas, 1913

The National Art Gallery is home to hundreds of pre-modernist paintings, including the Renaissance and pre-Renaissance masterpieces found in the Sainsbury Wing. Though most of the time it is repetitive, boring and intense in religious imagery and symbolism, dropping by this wing can be quite educating if one takes the time to look and appreciate.

THE ADORATION OF THE KINGS, about 1500 (bottom left)

by Vincenzo Foppa

&

SAINT MICHAEL TRIUMPHS OVER THE DEVIL, 1468 (bottom right)

by Bartolome Bermenjo

THE VIRGIN & CHILD WITH SAINTS, about 1435-41 (bottom left)

by Pisanello 

&

SAINTS JOHN THE BAPTIST & LAWRENCE, about 1480 (bottom right)

by Hans Memling

egg on oak

February 29, 2012

Hauser & Wirth London, Piccadilly
The Last paintings of Joan Mitchell.

The abstract expressionist works of Mitchell are all about the visual experience; the paintings are made on large canvases and sometimes 2 large canvases are joined together to form 1 full painting. After having seen this exhibition, I do feel that scale has a lot of importance in abstract art, or in any other art form for that matter. Large scale paintings, like the ones of Mitchell, really allow us to appreciate from far and the overall impact is thence strong and imposing. 

Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), The Mall, London
In Numbers

This exhibition features the serial publications of artists since 1955 and includes within its web the notion of mail art, using the format of magazines and postcards as the basis for a new kind of art. The works were conceptual and of a higher level of understanding. Recording information is a prerequisite for learning new things and broadening the mind. To this aim, the following pictures were taken and are presented herein.

The Barbican, London
Song Dong: Waste Not


Waste Not at the Barbican: the exhibition space is a winding, serpentine corridor and as such, the viewer has no idea what to expect next and has no choice but to simply discover further and further, at each turn, what the artist has in store for us. The setting turns out to be of an utmost importance in the experience of this work.

The Barbican is currently housing the monumental installation artwork of the internationally known Chinese artist Song Dong. Waste Not, the name of the work, is very personal and conceptual. It is basically a collection and this struck me as I have been so far interested in the idea of a 'collection' when it comes to my own work. Though his collection is that of objects, this work was primarily a kind of therapy to help the artist's mother get over the emotional deluge caused by his father's death. And my ongoing interest is in a collection of handmade portraits of those people who are linked to me emotionally. So we see that there is this 'relationship' element present in both ideas. The work is also deep in terms of its portrayal of the Chinese culture and the richness of personal history. The explanatory banner was photographed as a way of recording the details and ideas surrounding Waste Not.

Tate Modern : a visual appreciation of some of it's masterpieces

Popping in the Surrealism section, I found some works which nudged me, some with their compositions, others with the reputed artist's name tag on the side.

Giorgo de Chirico's The Painter's Family (1926), has a very architectural feel about it. The artist's oil-painting technique gives the figures a sculptural finish, as if he is freezing a memory in time, chiselling it in 'stone'.

John Tunnard's  Tol Pedn (1942) is a landscape of geometric forms. What I appreciate is the distilling of form to its essence, with a very limited palette. Space and form seem to have been very well calculated, and the overall effect is cold and detached.

It was also interesting to see how experimental renown artists have been throughout their lives before reaching their artistic hallmark. We find works by  Joan Miro and Jackson Pollock that link somehow to the Surrealism period (It is important to note that Miro chose not to be labelled as a Surrealist despite his works having a strong surrealist aspect)

Joan Miro
Painting (1927)
Tempera and oil on canvas

Jackson Pollock
Naked Man with Knife (1938-40)
Oil on canvas

Alexander Calder's sculpture Mobile (1932) caught my attention; it is completely revolutionary as a sculpture, having an 'installation' element to it.

Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds needs no introduction; the explanatory panel, which clearly defines the artist's practice is presented herein. The deep intellectual musings behind such conceptual works based on the ready-made notion, always strike me as ingenious and thought-provoking.

Artist Eye Talk at the National Art Gallery – 4th Nov 2011

Creativity is based on inspiration, and artists are inspired in many ways: some by nature, some by relationships, some by pain… and some by the masters of the past.

At the Artist Eye Talk last week, Michael Landy was invited to talk on one masterpiece of his choice of the National Art gallery: Les Grandes Baigneuses (about 1894-1905) by Paul Cézanne. Landy is best known for his monumental installation/performance artwork Break Down (2001) whereby he systematically destroyed all of his possessions in a former department store on Oxford Street, London, as well as Semi-Detached (2004) which consisted of replicating his parents’ home inside Tate Britain. Then, what is it that drew him to a painting artwork as Les Grandes Baigneuses, which is obviously far from his medium of expression?

nationalgallery.org.uk

When asked that question, Landy humourously said, ‘Money’. In fact, it was the purchase order of a friend to make a replica of this painting. Landy explained how that he was that type of artist who makes innumerable sketches of the proposed drawing and he said that this is one of the best ways for understanding a painting. As a result he now has quite a few ink and pencil sketches based on Les Grandes Baigneuses, and this even ended upon being an inspiration for a large-scale drawing he exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer 2011 Show, Bathers after Cezanne no.3. Thence we notice how the simple interconnectivity of the eye and the skill of the hand, draws contemporary artist Michael Landy to the old master, Paul Cézanne.

Coming to the painting itself, we notice the architectural tone that dominates the background, the lack of perspective and lack of detail in terms of tints and shades; it is all to do with texture and the overall feel of the artwork. Landy described how this semblance of the foreground merging into the background caught his attention. Indeed there is nothing delineating the two, be it the gradual toning down of colour intensity that we find in painting during the Renaissance period, or perspective. 

Moreover, we do feel a certain presence of water beyond the nude figures though we do not see it. Again it all comes down to Cézanne’s painting technique. Cézanne treats the outer section of the bodies with a certain warm, earthy feel which gradually converges into a cooler, bluish tint in the treatment of the further, inner section of bodies. That bluish tint gives the hint of a cooling presence beyond, maybe the reflection of water. The painting follows a long tradition of nude paintings by Titian and Poussin but Cézanne’s interpretation of it is what makes it unique.

We saw how Landy became inspired by Cézanne and now understand how artists may be inspired by other artists in a multitude of ways. By the end of the talk, I realised that to understand a painting simply seeing it live might not be enough; drawing it might be the better way of doing so.

And I hope you realised it too.

At the Folies-Bergère

Along the Strand and pass the main archway entrance of Somerset House, into the furbished, elegant Courtauld Gallery on the right, up a couple of staircases, through the halls dedicated to Renaissance and the subsequent flow into Impressionist period, and lo, there’s the painting, reclining majestically against the wall as one of the most well-known masterpieces of Edouard Manet: A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.

Las Meninas
mystudio.com

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is primarily an Impressionist painting, and it is this technique which brings the viewer onto a level of real experience. First and foremost this painting has been described as a modern rendition of Velasquez’s Las Meninas. The latter’s masterpiece was executed in such a way as if it was actually capturing a filmic scene and as a result the viewer gets the feeling that he/she is indeed stepping into an intimate family setting. The same effect is achieved with A Bar at the Folies Bergère, though this time instead of making us feel that we are misplaced, Manet draws us to it and creates an invisible connection between portraiture and the audience.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère 
impressionist-art-gallery.com

Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe
seelvage.com

As for the very technique of impressionism, the dry thick strokes of colour create texture and induce an intense sensory experience. As such the visual becomes enough to evoke a feel of ‘synaesthesia’; we want to touch it, we feel the atmosphere, we experience it. The blurred figures in the ‘mirror’ background are enough to impart the shimmer, the frolic and the intoxicated bliss of Paris nightlife at the Folies-Bergère. Yet, it is the foreground which is of main concern. The display at the bar is equally intensely sensual, and thus Manet seems to be showing how the visual in our consumerism society lures us to indulge. It’s all about what we see and, in the words of Marshall McLuhan, ‘it is never the content that counts’. Then, we may question, what about the bar maid? Her depiction is also very visually arresting, decorative and sensual. Is she on display too? Is she also an object of desire? Since portraiture is very much to do with emotion and identity, this is what we might think. She is melancholic, obviously not happy with her situation. In this way the idea of prostitution is subtly raised and maybe even condemned. This reminds us of Manet’s other work which was controversial during his own time, the Dejeuner sur l’herbe. In that painting Manet flouted the traditional idealized version of female nudes and showed a crude reality that could be said to be hinting at prostitution.

Manet intentionally avoids fixed point perspective to create a two-way traffic with the viewer. The bar maid is improperly reflected into the mirror as in the mirror she seems to be addressing a man. This could however hint at a past situation which led to that melancholic expression in the frontal portrait. From another perspective, given the blurry man is a reflection of what is in front of the bar maid, and what is in front of her is us, Manet seems to make that figure a portrait of us, the viewer. What is that man asking from the bar maid? Could it be some sensual favours? In other words, Manet makes us part of his artwork and exposes us as the ones who are lured by modern society’s visual culture.

At the end of the day, we cannot but awe at the ingenuity of the presention of ideas through this unconventional use of perspective.

And as we move onto the next painting in the hall, we do feel that, yes, we’ve just left the Folies Bergère.