A stroll around the garden, and beyond.

The weather in the UK has been really beautiful over the past week, so there has been lots of opportunity to have a practise with my camera. I started in the garden and then went beyond.

The forget-me-nots and cow parsley looked very beautiful.

I hope everyone has a great week and that the weather is as beautiful with you as it is here, unfortunately it is not going to last, rain in the middle of the week apparently but at least it keeps everything green and fresh.

Squeak Carnwath: Painting is no Ordinary Object.

Recently I have come across some artists that are new to me, and one that really interests me is American artist Squeak Carnwath. I first saw her paintings here and was intrigued, so I decided to do a little research.

Her career began with an interest in ceramics, and she gained her MFA in 1977 with high distinction but a few years after graduation she began painting and this has been her main focus for the past 30 years. I think it was the squares and the patchwork nature of her paintings that initially attracted me, on closer inspection the paintings are heavily laden with symbolism, words, numbers, record discs, Greek urns, money and rabbits all have special meaning. I especially like the way everything is done in paint even the words written onto what look like pieces of lined paper are all oil paint.
The following interview from 2009 was made to coincide with a major exhibition organized by the Oakland Museum of California, PAINTING IS NO ORDINARY OBJECT. In the video she talks about art making as a kind of self making, a journey of self discovery, and that she likes to be afraid when starting a painting, she loves not knowing what she is going to do so that she can follow any path. This is a really interesting video and you get to see her applying paint to canvas which she does in many layers, and if you watch it on full screen you get to see how beautiful these paintings really are.

I also decided to send for the catalogue that accompanied the exhibition, published by Pomegranate it covers her early career and has some really good essays and good full colour reproductions of her paintings, and traces the development of her distinctive style.

On her website there is a page of online resources with links to some good essays and to galleries that show her work. I also found some paintings that had been made into tapestries and these can be seen at Magnolia Editions which have some fabulous images. Her latest work will be on show at the James Harris Gallery from June 7th to July 7th

Ruthin Craft Centre

I can't believe it's over a week since my last post, I have hardly done any painting and don't seem to have done anything else either. When I started writing this post I tried to think what did I actually do last week and the result was not very much, it is all a bit of a blur. I did however manage to visit my friend Michele who lives in Wales and we had a lovely day visiting Ruthin Craft Centre and there Japanese exhibition, which features Applied Arts, Architecture, Ceramics, Design and Textiles. I took a few photographs of things I found inspiring.

There were some beautiful ceramics by Takahiro Kondo, small tea bowls made in conjunction with people affected by the earthquake and tsunami. Unfortunately my pictures of these were not very good the picture below does not do them justice.

You can find out more about the exhibition here

Night and Day

A visual post, with a little peek of what has been happening in the sketchbooks this week.

Fiona Rae - Staying Faithful to Paint

Maybe You Can Live on the Moon in the Next Century

I came across a video today of Fiona Rae discussing why she has stayed faithful to paint and not moved into installation or video art like many of her YBA contemporaries. An interesting video showing a little insight into her working methods and thinking.

Also a Tate Shots video from 2008 of her working in her Hackney studio.

 

Fiona Rae is represented by the Timothy Taylor Gallery and has an exhibition at Leeds City Art Gallery which starts on the 11th May were she is showing 17 paintings from the last decade. The exhibition is on until the 26th August.

Loving Me Means Loving Life!

Pink and Green

The trees have been full with heavy blossom but sadly it is almost over, went out one more day to photograph. It has been so windy and the blossom has fallen and made a carpet on the ground. I picked up a windfall and thought about pink and green and blossom floating down from the trees.