One Last Day In Ortigia

This time last year we’d recently returned from Sicily, and two sultry weeks in Ortigia, where the balcony of our apartment looked out over the sea. We watched through our crystal ball, waiting each day for a breeze, but the sailing boats passed by inverted, the air was still and we were becalmed. Continue reading “One Last Day In Ortigia”

Frames of reference

Scenes From The Lives Of The Saints

A small collection of work by Chris Kenny in the window of The Rowley Gallery

Paintings in gouache and ink produced in Provence over the last five summers, each initiated by the biography of a saint, extending the Instagram @twigsaints project.

Constructions employing found materials – cut hardback book covers and twigs – that act as dynamic three-dimensional drawings provoking a range of associations without adhering to any explicit subject.

Chris Kenny has work in many collections including the British Museum, the V&A and the Museum of London. He is currently exhibiting at Mucem in Marseille.   Continue reading “Scenes From The Lives Of The Saints”

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For Ashley

Video: Peter Rudolfi / Performer: Ashley Bathgate / Composer: Andrew Norman

These visual illustrations attempt to complement a contemporary music take on Unaccompanied Cello music. This version is derivative of the iconic J.S. Bach Cello Suites written 300 years earlier with both compositions containing implied three-to-four-voice contrapuntal and polyphonic music in a single line. Uniquely, composer Norman adds ingenious changing metric structural patterns posing an added challenge to the performer. The effect is a rich rhythmic mosaic indicative of the Baroque aesthetic.

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The Ways

Twelve framed hand-coloured linocuts by Liz Somerville in our window throughout August and September. They’re part of a suite of 48 prints called The Ways, celebrating four ancient paths through England. There’s also a limited edition concertina booklet of all the images in miniature. Continue reading “The Ways”

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Akrai

Last summer in Sicily, above the town of Palazzolo Acreide, in the Province of Syracuse, we found ourselves at the site of the ancient Greek city of Akrai. Nowadays a collection of stones, still being excavated, and the quarries from which they came, later occupied as cave homes and catacombs. Continue reading “Akrai”

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Sight

SIGHT an unprecedented site-specific exhibition by British artist Antony Gormley. It marks the first time that a contemporary art exhibition is held on Delos, birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, since the sacred island was first inhabited more than five thousand years ago.

Gormley repopulates the island of Delos with iron ’bodyforms’, restoring a human presence and creating a journey of potential encounters. He has installed 29 sculptures made during the last twenty years, including 5 new works specially commissioned by NEON, both at the periphery and integrated amongst Delos’s archaeological sites. Curated by Iwona Blazwick OBE, Director, Whitechapel Gallery and Elina Kountouri, Director, NEON.

SIGHT is organized and commissioned by NEON and presented in collaboration with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Cyclades. 2 May – 31 October 2019

Sight | Antony Gormley on the island of Delos

Frames of reference

Curious Customs

Look what I found down at the Post Office. It seems like Jonny Hannah got a call from the Royal Mail. I bought the full set of eight stamps in their delightfully designed presentation pack. The lady behind the counter must have taken me for a philatelist, and gave me a calendar of Special Stamps for 2019. She piqued my curiosity by saying the next stamps to be issued will be on Forests. Continue reading “Curious Customs”

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Twelve Little Birds

And three parrots. Our window this month at the Rowley Gallery is home to a diverse flock of brightly coloured miniature tropical birds. It’s an aviary of twelve unique life-size watercolour paintings. The parrots are screen prints. And they are all by Fanny Shorter, whose work we have been lucky enough to show for the past ten years now, during which time she has developed from a printmaker of exquisite little birds and fishes into an internationally renowned textile designer. So it was a great pleasure to ask her to make twelve little paintings, just for a change. Continue reading “Twelve Little Birds”

Frames of reference

Le Chêne Vert

This little painting hung on the wall of our house in Calvi. It looked like the campanile of one of the churches we visited yesterday, perhaps in Calenzana or maybe Montemaggiore.

The Genoese… besides tending their gardens, they built churches, so many over the centuries… that the region was called ‘holy Balagne’; today their bell towers charmingly punctuate the landscape like a series of mild exclamation marks.

Corsica: Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls

But when I took it down I found Église d’Avapessa handwritten on the back. Continue reading “Le Chêne Vert”

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