To London to London to visit the Queen- well not quite. The Jerwood, Threadneedle and various galleries serendipitously en route………
As always I have returned from my wanderings fired up and no longer connected with daily life. My head is now constipated with images and feels in need of a good debriefing.
So – the Threadneedle Prize. The winner of this most lucrative art prize is a tiny, icy nude that looks incapable of gestation without Freud. It is a self portrait of the female artist and on the citation she decribes herself as a ‘small naked frightened creature.’ I wonder in a very un- PC way if I might have viewed it as a stronger work if it had been painted by a man.
Accompanied by an artist friend I meander on down South Bank in the sun, removing clothing layers as we go. It felt like summer, not least because of the fabulous deck chairs that have appeared this year- all in full occupation – and the street performers and the courting couples. Its enough to make you proud to be British.
A lovely time in the Jerwood. Light and airy, beautifully hung, but rubbish photos in the catalogue. Flat dead images like old fish eyes. Truly not worth producing a catalogue if all it does is dissapoint.
I did wonder when does a matchbox with a paper collage on became a drawing, but the collage may have been a drawing. Technical obsessional talent renders things so photographically real it becomes impossible to tell. Which is of course sometimes the point, but then again sometimes not. And its impossible to tell.
Drawing does seem to favour the obsessional, repetitive and meditative. Give me a multi – layered pampliset and I am a moth to a flame………….
Roy Eastland’s tiny worked and reworked figures do it for me as do his seascapes.
Sian Bowden’s strange work labelled ‘palladium on paper’ had me Googling this evening. I am still unsure of the process but it gives an otherworldly feeling of being at one remove. Behind glass. Which it is.
Returning we drop into Gabriel’s Wharf and I spy a gallery with work faintly reminiscent of a friend’s beautiful ceramics. Ever the warrior I dive in and after a brief preamble demand they look at her website which they do.They love it. My good deed for the day.
I am always doing this. If there was a job where I could introduce artists to eachother, and pass on opportunities
a] I would be happy and
b] I would be richer [instead of them].
So – now I feel like immersing myself in graphite – but I have too much to do.
The Artist’s Forum that I ran from our studios has outgrown its present home and we are moving to the local arts center.
More office stuff.
I am always going to reduce this side of things.
Maybe.
