the other day i went to see a new exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre, The First Moderns: Art Nouveau, from Nature to Abstraction, which coincided with the excellent BBC three part series, Sex and Sensibility : The Allure of Art Nouveau, written and presented by Stephen Smith.so, having watched two of the three art nouveau programmes i was predisposed to enjoy my visit to this exhibition...
dear reader, please, take a seat. the minimalist architecture of the sainsbury centre (designed by sir norman foster) provided a very modernist reflection on the development of art nouveau, a style often associated with the earlier 'back to nature' rustic aesthetic of the arts & crafts movement (william morris). however, most evident here in charles rennie mackintosh's black lacquered chair is the japanese aesthetic influence, leading on to the harmonic, simplified design elements seen in de stijl, bauhaus, and later still, in minimalism...it was interesting to reflect on the universal, recurring themes of nature and creation in art, from paganism and celtic symbols to the free-flowing abstract patterns of 1960's psychedelia. as in life, so in art. nature is rarely far removed from the subject of art..
[emille gallé, glass vase]i liked looking at and contemplating this glass vase; glass is the perfect medium to express ideas of nature & renewal, from its molten materiality and fluidity of lines to the way its solid form attracts, consumes and reflects the light, the light of life itself - it really glows (and grows on you).minimalism rejected the motifs of nature and, later on, conceptualism had no need to show the 'appearance' or a likeness of nature to express a new idea about it. so, i wonder, have we now lost touch with nature? and, perhaps more importantly, what is nature, exactly?this exhibition reaffirmed how elements of nature continuously feed into art and design (even now, in this brutal, austere age) and i will visit again as the exhibition is on until december 2012.so, naturally enough, when i later had the opportunity to take an leisurely walk through the fine city's royal arcade it was with revitalised and more knowing eyes...
i learnt, via the bbc programme, that these tiles were designed and manufactured by a company called 'daltons', who also created the mosaics in one of harrod's foodhalls. this really is a fine example of art nouveau in architecture, perhaps even better than paris...however, on leaving the spendidly preserved tiled architecture of the 'royal arcade', a small sign of modern day reality was waiting directly opposite, as if to quietly express, just in passing, nothing lasts forever...
'this store is now closed' (repeat, closed) - a sad sign of the times, past times indeed...past times, as its name suggests, traded on a nostalgia for historical, old-looking things (homewares, accessories). i once received the gift of a drawstring brocaded handbag which came from 'past times'; it was obviously a brand new handbag but it had a bohemian aesthetic or style which one might easily associate with the pre-raphaelites, and i liked it...while on my way out of the fine city, i spotted this architectural abstraction, comprised of metal, plywood and some panes of glass - but it's just a redundant office block. it is always fascinating to discover mundane, semi-derelict buildings looking ready for redevelopment (or total destruction) which unintentionally reflect a very pared-down, minimalist aesthetic - wood veneer never really goes out of style...
[an office block in modern times]...
rebirth at Art1821: a private view
i received some photographs of the rebirth exhibition at gallery art1821 in the e-post today.... would you care to take a look?
please mind your head on the low beams...
fabulous dogwood sculptures by barbara leaney, referencing the natural environment and the interstellar world...
one of my abstract paintings, the edgescape rost...
looking back through the main gallery space; shaun caton's paintings are on the far wall...
another one of my edgescape paintings, corros, surrounded by two framed works by veronica grassi - note the whitewashed, cobbled wall...
a full-on view of corros; there are surprising similarites in both colour and texture between my work and veronica's... and more evidence of those cobbledy, flinty walls..
veronica's work on the other end of the wall; also shown are two small works by sahoko aki...i don't have a list of works so can't supply information on medium and titles - there is much more to see in the exhibition; this is just a small snippet...rebirth: an exhibition celebrating Japanese aesthetic, in collaboration with the Unearthed exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, at the gallery Art 1821 in norwich, from 29 July to 8 September 2010.the gallery art1821 is situated in the cellar in one of norwich's finest medieval buildings, augustine steward house in tombland, reputedly built circa 1549.
[image found on flickr]please visit the Art 1821 website for more information on the rebirth exhibition...last chance to see… textures, traces & elements at beyond the image gallery – the exhibition closes at 4pm on sunday 1st august 2010...coming up: the 11th annual Artworks exhibition at blackthorpe barns, 11 September to 3 October 2010 ... and guess what, i will be hanging my work on yet another medieval flint wall...Artworks is an established group of thirty professional East Anglian visual artists, with the environment and mankind’s impact on it as the broad theme of the 11th Annual exhibition…...
more grey sky thinking, out of the blue
more cloud gazing this week, torrential rain all day on tuesday (a typically british summer's day) - this was the view from the window at about 6pm...
a room with a viewi hadn't really noticed how prominent these power lines were before; my days must be slowly draining of any meaningful structure if i get distracted by this visual discordance with nature's billowy curtain... today when i awoke, i did, for a brief moment, wonder what day it was, whether it was saturday already, and that a day of more domestic to-do-tasks await me, tasks which fuel so little enthusiasm as to be remotely filed and archived for just such rainy days...in the manner of these featureless, grey days i have been feeling somewhat melancholic in heart and the vast canvas of the sky seemed to be a reflection of the reality of recent events...thus, i have not been motivated to paint much, well perhaps for an hour or so, here and there, when the mood takes. it seems too self-indulgent to 'just paint' when real-life concerns pile up like the laundry, and then there has been the issue of the quality of daylight...here are a couple of close-up images of one of my current paintings, lichenscape II (a work in progress), taken earlier on today...
detail of the surface of the painting, lichen on stone texturesi had a rash moment of destructive thinking when evaluating this canvas (perhaps inspired by these photographic reframings, seeing paintings within paintings), deciding that i might cut up the canvas into nine smaller ones - the lack of a decent-sized studio space to work in is almost unbearable at times...i have found that in attending to these two large canvases (aka the lichenscapes) it has clouded my creative process - i realise that i am trying to condense into these two paintings a subjective concern which would be better pursued over eight or ten (or even more) paintings. myriad other thoughts (too nebulous to be proper working concepts or ideas) also run daily through my mind, and then i have to remind myself to just focus...
another detail of the textured surface of a lichen-esque painting...exhibition newsyesterday evening i attended the private view of the exhibition rebirth. lorraine cooke, the curator of the exhibition, has done an amazing job in bringing this show together. i feel most privileged to have some of my paintings included in this art exhibition.i realise that i am still reticent in 'working' the private view scenario, as i slowly perused the exhibition on the opening night - this is probably due to: a) being very slight and thus am always less 'visible' in a busy gallery crowd, and also b) a (now) love/hate relationship with my new dr marten boots. i walked to the gallery from the train station and worked up some fine blisters - such small injuries can really be the breaking of the spirit.i also met and chatted with the artist veronica grassi - she has some quite beautiful textural, sculptural pieces in this exhibition. barbara leaney's dogwood sculptures are also quite spectacular, as are the smaller, detailed works of the contemporary japanese artists included in the show. i urge anyone passing through the fine city of norwich to go and see the exhibition at gallery art1821 - it is open until 8th september 2010 - you can also read more about the rebirth exhibition on art 1821's website......to further the idleness of my daily musings and observations, dear reader, may i introduce to you my humble sketching kit? (i always like to travel light, a habit instilled in me since my inter-railing journeys across europe)
my winsor & newton sketchers' box of watercolours
a tiny tiptree jam jar (for water)
an assortment of stubby sketching pencils, mostly derwent & caran d'ache...and here is a composite image of my sketchbookiness of the last few days, 21-29 july, 2010...
skies and clouds sketches
monday, mid afternoon, looking east across fields towards marshes, high up in the sky, grey centre... in graphite, pencil and watercolour...
wednesday, early afternoon... looking east, cooler, bright, clouds moving fast... in graphite and pencil...
thursday, late afternoon, slim, dark clouds moving laterally, about 5pm...this is becoming slightly obsessive; i have a mild desire to master the morphing art of the east anglian skies...and i penned another haiku style poem, or my own ode to a cloud...a cloudtarnished silverdarkening the weeping willows...i am now thinking of joining the cloud appreciation society, whose pledge is to fight the banality of blue-sky thinkingsee my cloud drawings animation from last year: the art of idleness...last chance to see… textures, traces & elements at beyond the image gallery - the exhibition closes at 4pm on sunday 1st august 2010....The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.Marcel Proust (remembrance of things past)