Exhibition Catch-Up

Rachel Whiteread 

I've  been in hibernation over Xmas  and New Year.  Apart from going out for dinner on Xmas day and the visit of some friends on 28th ,  we've been taking advantage of being well stocked with provisions  and not had to venture out in the horrible weather. Just as well as I've been fighting off the lurgy, going to bed early, getting up late and watching daytime TV ( loved Paddington!)  

I've been stitching on the piece ' wind me in the sea ' I started last January  (it is now a very large loop) and thinking about what I intend to do as a daily(ish) project, gathering collage  materials together, reviewing what I got out of the art courses last year. 

While excavating my studio, I realised I hadn't got round to reporting on some of the exhibitions I'd  visited.  On 12th December, on the way to Upper Street to collect my quilt after it had been returned from its travels with Knit and Stitch shows , I finally made it to Tate Britain to see the Rachel Whiteread exhibition, a fascinating exploration of negative space given form and substance. I particularly liked the works on paper, seeing how she develops her ideas and the 'bookshelves' with the details of the page edges recorded during the casting process.  

While I was in the Tate , I had a quick whizz through the 'Impressionists in London' . While it was interesting from a historical point of view, most of the art wasn't to my taste  although it  was great to be reacqainted with some of the paintings from the 'Turner ,Whistler, Monet' exhibition . 13 years on and pre-blog it remains one of those memorable exhibitions that changed how I look at thing.

The surprise was at the end - a selection of vibrant  paintings by Andre Derain paying homage to Monet  choosing the same motifs . I'll definately go back to have a closer look , I remember being blown away by his paintings  at the Courtauld in 2006 

Andre Derain 'Barges on the Thames' 

Thames barges mean so much more to me now having lived in Brentford   and seeing them on the Thames  and now with 'Iron Wharf' for inspiration. I made quick notes in my sketchbook, I particularly liked  the use of primary colours  and how the mast/ sail changes from red against blue to blue against red . 

On 5 December, I combined  a ' Drawing Tuesday' visit to Tate Modern with seeing ' A Sense of Place  by View Seven at the Menier Gallery 

I particularly likes the work by Susie Koren  ( above)  and Claire Benn - I'd loved her work at FoQ in 2016  and  it looked even better in this venue . 

 Back at Tate Modern, I had  quick look round Ilya and Emilia Kabakov -' Not Everyone will be taken into the future'. Not an exhibition I would have paid to go into but  being a member of the Tate  means I try out  things outside my comfort zone 

The installations  were interesting and  thought provoking ( 'Labyrinth(my mothers album')  was quite haunting , with the collaged family photos  and  songs ) What I found most inspiring were the large scale paintings based on collage - gave me ideas about scaling up of marks etc 

This Friday, I'm making a return visit to the Scythians at the British Museum ( another exhibition I went to when I should have been drawing  at Kings Place...)

The size  and intricate workmanship of the gold belt buckles  are indeed jaw dropping  but it is the  fragile objects  including textiles  found in remarkable state of preservation in the permafrost that I'm looking forward to seeing again .

Contemporary Paint Studio Week 9: Coming Together ( and importance of Catenary)

A much more productive time in week 9 of  Contemporary Painting Studio  thanks to  thinking about what I wanted to concentrate on in the last couple of sessions and some  prep work during the week.  I was particularly pleased with the 2 Journal Quilts I produced (above)

My prep work included   taking a high res photo of the finished A3 painting that I was reasonably happy with and printing it out  on my A4 inkjet printer using 'poster' settings   at 3x3 and 2x2 sizes  in order to have the scaled up marks to work from 

The 3 x 3 pinned up on the screen was very helpful for working on my large scale  newspaper collage . I used burnt umber /ultramarine glazes to make greys , it's still a  bit heavy - one of the problems with working on a textured surface and I need to pay attention to the edges of shapes. 

The  section of old quilt I'd primed with gesso  was even more textured  so I worked with it, simplifying the shapes from the 2 x2 print. Again a limited palette of Paynes grey, raw sienna , burnt umber and ultramarine  with some white reintroduced in areas.  

The first item on my 'to-do' list was to prime the quilted collages I'd prepared during the week with diluted acrylic medium so that my paint glazes wouldn't  bleed/sink into the fabric. 

I'd printed out photos of 2 collages onto Jacquard Inkjet Cotton sheets ( 2 x 1 poster setting stitched together) attached to linen tablecloth with bondaweb then quilted with horizontal wavy lines. 

It took a couple of hours  to dry ( I'd do it before class another time!) 

For painting I used  Winsor and Newton transparent acrylic paints in Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber and Ultramarine   mixed with gloss medium/Golden soft gel and diluted with water  and applied with dry brush . I loved how  the brushmarks were retained.

I had a question from one of the other artists  in the class who paints with oils why I was using my own W& N acrylic paints rather than the acrylics supplied . Apart from being better quality ,  highly pigmented   and truly transparent ( which is the effect I wanted  to achieve) , the main reason is having  a lot of experience painting with W&N watercolours, I'm used to the colours and colour mixing . Every paint brand has it's own characteristics - I also use Liquitex heavy body  for impasto  and Golden  fluid  for  textiles. 

Jasper John Catenary (Jacob's Ladder) 

Earlier in the week I'd finally made it to the Jasper Johns exhibition at the RA.  I  was  pleased to see  more of his joint project with Samuel Beckett  which had been one of the highlights of the print exhibition at the British Museum and like Olga, appreciated his more recent, personal work  over the  targets and numbers ( while noting the use of collage....)  

Catenary 

I was particularly struck by the particular curves of his 'Catenary' series  and started seeing them everywhere and realising that a lot of work I admire contains similar shapes.  

Susie Koren View Seven 

Dorothy Caldwell

 I realised that  there's a similar curve in this painting and that  one of the reasons the largest collaged painting isn't working yet is because the curve is wrong.  So I knew what I had to do in my final painting session .