LONDON & BODY LANGUAGE EXHIBITION.
This week I went to London to hand in a piece of my work from 2013 to Trinity Buoy Wharf for submission to the BP portrait awards, 2014.
The standard of work was incredible high and me proceeding is very unlikely however, I’m glad to know the process for future reference and it was an exciting experience.
Afterwards I visited The Body Language exhibition at The Saatchi Gallery; http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/body_languag….
One of the artworks that really stood out for me in the exhibition was ‘Face Eater’ (2004) by Dana Schutz. It reminded me of ‘Head ii’ (1949) by Francis Bacon, which I saw at The Ashmolean Museum.
They both project a silent scream and communicate something unspeakable. Both paintings describe something which is hard to put into words. Gerhard Richter once said “Talk about painting: there’s no point. By conveying a thing through the medium of language, you change it. You construct qualities that can be said, and you leave out the ones that can’t be said but are always the most important.”
These paintings both remind me of that quotation. Although these paintings don’t describe what a human form or flesh they both spoke to me of the human condition, terror and flesh. I am also interested in how both these paintings use interesting angles and perspective.
Other works that stood out for me at the Body Language exhibition was that by Nicole Eisenman. Within her work there were areas of thick texture…just snippets which brought the paintings alive for me. I found myself attracted to those areas, thinking I love that head with a thick dollop of paint to give the impression of an ear. This has lead me back to my first post where I quoted Bacon;
“There is an area of the nervous system to which the texture of paint communicates more violently than anything else” (Bacon, n.d cited in Russell, 1971, pp.21).
I want to start experimenting with a wide diversity of textures and varying weights of mark-making.
Also at the exhibition, Helen Verhoeven’s ‘Thingly Character IV‘, 2010 painted in monochromatic colour, drew my attention and stood out to me just as much as the colour pieces.
References: Gerhard Richter: Text. Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961-2007, Thames & Hudson, London, 2009, p. 35.
