The House That Jack Built

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Another book from the wonderful and sorely missed Notting Hill Books. This one was perhaps not so beloved as the last but it was one of my favourites. I always liked its folksy illustrations and the way one thing leads to another and life just inevitably gets more and more complicated.  Continue reading “The House That Jack Built”

Frames of reference

La Grotte Chauvet

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The Chauvet Cave in the Ardèche region of southern France was discovered in 1994. It contains the most perfect examples of Paleolithic paintings ever found. But they are considered so fragile they must remain hidden from view. Copies of the paintings have been recreated and they can now be seen in a full-scale replica cave above the town of Vallon-Pont-d’Arc. A gallery of simulacra of some of the most authentic paintings in the world; it’s an unsettling idea. Continue reading “La Grotte Chauvet”

Frames of reference

Flying To Barcelona

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Over the Pyrenees a week before Easter, en route to Barcelona, the spectacular view a heartbreaking reminder of the suicidal plane crash five days earlier. A flight from Barcelona to Düsseldorf had fallen from the sky onto similar mountains near Barcelonnette in the French Alps. It was impossible not to think of it, to imagine its kamikaze descent, to remember its helpless victims. Continue reading “Flying To Barcelona”

Frames of reference

Roger Ackling: Between The Lines

Roger Ackling made artworks like small miracles. He turned driftwood into diamonds. He died last year, his obituary is here. I never met him but I knew people who were taught by him and exhibited with him. I saw many of his exhibitions and loved his work. I think I even once walked by his house on the crumbling north Norfolk coast at Weybourne. There are presently exhibitions of his work at Annely Juda and Kestle Barton, and Occasional Papers are hoping to publish a crowdfunded book about him, Roger Ackling: Between the Lines. I’m looking forward to reading it. Continue reading “Roger Ackling: Between The Lines”

Frames of reference

Safety Net

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In 2011 a great opportunity had come my way; a retrospective for Pharmacopoeia with a linked solo exhibition in a lakeside Danish gallery. However, at the time I was in the hold of a depression and struggling to do the mundane let alone the creative. Continue reading “Safety Net”

Frames of reference

New Paintings By Anne Davies

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Six new paintings hang just inside the front door of The Rowley Gallery, new arrivals by Anne Davies, rhythmic evocations of remembered places, patchwork mementoes of walked paces, footsteps on the ground retraced in the mind’s eye, memories and traces of colours and spaces. Continue reading “New Paintings By Anne Davies”

Frames of reference