Continue reading “Cat’s Cradle (1)”
Mbuti: Children Of The Forest
The Flowers That Did In Eden Bloom
In a series of painstakingly constructed works using found materials Chris Kenny examines and muses on the notion of Paradise: our attempt to define it, build it, reach it or perhaps remember it. Rows of little wooden houses built from abandoned amateur landscape paintings are incised with the names of ideal worlds: Arcadia, Elysium, Utopia. They poignantly demonstrate the common desire to make a heaven on earth, a perfect garden, a harmonious society.
Chris Kenny’s exhibition is at Pitzhanger Manor Gallery, 26 April – 11 May 2014. More details here.
Jenny Franklin At Kensington Place
At the beginning of April we installed ten paintings by Jenny Franklin at Kensington Place restaurant, the latest incarnation of their Art Wall series of exhibitions. There are two oil paintings on linen and eight framed watercolours on paper. Continue reading “Jenny Franklin At Kensington Place”
Art For Cure
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
Lunaris
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.
Art & Life (& Memory)
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)”
Hag Stones
I visited Andrew Walton a couple of months ago when I was in Oxford to see his exhibition and at his house I discovered a hoard of treasured relics. Hollow stones suggesting Henry Moore maquettes, recollections prompted by Liam Hanley a few days earlier. Continue reading “Hag Stones”
California Etching
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”
Why I Depict Birds In My Work
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”