Art For Cure

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Art for Cure is an exhibition I am involved in along with over 50 other artists. It’s going to be a really exciting exhibition and it’s raising money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. It takes place at Bredfield House, near Woodbridge in Suffolk, on 3rd-5th May. Please visit the Art for Cure site for more details.

Jelly Green / The Rowley Gallery

Frames of reference

Lunaris

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The new CD by the Frank Harrison Trio arrived yesterday. It’s an album of acoustic trio music, piano, bass, drums, with echoes of Keith Jarrett, Esbjörn Svensson, Fred Hersch, but mostly it sounds like the Frank Harrison Trio. The CD cover features a watercolour by Andrew Walton (which appeared in an earlier Frames of Reference post here), Moon Arc, the moon over Port Meadow, Oxford’s answer to Grantchester Meadows. Frank’s father, Michael Harrison, was director of Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge until 2011, and a great friend of Andrew Walton. The album is dedicated For Moikal.

Frank Harrison Trio – Sunrise (Port Meadow)

As well as working with his own trio, with Dave Whitford on double bass and Enzo Zirilli on drums, Frank Harrison also plays piano and keyboards with Gilad Atzmon in the Orient House Ensemble, and he was also involved with Robert Wyatt’s mesmerising For The Ghosts Within.

Frames of reference

Art & Life (& Memory)

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This painting by Ben Nicholson, titled c.1930 (Cornish Port), features on the cover of Art and Life 1920-1931, the catalogue for the exhibition at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, examining the artistic partnership of Ben Nicholson and Winifred Nicholson in the 1920s and their friendship and collaboration with Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis and the potter William Staite Murray. Continue reading “Art & Life (& Memory)”

Frames of reference

California Etching

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Pallant House in Chichester has been mentioned on this blog more than once. It has a fantastic permanent collection and over the years has presented some wonderful touring exhibitions. A year or so ago I saw an exhibition which brought together two artists I really admire, Gwen John and Celia Paul, similar I suppose because they might be thought of as being a bit reclusive. Continue reading “California Etching”

Frames of reference

Why I Depict Birds In My Work

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The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.
Alberto Giacometti

I graduated from art college in 2008 having specialised in drawing and painting. It had been a challenging experience and I stumbled into the real world with a sense that I had been existing in a bubble for five years. I was determined to become an artist, to retain my creative integrity and to develop and further the skills I had gained at college. My degree show was packed full of birds and animals, but at this point my inspiration was taken from drawings of the old Victorian cabinets of the Chambers Street museum in Edinburgh. Continue reading “Why I Depict Birds In My Work”

Frames of reference

A Cup Of Sue

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I first met Sue Ashworth in the mid 90s when I moved to Hove and rented space in a communal studio. She and her then partner were doing a commission for a Brighton pub. It turned out the pub owner wanted a ‘Boyle Family’ type of thing. Sue’s partner (a sculptor-cum-troubleshooter carpenter extraordinaire) asked me if I knew anything about the work of the Boyles. I said yes, their techniques for replicating 3D slices of our planet were legendary – and something of a guarded mystery. Continue reading “A Cup Of Sue”

Frames of reference

Seascapes & Seescapes

Harbour Scene at Sunrise, possibly Margate circa 1835-40 by Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775-1851

Two exhibitions, one in Greenwich, another in Margate, both featuring paintings by J.M.W. Turner, both spectacular. The image above is a watercolour from the Tate Collection, Harbour Scene at Sunrise, possibly Margate, so let’s begin in Margate. Continue reading “Seascapes & Seescapes”

Frames of reference