Rowley Gallery Blog
The Fashion & Textile Museum in Bermondsey was founded in 2003 by Zandra Rhodes, in a converted warehouse redesigned by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta, a disciple of Luis Barragán. Their current exhibition is Josef Frank: Patterns-Furniture-Painting. Continue reading “Josef Frank @ FTM”
I was in a room with many people. They were mostly grey haired and quietly dressed in the way of National Trust members. One or two young men stood intently looking. The room titled We Are Making A New World is the gallery in the Tate exhibition devoted to Paul Nash’s WW1 paintings. It is quiet except for the gentle tap of feet or the occasional mute whisper. The mood is that of a chapel of remembrance. As though the only person with a right to speak was Nash. The silence of these works is awe inspiring considering the ear shattering noise that would have dominated the scene, as well as the stink of shit, rotting flesh, tobacco smoke and cordite. We are silenced by the works hung on these walls. The older visitors seem to be wrapped in memories passed to them by fathers and grandfathers who had seen this for themselves. The young men I take to be artists come to understand how this great artist had made these images, witness to such pointless violence. Continue reading “Landscape – Paul Nash – Wittenham Clumps”
I seem always to have been drawn to trees as a motif in the landscape, possibly because of their strong architectural forms. There are parallels as I am also interested in interior space, and as with interlinking rooms I find receding pathways compelling in the way the eye is taken through the picture plane. Continue reading “Ox Drove”
This short film was made for the exhibition, Littoral: John Hubbard in Context at the Luther Brady Gallery in Washington, D.C. in 2013. “People found it fascinating to learn more about where he lives and how he works. His singing was quite a revelation.” It’s a lovely portrait and a touching memorial to a deeply romantic artist. John Hubbard died on 6th January 2017. He was 85. Continue reading “For John Hubbard”
Then I stumbled upon this cry for help from Lucinda Williams
and it felt universal, like she’s crying to the trees for all of us.
My twin daughters suggested this video by Ibeyi, a French-Cuban musical duo consisting of twin sisters Lisa-Kaindé Diaz and Naomi Diaz.
They sing in English and Yoruba — a Nigerian language their ancestors spoke before being brought to Cuba by the Spanish to be made slaves in the 1700s — though Lisa’s is the lead voice, Naomi plays traditional Peruvian/Cuban percussion instruments cajón and Batá drum, while Lisa also plays piano. Ibeyi (Ìbejì) is Yoruba for “twins”.
I found a book under the Christmas tree, a souvenir of Italy. It’s full of spectacular tree photographs, apparently caught by flashlight; night-time dreaming trees suddenly startled awake. They are by the Swiss photographer Irene Kung –
“In my way of working it is possible to reinstate the tree to what I felt. That is exactly what I do with my work: I remove everything unessential in order to show the tree as it is, as I feel it. It is intuition, it is irrational: rationality can be misleading, sentiment cannot… I return the tree to what I have felt – its essence… A positive and fruit-bearing message in the face of crisis.” Continue reading “Trees: Irene Kung”
Quite by chance I found myself in Golden Square. I’d arrived early for lunch and rather than sit in the restaurant alone I walked around the block to pass the time. I should have known about the Marian Goodman Gallery, but it was a great surprise. It’s usually closed on a Sunday but they had opened specially because of Frieze London with a fantastic exhibition by Giuseppe Penone. The large piece on the wall was made of acacia thorns, like iron filings magnetised into the shape of a fossil leaf, or now that I look again perhaps it’s a pair of giant lips. Continue reading “Fui, Sarò, Non Sono”
Where is this tree? I’d just bought a photo of it direct from the artist himself. Why hadn’t I asked him? I was kicking myself. It’s a magnificent photograph of a majestic tree, I felt obliged to pay it a visit. All I had to go on was the title – Quercione delle Checche, Val d’Orcia – so I searched online. There were a few references but without Italian or GPS they were not so easy to decipher. I reckoned it must be somewhere south of Pienza in the Orcia valley beside the road to Radicofani. So off we went. Continue reading “Quercione Delle Checche”
We floated westwards, down the highroad from Pienza to San Quirico, overlooking the Val d’Orcia, stopping whenever we could to take in the view and to breathe in the endless sky. Continue reading “San Quirico d’Orcia”
