Rowley Gallery Blog
Here’s a few photos of things that have been happening in the garden recently. Peace and tranquility in a suburban garden. English cottage garden style, wildflower areas, a little bit wild. Hedgehog recently in residence, slugs not. Continue reading “A June Garden”
A couple of years ago this embroidered purse arrived in the post, a surprise gift from a benevolent customer. I was not sure what to keep in it, or whether I should just frame it, so it’s been waiting in a corner of my workshop. I saw it again recently and decided to discover where it came from. Continue reading “Into The Woods”
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”
Villa Monastero was on the furthest shore of Lake Como, a long circuitous drive by car from Argegno where we were staying, but just ten minutes by ferry if we drove up to Menaggio. We left the car there and crossed the lake as foot passengers on the autotraghetto to Varenna. Continue reading “To Monastero”
I discovered this film thanks to Caught By The River and Nowness. A brief evocation of Prospect Cottage and its endless garden by Howard Sooley, photographer of Derek Jarman’s Garden.
Busie old foole, unruly Sunne,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windowes, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motion lovers’ seasons run?
Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide
Late schoole boyes and sowre prentices,
Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
Call countrey ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clyme,
Nor houres, dayes, moneths, which are the rags of time…
Thou sunne art halfe as happy as wee,
In that the world’s contracted thus.
Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee
To warme the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy spheare.
from The Sunne Rising by John Donne, 1633.
I recently discovered this lovely film via a recommendation from Kettle’s Yard. It’s a visit to the home of Ronnie Duncan and his art collection at Weston in Otley near Leeds.
The art at Weston – which includes works by the likes of Roger Hilton, Alan Davie, Trevor Bell and Terry Frost – ‘lives’ there with Ronnie, it is not simply exhibited. Unlike Kettle’s Yard, however, Weston is unlikely to be preserved; the works within will one day be dispersed: donated to public collections across the country, and the cottage will return to the possession of its owner. A generous and sociable man, Ronnie frequently welcomes visitors to Weston to experience the collection first-hand. He asked me to make this film in order that this may continue, in some small way, even when the works are being appreciated anew in smart galleries on freshly painted walls – Jared Schiller.
Recently I have visited two gardens which are fairly local to me, one is in Elmstead Market near Colchester, about an hour’s drive from me and the other, Warley Place is on my doorstep near Brentwood. The Colchester garden was made by Beth Chatto and Warley Place was the garden of Ellen Willmott, a Victorian plants woman. Both places have inspired new work. I have made a series of paintings of Beth Chatto’s garden and some ink studies of Warley Place. Continue reading “A Tale Of Two Gardens”
We came to Lake Como thinking we’d visit a few of the local gardens. We’d seen Monty Don’s Italian Gardens but we’d not committed it to memory. Then when we arrived we were told – if you visit only one garden be sure it’s Balbianello, it’s perfect. This is how it looks from the lake. Continue reading “Balbianello”
Seen on the way to the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, thanks to God’s Own Junkyard, a parade of shops on Blackhorse Lane feels the William Morris effect, the spirit of regeneration brought to the area by the museum’s own renovation, with maybe a few ripples of Olympic legacy. Continue reading “All Blues”
We started at East Bergholt, birthplace of John Constable whose father owned Flatford Mill, and where his first studio still stands, now a domestic residence but commemorated with a plaque. Continue reading “Flatford Mill”