I managed to add a picture the other day but can’t do it today Tried everything !!!!!! Ah got it!!!
The Marlene Dumas exhibition was brilliant. I felt compelled to go as Sarah Bale was going on about it ad nauseum. So I went, not expecting to be wowed but ….just the opposite. Her portraits – Marlene’s not Sarah’s, were so poetic and moving and what’s more they were fairly figurative in a distorted sort of way. It seemed to give me permission to resort to figuration again. A revelation. Next I visited the Deibenkorn which I had expected to like but curiously, it left me rather unimpressed. The application of paint appeared rather ‘scruffy’. Decided that the compositions were really what made the work so good and lifted them above other things somehow. I preferred the early abstracts and the middle semi-figurative works to the later Ocean Park stuff which most people rave about. They were so stiff and lifeless to me. They lacked passion and enthusiasm.
Have been sketching at the Old Swimming Hole on Sudbury Water Meadows for days and am dying to jump in and swim. It was choked with weeds in the winter but the water is crystal-clear now but too cold yet. Several attempts to paint it have failed – too figurative but todays is approaching the image in my head.
I changed my name to include my maiden name, Bright. Two reasons - homage to my dear Dad who taught me to draw and there seem to be several ValJones's so hope this helps! I paint because I need to. Recently completed my MA Fine Art at Suffolk University, Ipswich. Enjoy blogging about progress - it seems to help. Landcsapes, the human figure, sense of place, in other words all the concerns of an artist in reflecting impressions of the world.
