The Colour Of Memory

The entrance to the Pierre Bonnard exhibition at Tate Modern is a portal through a giant detail reproduction taken from his painting The Garden of 1936. It’s perhaps his best painting. It’s the one that most draws me in, most like a garden itself with it’s abstract disposition of marks and colours, it reminds me of paintings by Patrick Heron and Gillian Ayres. And there are other paintings here that bring to mind Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Howard Hodgkin, David Hockney. But before all of that, we’re straightaway into a red gallery with ‘hot’ paintings of Bonnard’s mistress, full-frontal nudes and a post-coital bedroom scene. The gardening comes later. Continue reading “The Colour Of Memory”

Frames of reference

Generation Painting

IMG_0768

In Cambridge to visit the recently opened Heong Gallery, a former stable block in the grounds of Downing College, transformed by architects Caruso St John into an elegant space for the display of modern and contemporary art. Continue reading “Generation Painting”

Frames of reference

Winter Trees

moon tree

First there was this Christmas card from a painting by Mick Moon, made with oil paint & string on board and called simply Tree. Then I heard the three Staveley-Taylor sisters (aka The Staves) singing Winter Trees:

Continue reading “Winter Trees”

Frames of reference

For Lucian Freud

This is weird. Straightaway Kensington rooftops then a glimpse through a window, as if I’d seen it before. These people are familiar. We see them on the street, in the newsagent, in those boots sometimes, shuffling. Why the hawk? A Peregrine Falcon? Keen eyes and full of energy. I had no idea this film existed until I stumbled upon it today, so now I will share it. Continue reading “For Lucian Freud”

Frames of reference