Across The Buildings

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These are the Fish & Coal Buildings on the Regent’s Canal at King’s Cross. Often when I pass there’s a cormorant sitting on the chimney. Now it looks like they’ve been ticked by Nike. Over the last few weeks these silver shapes have slowly spread over the surrounding walls and roofs so that now they seem to stretch from Camley Street right round to York Way. Continue reading “Across The Buildings”

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Besieged By Cyclists

besieged by cyclists

Dominic has recently been turning up for work a little the worse for wear, bearing the scars of his daily encounters with rogue cyclists. It seems a cavern has been found beneath Notting Hill Gate where this prophetic cave painting was discovered. Thames Water have closed the road whilst they carry out investigations but frustrated cyclists continue their journeys on the pavement. Continue reading “Besieged By Cyclists”

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Cave Of Forgotten Dreams

Werner Herzog was granted exclusive access to the Chauvet Cave in the Ardèche Gorge in southern France. The caves are not normally open to the public. They were discovered in 1994 and found to contain the earliest known paleolithic cave paintings, now estimated to be 30,000 years old. Herzog made a beautiful and moving film, illuminating the paintings hidden so long in the dark. Continue reading “Cave Of Forgotten Dreams”

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The Vision Thing

Venus-of-Lespugue

What first strikes you about these Ice Age objects, suspended on transparent plastic stands in glass cases amidst crowds of 21st-century humans, is that they are absolutely tiny. The largest works are approximately the span of a man’s hand, the smallest the size of a child’s fingernail. For a big show it’s an intimate experience. There’s a lot of squeezing about, bending down and peering in, the peculiar sensation of having to adjust your perception to match their scale, as if squeezing yourself down through the same narrow aperture that leads to the wonders of Chauvet and Lascaux. What you’re experiencing is time travel. You adjust yourself to the conditions, and when you become accustomed to what you see, it’s as if you’re looking back to your own time through the wrong end of a telescope, the one that makes everything far away but pin-sharp. Continue reading “The Vision Thing”

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Don’t Spill The Milk!

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Don’t Spill The Milk! is a new book by Stephen Davies and Christopher Corr, just published by Andersen Press. It’s their second collaboration and hopefully it will be just as successful as their first, The Goggle-Eyed Goats, which was launched last year at The Rowley Gallery. Continue reading “Don’t Spill The Milk!”

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