Art – Page 35 – Frames of Reference

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.

Cows About Town

Sussex Charolais 12

A new herd of Jelly Green’s vivacious cow paintings has just arrived. Their energy is infectious, their vitality contagious. They have a way of getting into my head and sticking in my mind. They’re the visual equivalent of earworms; they must be eyecows! Now I’m seeing cows all over town. Continue reading “Cows About Town”

Pelicans We

Dear Chris, I have just designed the new EP cover for Cosmo Sheldrake. I thought you might be interested in including it in Frames of Reference. Thank you. All the very best, Bea. Continue reading “Pelicans We”

Simon Kramer & Ernst Reijseger

Cellist Ernst Reijseger in the studio with painter Simon Kramer. One draws and the other plays, each responding to what he sees and hears. The video speaks for itself. It’s a fascinating dialogue.

A Valentine Tree

Stations Of The Crossing

This railway bridge on Wightman Road crosses the Gospel Oak to Barking Line just as it passes under the East Coast Main Line out of Finsbury Park. I regularly cross this bridge, either going to work or coming home and many times I just sit here in a queue of traffic, but the view is often mesmerising, especially when the sun is shining on these timeworn panels of blistered paint. Continue reading “Stations Of The Crossing”

Villa Panza

Villa Panza is a grand 18th century mansion in the hillside suburb of Biumo Superiore, overlooking the city of Varese. It was the home of Count Giuseppe Panza, art collector and a great champion of Minimalist and Conceptual Art. He bought his first painting in 1956, by Antoni Tàpies and in 1966 he began collecting work by Brice Marden, Richard Serra and James Turrell. In 1996 the house was donated to the nation and opened to the public after major restoration work in 2000. Continue reading “Villa Panza”

Arboretum

Ivon Hitchens, Oak Tree in Purple Woods, Southampton City Art Gallery

In 2013 St Barbe Museum in Lymington organised an exhibition entitled Under the Greenwood: Picturing British Trees (accompanied by an impressive book published by Sansom). The exhibition was curated by Tim Craven of Southampton Art Gallery, himself a painter. Continue reading “Arboretum”