Art – Page 34 – 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”

Safety Net

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”

Momentum

Waiting on Holme Moss – TV helicopter just above the yellow van.
You could hear the crowd roaring as they climbed the valley from Holmfirth. Electric!

Momentum (p=mv) Newtonian Mechanics = One thing leads to another. Continue reading “Momentum”

First Light

First Light

These new works are borne out of a need to bring light and life into my studio during the dark winter months. They have a direct link with my garden and the majority of the plants and birds in these paintings can be seen from my kitchen window. Continue reading “First Light”

Ripping Yarns

No sooner had I posted the previous piece about Anne Davies and her appearance in Discover Art magazine than I received an email from James Read, and another blog post arrived fully formed, again courtesy of Discover Art. Continue reading “Ripping Yarns”

New Paintings By Anne Davies

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”

Chalk Flowers

Another King Penguin from the collection of Evelyn Hallewell. This one’s a beauty but sadly missing a few pages from the middle. The illustrations are by Irene Hawkins but Rampion, Scabious, Rock Rose and Pasque Flower have disappeared. It was published in 1947 and, according to the label in the back, it was purchased from Binns Ltd. (Book Shop), Princes Street, Edinburgh 2. Continue reading “Chalk Flowers”

Thesis & Antithesis

This might be a curio best forgotten, an embarrassing piece of juvenilia. Forty years ago this was my final year thesis at art school. Nowadays it would be called a dissertation. But really it was just an annotated photo album. I’d found a stripey beach towel which became a sort of security blanket for a while, it seemed emblematic of the striped abstract paintings I was making and I photographed it wherever I went. I put all the photos together in a book with lots of random quotes as if I’d swallowed a library, or more likely the Whole Earth Catalog and An Index Of Possibilities. It was all very 1970s and very pretentious, but what really strikes me today is how much it resembles a prototype blog post. Continue reading “Thesis & Antithesis”

From Moore To Serra

Henry Moore’s Large Spindle Piece, a cast bronze sculpture from 1974, now installed in the newly reappointed King’s Cross Square. For the past forty years the station was hidden behind an “awful tin shed” temporary canopy. It’s eventual removal, and the long overdue revelation of Lewis Cubitt’s elegant facade, is celebrated by the arrival of this captive “flying shuttle”. Continue reading “From Moore To Serra”

Paul Finn & Huw Morgan

Paul Finn is exhibiting 10 paintings and 10 prints inspired by his visits to The Beth Chatto Gardens and Warley Place, both places featured in his A Tale Of Two Gardens. Huw Morgan is exhibiting a selection of his illustrations of birds. They can both be seen at the Well House Gallery, Oxley House, High Road, Horndon on the Hill, Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, SS17 8LF.