Rowley Gallery Blog
Usually I write a monthly blog post on my garden, but it’s been very quiet this last month (apart from Medge the Hedge wandering in to my next door neighbour’s garage and getting stuck in a wellington boot – rescue ensued). Therefore, I will forgo my gardening notes this time and write not of plant pots – but of paint pots. Continue reading “Rowley Gallery Pots”
if you haven’t taken a stroll down main street,
my exhibition at yorkshire sculpture park,
there’s still time.
and you might want to kill two birds with a single stone
& come along to the first (& possibly last)
Darktown valentine’s cabaret. Continue reading “Darktown Valentine’s Cabaret”
A selection of pictures from the exhibition Quentin Blake: The Hospital Drawings at the Nightingale Project until 31 March 2016, to celebrate ten years of Sir Quentin Blake creating art for hospitals. Continue reading “Our Friends In The Circus”
The Christmas full moon got me thinking lunatic thoughts and I remembered this wonderful piece by Pina Bausch for Tanztheater Wuppertal.
Vollmond, meaning full moon or high tide, is among Pina’s most revered works and has been making waves, literally, since its creation in 2006… The full moon highlights our humanity and how we get thrown into emotional highs and lows. Pina’s dancer-actors ride this roller coaster throughout Vollmond, showing vulnerability and strength, detachment and desire, collapse and vitality. It’s visceral. It’s deeply relatable. There is no one story to this show, it’s a glimpse into the lives of a handful of intertwined individuals. Vollmond is a work you can return to and always come out of with a new perspective. Continue reading “Vollmond”
This year I had the honour to design the Christmas Card for Rowley Gallery. I chose to use some of the characters of a traditional Mexican pastorela, a play that recreates the biblical passage in which the shepherds are guided to Bethlehem and there are always angels, devils, sheep and funny situations. If you are in west London go and visit Rowley Gallery, it’s full of choices for your Christmas presents. The clock is ticking! Continue reading “Feliz Navidad”
In 1987 I was commissioned by Ian Simpson Architects to make a ceiling mural for the new entrance lobby at Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith as part of a major refurbishment of the ground floor. It took more than a year to complete and was finally installed in 1989 after I had also worked on the mural while it was up on the ceiling. Continue reading “Garden Of Delights”
The Most Exciting Chapter is the title of this unique screenprint created by Quentin Blake for the Nightingale Project, a charity which brightens up NHS hospitals through the arts. Prints are now available from The Rowley Gallery. Continue reading “The Most Exciting Chapter”
Here’s a lovely thing, a Jonny Hannah video from Yorkshire Sculpture Park:
Visitors are invited to take a stroll down Main Street in Hannah’s vintage-inspired homage to the independent trader, until 28 February 2016. Transforming YSP Centre, the exhibition features three pop-up shops made entirely from the artist’s 2D and 3D artworks, all of which are available to buy. Navigate Main Street using Hannah’s traditional hand-painted signs suspended above the YSP Centre concourse; natter with the owner of the Record Store; and nip to The Hand and Heart junk shop to pick up anything your heart desires!
Further details at Yorkshire Sculpture Park and see more of Jonny’s work at The Rowley Gallery.
Last summer, on the 10th of August, we made our first visit to Florence. We drove there without satnav and without a hitch, the roads were clear, no hold-ups and we left the car with a parking attendant in a super-efficient underground car park. It was all going surprisingly smoothly, until we hit the streets and joined the procession of pilgrims to the birthplace of the Renaissance. Continue reading “Florence At First Sight”
Grey, white and blue on grey and pink
Drawing and painting is something I do in response to what I am seeing. This practice of working from direct observation was established in my youth. It was probably inherited from my mother, a flower painter and my grandmother, a figurative artist, and fuelled by visits to the National Gallery and subsequent juvenile attempts to replicate the realism of the Old Masters. It was the Dutch 17th century painters that had particularly caught my attention and I began using oil paint and developing an art practice by setting up still lives and going out into the landscape. Continue reading “A Patch Of Order”