From Picasso to Kuniyoshi with lots of drawing in between

The Illusions of Space show at the Brewhouse came down and the talk on the last saturday with the launch of the catalogue was good. I am really pleased with the catalogue since we finally got a decent shot of my big drawing which was heinously difficult to photograph. If any one would like a copy feel free to ask. The text and some images have just  been published in Art Cornwall, (click on the link in the sidebar). Before the show ended I went up to London to the National Gallery to see the Picasso show. I must remind myself never to take any notice of what reviewers say because it got a really bad press and it was wonderful. I got there just as it was opening so there were very few people in there for the first hour which was a bonus. There was lots of work which I hadn’t seen before and the connections that were made with other artist’s work were fascinating. I loved how the monumentality of Ingres’s portrait of Mme Moitessier is reflected in Picasso’s portraits of Marie Thérese Walter and had to rush over to the French rooms afterwards to look at it and my favourite Degas painting of a woman combing the red hair of another woman which Picasso used for another work. The Kuniyoshi was much harder work because I was completely unfamiliar with his work and it was rather a case of information overload and I just couldn’t take it all in. I did love his big A2 sketchbooks with fold out triptyches though. I think I might try that myself.

So back in the studio and I have today finished a big painting inspired by the Transition show at Exeter Castle. I have been working on it for weeks and it is the same dimensions as the drawings and so the same as the floor area of the prison cells, 180 x 120 cms. I have had real trouble with the paint drying too quickly in the heat and so had to put an extra layer of paint on it today to make it work. Its isn’t as smooth a finish as I had originally intended but given the subject matter I rather like the rawness of the finish.

I have called it Veils of Memory which is a bit of a nod to ‘dropping from the veils of morning’ in Yeats poem, The Lake Isle of Inisfree which I love and which is about solitude.

Details below

At last some new Cill Rialaig Drawings

The last few months have been so stuffed full of exhibitions both planned and last minute that I haven’t really had a chance to work on all the material from my residency at Cill Rialaig. However it has all been simmering away there. The big drawing in the Illussions of Space exhibition at the Brewhouse is based on my journey from Ballinskelligs Beach to Bolus Head but I haven’t really done any work on canvas arising from the residency. The three drawings reproduced here are on canvas but drawn in very fine graphite pencil. The are a response to the Skelligs, the two rocky outcrops off the coast one of which was home to a monastery in about the 6th century. The motion of the waves make it appear that the rocks are constantly moving, rolling over and over and turning in the surf and continually being destabilised.

Skelligs 1. 2009. Gesso oil and graphite on canvas

Skelligs 2. 2009. Gesso oil and graphite on canvas

Plotting pauses in forward movement. 2009. Gesso oil and graphite on canvas.

Illusions of Space

Well it has been a manic month workwise not helped by two weeks in France with a rubbish internet connection.  But, nice food and wine, evenings with friends and four novels later, back to the real world.  Before France I was down in Cornwall for two days submitting work to the selection Committee for the Newlyn Society of Artists who accepted me as a member, hurrah!  The weather was gorgeous and I discovered Sennen Beach, I am sure I have been there before, but this time I had Gigi with me and it was seventh heaven for an Irish Setter, racing along the sand in the late evening sun!  I also went to see Andy Currie’s installation at The Exchange in Penzance.  Long swathes of diaphanous, transluscent fabric suspended form the ceiling and leaping and dancing in the breeze, need to use the word zephyrs really, from a bank of fans on the floor.  All the mechanics showing deliberately so you were not distracted by the thought, now how has he done that?  There was something poignant about it, perhaps because the movement was so ephemeral.  But like my work a photograph doesn’t give a real idea of what it is like because the movement is so mesmerizing.
End of April saw me putting the finishing touches to my big drawing for the Brewhouse show Illusions of Space which opened on Saturday 2 May.  Lots of images on http://illusionsofspace.wordpress.com

It took all week to install the show and predictably my large drawing has been incredibly difficult to photograph.  Too far away and you can really only see white paper against white wall and too close and you don’t get a sense of the scale and the feeling of being able to walk into the space.  So if anyone wants to see it properly they are going to have to go to the show!

Installation view.  (from left) From Ballinskelligs Beach to Bolus Head (detail below) with works on canvas by Pennie Elfick (right) and intervention by George Meyrick (above)

Below detail of Turbulance by Andy Currie Installation at The Exchange Penzance  http://www.newlynartgallery.co.uk/?Andy%20Currie

Transition Exhibition at The Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf

This was a very different location and presented a whole different set of problems for installing the work. My space was on the fourth floor between two huge windows. Initially I installed the work on the floor as it was intended to be a floor piece but in the middle of the day with bright sunlight streaming through the windows there was no way the shadow was going to work. So big rethink. I decided to put the work on the wall but that too presented problems since the walls were old fragile brick which crumbled every time I tried to attach anything to them. Finally with the help of strategically placed gaffa tape I managed to get the drawings fixed to the wall. By this time it was 7.30 in the evening and it was dark and finally we managed to get a grid shadow cast onto the surface of the drawing so at least it was going to work for the PV the following night. Famous last words! By the next morning one of the big drawings had fallen off the wall. However it was put back up and actually stayed there though it was fairly nerve-racking. The Bargehouse Building is an amazing building inside and out and the interior, certainly on the fourth floor, vied with the art work for attention. I couldn’t resist taking photos of the battered walls and the view out of the window onto the blue lights in the trees along the South Bank was magical. It was so warm people were wandering about in t-shirts as if it was midsummer. The PV itself was stuffed full of people so all in all very satisfying.

Transition Installation at Exeter Castle

The corridor under the Castle with prison cells on either side.

The three holding cells in which I installed my drawings they measured 6′ x 4′.

View of six small drawings in one of the cells.

the grill in the door of the cell through which prisoners could be observed.

Large Transition Drawing, 180 x 120 cms,  ‘floating’ about two feet off the floor and covering the total floor area.

Transition Net drawing installed in the second cell.

View of the Net Drawing through the grill before the lights were turned off and the drawing was lit through the grill with spotlights which gave an added dimension of shadow to the drawings.

Transition Drawing lit through the grill clearly showing the shadow effect.

View through the grill

View of the Transition pencil drawing and shadow photographed inside the cell without the grill.

Similar view of the Transition Net Drawing.

Transition Drawing without the shadow.

Record of the installation of drawings in the prison cells in the basement of Exeter Castle.

Trial installation at Exeter Castle

Well the drawing looked great in the space but unfortunately the floor plan I had for the size of the space was wildly inaccurate. I wasn’t expecting it to be precise to the millimetre but I didn’t expect to have a thirty centimetre gap in the width. Entirely my own fault since I should have checked the measurements before starting the drawing. So home and back to the drawing board literally. However I don’t really mind because he lighting of the piece through the grid in the door, projecting the shadows onto the drawing looks great. I have no idea how I am going to photograph it through the closed door yet. But I will think of something.

Transition Drawing 3 Series of details

Transition 5. Pencil on paper, 180 x 120 cm.

Transition Drawings

I finished the first of two large drawings for the Transition Show at Exeter Castle today. The work will transfer to the Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf from Exeter on the 18 March. The Exeter show opens on 6th March. This has been a difficult drawing to light in order to photograph it and the full size image does not do it justice although it does give an idea of the scale. I am going to do a trial installation in Exeter this week to experiment with the lighting so I hope I will get some better shots of it.

Studio Visit

With a studio visit planned for tomorrow, my workspace is looking uncharacteristically tidy. It won’t last like this for long! New drawing in progress for the Transition Show at Exeter Castle and the Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, on the easle.

A Digression!

I know I haven’t written any thing about the Drawing Room II show. But I did go to the Private View and it is an interesting show with a lot of work to look at. Its free entry on Saturday 7th February so don’t miss the chance! There is some inyriguing work from UWE which stretched the bounds of definitions of drawing and the ‘hang ‘ of the Methuen Gallery under the curatorship of Graham Woodruff , Director of Bristol Drawing School, created a beautifully clean space which allowed the drawings to speak for themselves.

This has nothing to with Cill Rialaig now but I am temporarily moving away from this work to get involved in a new project for a little while which is based at Exeter Castle curated by Exeter Artspace. The cells in the basement of the castle are going to be the venue for Transition, an exhibition of mostly video, sound and light installations which respond to the location. I will be making drawings in response to the space which will focus of the restriction of movement – the holding cells measure 6′ x 3′ – and the lack of natural daylight and the marking of time.

Drawing Room II RWA Bristol

This exhibition opens this weekend at the RWA in Bristol. It promises to be a very good show, RWA Press Release below and click on the link for opening times and directions. More about the show after I have been to the Private View on Saturday.

Detail of Cadences 3 one of three drawings from the Cill Rialaig Project Residency in the RWA show.

This is the first time any work from the Cill Rialaig residency has been shown in public and these drawings were made during my time there.

RWA Press Releases

Drawing Room II
18th January – 15th February 2009
To kick-start the year the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol is hosting an exciting new drawing exhibition. Drawing Room II will ride again after the great successes of its forerunner in 2006. This time, the exhibition will feature RWA Academicians, University of the West of England honours graduates and artists from the Bristol Drawing School, as well as a collection of drawings from the RWA’s Permanent Collection and a beautiful portrait on loan of Nobel Prize winner Dorothy Hodgkin by Bryan Organ. Also on display will be drawings by local architect David Austin.

On show in the main two galleries will be works by RWA Academicians including painters Kurt Jackson and Anthony Eyton RA, sculptor John Huggins and printmakers James Beale and Bronwen Bradshaw. These Academicians will challenge our perceptions of what constitutes a drawing. For example, Rachael Nee draws with smoke, using the flame as a ‘living brush’. She uses the sooty carbon trace left from a candle flame to make her smoke drawings.

DRAW group (past graduates of UWE), known for their innovative drawing workshops, are to present a unique interactive work to get everyone involved. Characteristic of the aims to reach out, DRAW has devised a piece inviting visitors to participate in a continuous line drawing. Look for the paper squares within the exhibition and enjoy your opportunity to be included in this innovative and skilful display of drawing approaches..

Amongst other artists, Bristol Drawing School will be presenting Valerie Bowes. Hindu Art, Holy men, Angels, Byzantium, towers and monasteries, cloisters and penitents and simple people going about their daily lives are all embraced in her work. Sometimes one catches a glimpse of the sea, a beach or a bird free of its cage sitting above an archway. Derek Balmer, RWA President said, “these works are bold, discreet and convincing. The drawings in pencil or charcoal are imbued with a poetry and clarity that stays in ones memory long after the first impression.”.

The notion of drawing is highly contested and has been the subject of challenging and contentious debate within recent years. Whether a drawing can be more than just pencil on paper will be a question visitors can ask themselves as they wander round this stunning and provocative exhibition. Most works will be for sale and many quite inexpensive.

Private View : 17th January 2-5pm
Gallery Opening Times : 10am – 5.30pm (Mon-Sat), 2-5pm (Sun)
Admission Fees : £4 adults, £2.50 concessions, U16 Free

Please note there will be free admission for all on Saturday 7th February

For images and further information please contact:
Kate Morgan, RWA Marketing Officer Tel: 0117 9735129
email: Kate.Morgan@rwa.org.uk