Art – Page 11 – Frames of Reference

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”

Devour

A few mementoes of Jelly Green’s magnificent but all too brief exhibition, Devour, at the Oxo Tower Gallery on London’s South Bank for just four days in early April. At the opening I was running around excitedly with my camera pointing and shooting wildly, trying in vain to absorb it all. The resulting photos are of varying degrees of clarity, but hopefully you’ll get the gist. Continue reading “Devour”

Lepidopterae

We’ve got a windowful of butterflies to cut out and keep, captivating moments gilded and framed, an April shower of lepidoptera, caught in a dream of waking and sleeping and waking again.

I dreamed I was a butterfly, but then I awoke. Now I do not know whether I was a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly dreaming I am a man – Chuang-tzu. Continue reading “Lepidopterae”

Helmet Heads

A short walk from Annely Juda’s in Dering Street, north across Oxford Street to Cavendish Square, west along Wigmore Street to Manchester Square, and to Hertford House, home of the Wallace Collection – a national museum which displays the art collections brought together by the first four Marquesses of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace, thought to be the illegitimate son of the 4th Marquess. It was bequeathed to the British nation by Lady Wallace, Sir Richard’s widow, in 1897. Continue reading “Helmet Heads”

A Small Retrospective

I love the Annely Juda Gallery very much. I’ve been visiting as long as I’ve lived in London and it always feels like I’m coming home. I first knew it as a small warehouse space in Tottenham Mews, next-door to the Angela Flowers Gallery. It was all scrubbed floorboards and whitewashed walls hung with jewel-like fragments of Bauhaus, De Stijl and Russian Constructivist art. Most exhibitions seemed to be called The Non-Objective World and they were always a great education in abstraction. In 1990 she moved to Dering Street where I first discovered the work of Eduardo Chillida, and saw an exhibition of minimal white reliefs by Alan Reynolds. It was a revelation. Continue reading “A Small Retrospective”

The Chestnut Of A Hundred Horses

Some call it the Hundred Horse Chestnut, but that confuses me because it’s a sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) not a horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum). Maybe it should be the Sweet Chestnut of a Hundred Horses. In Italian it is called Il Castagno dei Cento Cavalli. It stands on the eastern slope of Mount Etna and has survived the volcano’s eruptions for 4,000 years. According to legend, Giovanna of Aragon, Queen of Naples, was visiting Mount Etna when a severe thunderstorm caused her and her entourage of one hundred knights on horseback to take shelter beneath the tree. Continue reading “The Chestnut Of A Hundred Horses”

Newton St George

It sounds like it might be the name of a village, somewhere in Devon perhaps, deep in the countryside; but no, it’s a display of paintings by Robert Newton and ceramics by Florence St George. Neither artist is from Devon but both make work that looks like it was extracted from the countryside, evidence of the land, pieces of earth. They’re together in The Rowley Gallery window throughout March. Continue reading “Newton St George”

Ispica & Modica

It was midday when we arrived in Ispica, the August sun was high and the streets were hot but the town was closed, the shutters were down and lunch was off the menu. It appeared unwelcoming but the guide book had promised much more – The small town of Ispica was rebuilt on its present site after the earthquake of 1693 destroyed the former town on the valley floor… The chalk eminence on which it stands is pierced with tombs and cave dwellings. These can best be seen in the Parco della Forza at the south end of the Cava d’Ispica… best approached from Ispica along Via Cavagrande. It has lush vegetation, water-cisterns, tombs and churches, all carved out of the rock, and a remarkable tunnel known as the Centoscale (‘Hundred Stairs’), 60m long, formerly used by people carrying water from the river to the town. Continue reading “Ispica & Modica”

Devour

Drawing in the Jungle

For years now, each spring, Jelly Green has found refuge in the rainforest. She gradually realised she was developing an allergic reaction to the pesticide-sprayed fields of her native Suffolk, and so she escaped to the tree-clean air of Brazil, Sri Lanka, Borneo and New Zealand. The paintings she made there can be seen at Gallery@Oxo from the 4th to the 7th of April. The exhibition is called Devour. The paintings are delicious. Come and see and devour them with your eyes. Continue reading “Devour”

Fast Cars & Ukuleles

A is for Apple. B is for Bike. C is for Cat. All three of these are in my new ABC book, ‘Fast Cars & Ukuleles’, but not where you’d expect them. The apple is under F. For the bike, look at V. And the cat is on an endpaper. I’ve always loved alphabet books. Continue reading “Fast Cars & Ukuleles”