Rowley Gallery Blog
This is Kai running the British 10K in July this year, part of a sequence of challenges to raise money for charity. Her next is the London Bikeathon on 16th September, a 52 mile cycling tour around London. Please support her efforts by visiting her page at JustGiving.
Kensington Place have now confirmed that they will be showing three new paintings by Jelly Green from Thursday 20th September. After 25 years they are taking down their large mural to make way for a new programme of changing exhibitions. This new display space will be known as The Art Wall.
It reminds me of another Art Wall I saw recently, by my granddaughter. See it here, and be sure to leave a comment!
Dear Chris,…. France was so hot, too hot to think sometimes. I’m glad you had a good time in Cornwall. And refreshing sounds very nice…. I was in Kenwood on Sunday (19th August) and it was very beautiful. I saw this Olympic scene in an old shop window in Highgate Village…. maybe something for the blog? It used to be an old second hand bookshop but is now in between uses. Hope all’s well at Rowley, best wishes, Chris. Continue reading “Highgate Olympics”
This is View From Albert Bridge by Lawrence Quigley, one of a series down London’s painted river. Continue reading “Messing About On The River (4)”
This is The Oarsman’s and Angler’s Map of the River Thames from its Source to London Bridge. It comes rolled in a tube and at one inch to one mile it is 2.5 metres long. It was engraved by E G Ravenstein and first published in 1893. This edition has an introduction by Richard Way, specialist bookseller from Henley on Thames:
…. The Thames flows roughly north west to south east but Ravenstein cleverly elongated this dimension by ironing out the river’s NE SW meanderings. The river is thus contained within an artificial boundary 5 miles wide. The map however retains a true scale along its length. If Ravenstein had represented a geographical reality at this scale the map would be shorter but 4 times wider. Ravenstein presumably selected London Bridge as the end point of the map because it was the last bridge on the river. Tower Bridge opened the year after the map was published.
It would be a difficult piece to frame and an awkward piece to hang. I thought it might be best presented here. Continue reading “Messing About On The River (3)”
This is Kai on the Thames below Tower Bridge, sailing up river, back to where she started at Pimlico Pier and Westminster Boating Base.
Sunday mornings, blue sky, gentle breeze, tacking and gybing backwards and forwards, avoiding tourist boats, fighting the tide, trying not to be dunked by the better sailors. Usually the kids playing pirates are fearless and just love any opportunity to capsize. Occasionally being allowed down river as we were last month, memorably to sail under Tower Bridge and the Olympic Rings.
Joseph Silcott has used a map of the Olympic Park, published by Ordnance Survey and the Institution of Civil Engineers, to create this piece entitled Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger). He has released a flock of butterflies from it to signify the arrival of the world’s athletes to this previously overlooked part of London. You can read Joseph’s account of making it here and you can see the finished artwork at The Rowley Gallery.
This is the view from John Lewis’s Olympic gift shop at Westfield Stratford. Here you can buy all kinds of sponsored trinkets and souvenirs for London 2012, but thankfully this view is so far logo free. Here are the Olympic Stadium, the Aquatic Centre, the Water Polo Arena and the Orbit, Anish Kapoor’s sculptural look-out tower. Continue reading “Orbit”
Three big new paintings by Jelly Green go on show at Kensington Place from Tuesday 7th August. Their large north wall has inspired Jelly to stretch out and paint on a much larger scale than before.
The cows in this new series of paintings graze on the water meadows in the Alde Valley. One of the lovely things about this particular herd is that unusually they are a mixture of breeds from Simmentals to Belgian Blues and Charolais, which provides a much wider palette of colours and forms. These three paintings are my largest pieces yet. There is something really intimidating and challenging about working on this scale: the potential for failure is magnified, the empty space to fill completely daunting. But when they work, it’s a huge relief and a painting that is hard to ignore.
