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’ve just embarked on an MA Arts Practice back at Ipswich. It felt a bit like coming home.After my BA in 2013 I drifted about like a lost soul….artistically speaking that is. I never stopped drawing and there was plenty to do – moving house, a trip to Australia, an excursion to Scotland in search of Joan Eardley but life lacked structure. So I’m back.
I’m looking at the phenomenology of landscape. Trying not to chase red herrings, being a bit more disciplined about the search this time round and in parallel collecting data in the form of drawings, videos and photos, starting to envisage how I can translate these and abstract from them.
Exciting. Maybe I did learn something during my 3 year stint doing a BA after all.
I wonder if this will work? A huge by-product of my UCS Degree-course in Fine Art was getting to grips with computers. As a technology virgin I feel that I became a whole woman through my interaction with Apples and Microsoft during the years from 2010-2013 but I still have vast gaps in my understanding. Why oh why did you have to change the format just after I’d finally cracked the art of blogging? This new version is still a mystery to me. I can’t seem to fathom how to add or delete a blog entry. I’ve just about given up on my posh new Artists Blog so after reading my friend Ceri’s blog I’m trying to add stuff to my old student blog. I did enjoy blogging and want to do it again if I can discover how.
Will it work, I wonder??? I’m going to press publish and hope. Then if it works I might try again.
All sympathetic replies will be answered….. if I can work out how to…. help please
