Apologies for the dry spell, just over a week ago I handed in the dissertation and then had a very well timed university trip to Amsterdam, two days afterwards. My dissertation title ended up being “The Relationship between the Poetry and Visual Works of Egon Schiele, 1910-1915”. I’ll find out how that went come results day around May time, it’ll be out of mind until then and I can focus on studio work. Amsterdam has a fantastic historical art collection and a booming contemporary art scene. Some highlights of the trip were the ‘The Goldfinch’ by Carel Fabritus at the Mauritshuis in Den Haag, absolutely beautiful painting, a real example of trompe l’oeil, Andre Kruysen “Uprising as Passage” installation at the Gemeentemuseum, a real invasive but still quite subtle piece, winner of the Oubory Prize 2011 and at the Jeanine Hofland Contemporary, Rumiko Hagiwara’s fantastic site specific installation “In Praise of Shadows” responding to the book by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki of the same name.
Its good to be back in the studio, I’ve forgotten how cathartic simple drawings can be, I’ve been working on a few sketches of these rather odd hazelnut-casing sort of things that I found about 6 months ago. I couldn’t decide what to do with the case-things, so I painted them black, just to see if it divorces them from their chaotic natural forms to just line, tone, shape etc. Not all together sure where its going, but im enjoying the ride. Full report on Amsterdam and hopefully some pictures of some new studio work a little later.
