the painting so far...

well, this is where I'm up to...vast amounts of paint removed, reapplied, removed again...not looking too bad considering the abuse the canvas has taken!
Unfortunately, this is the end of my holidays today and I now have Maths revision to do (Exam on 6th and 10th June), so its going to be a couple of weeks before I can get back to it....

work in progress...

started a new painting today...inspired by the beautiful spring colours to be found in Kings Wood, Challock, Nr Ashford, Kent...time will tell how well it will turn out...I've an excellent knack for not knowing when to stop!!!...however, we're a way off that at the moment!!!

My artist friend has mentioned Doig when looking at it...I'm fairly sure thats due to the green and blue's....

Joan Miro Exhibition

DATE: 25th May 2011

LOCATION: Tate Modern, London

EXHIBITION: Joan Miro: The Ladder of Escape

Yet another “the most astonishing of 20th Century artists”…hmmmm?!

My first exhibition of a two exhibition day out, this was the first time I planned and carried out a ‘solo’ day trip, and while it was pleasant to wander round, stop & pause, consider & reflect, retrace steps and generally go at my own pace without worrying if anyone else was bored, waiting etc, it was a little frustrating not to have anyone else to bounce idea’s and thoughts off of.

I chose this exhibition firstly as I wanted to get use out of my ‘Tate Membership card’ and secondly as a ‘compare & contrast’ to my 2nd exhibition visit – Tracey Emin. The long and short of it is that, while appreciating Miro’s work, I don’t actually have a lot in common with a dead Spanish, male, surrealist painter!

His early works, especially ‘The Farm 1921, was highly detailed, and I thought very decorative, in fact most of these early ‘farm’ paintings were so detailed and decorative that I thought them very ‘feminine’ – and was reminded of patchwork & embroidery, and reminded me of Frida Kahlo’s works – maybe that’s the ‘surrealist’ ideals in them?

However, these early works are soon dramatically left behind as we walk into the other rooms – where such fine detail (and any sembalance of realism) has long been left behind.

The ‘Barcelona series’ of lithograths (this is a vast set of 50) are lovely to look at ‘en masse’, all simply hung in their black and whites. Full of sharp jagged lines and swirling circles they link nicely to his prints and paintings – however, their subject matter did little to move me – unlike Emin’s mono-prints and drawings – which I feel more than hold their own in comparison.

His paintings, and there are lots of them, are not really very layered (if at all) and the paint is applied very thinly, almost as a wash. There are blocks of colour applied over the ‘wash backgrounds in mostly unmixed primaries. Red/Black are particular favourites and appear in virtually all works. It was easy to see where Antonio Tapis got his inspiration from and the block work also reminded me of Gabrielle Orzorco’s work seen at Tate Modern only a few months earlier – wonder if he was inspired by Miro also?

On the whole, I’m pleased I saw this exhibition, but realised I spent much more time analysing the materials and processes of this artist rather than reading any great depth or meaning into the work – loved the use of paint, pastels, drawing & painting.

Love is whatever you want it to be - Tracey Emin

DATE: 25th May 2011

LOCATION: Hayward Gallery, London

EXHIBITION: Love is whatever you want it to be – Tracey Emin

Don’t care what the critics say – I just can’t help liking Mad Tracey from Margate

You buy your ticket and are ushered into ‘Room 1’ of the Hayward where you are confronted with ‘Knowing my enemy’ – Emin’s 2002 wooden sculpture piece of a hut on higgledy-piggledy wooden pier…a perfect ‘space filler’ in what would have been a tricky room to curate, however, not a favourite piece for me – Emin’s work is all about her ‘self’ and is generally more small, personal and intimate – this large scale piece feels ‘alien’ to her – disassociated in some way. But then you turn and a facing two rows of her ‘blankets’. I’ve not seen these before (only in photo’s) and was amazed at the detail in them – not just appliquéd letters but small notes and letters are also on them (photography just doesn’t pick this up) feeding the frenzied mish mash of writing. My favourite one “I do not expect’ 2002 – goes: I do not expect to be a Mother but I do expect to die alone…(The Guardian’s art critic Laura Cummings implied this was melodramatic and self pitying but I it speaks volumes – It may be driven from a ‘self-pity’ but as I know only too well, it will also very likely be extremely prophetic – I think only a single & childless woman could read this and fully appreciate the ‘self-awareness’ and acceptance of long term ‘absence’ that comes with childlessness (& being single – Love (and the loss of it) long being linked to Emin’s work).
This all precedes the ‘Neon’ room – most of which I’ve seen before (other exhibitions & Frieze Art Fairs etc), but they still pack a punch.
There are also a couple of film installations – briefly watched Emin running around in a wedding dress with money pinned to it, to the tune of ‘The good, the bad and the ugly’… I presume hunting for the groom (money on dress suggests the marriage has already taken place…therefore, she has ‘lost’ her love already). There is another room with her ‘chair’ and other ‘Friends n Family’ bits of memorabilia – which the ‘room map’ suggests you take your time over – alas, I was knackered and running out of time so didn’t but I don’t feel like I missed out on anything!
Emin’s drawings still continue to inspire and be something I aspire to do…whether they be ‘traditional’ drawings in pencil, monoprints, embroidery, all are well executed, but it was her paintings (which I’ve never seen before) which were exquisite. Small, at about approx. 20 x 30 cms (ish), they are subtle and delicate, less ‘scratchy’ and ‘hard’ like the drawings, yet the subject matter remains identical (images of female masturbation), and in amongst these little gems, a small painting of what is both a praying figure but also a phallus titled “Praying for penis”, juxtaposes nicely – a quick reminder that while ‘self-love’ will do, a man would be preferable! But I LOVED these paintings – a hint of Egon Schiele maybe with a touch of Toulouse Lautrec, but still unmistakenly Emin, these were quite possibly my favourite things in the exhibition.
The ‘White Room’ contained..well…white pieces most of which I have seen previously in the White cube exhibition a few years ago and this lead to sculptural works on the terrace – Mother, Father, Children – was ok (again, I feel I struggle with Emin’s ‘larger’ sculptures…and this was underlined when I went out to the 2nd terrace were at first there appears to be nothing out there…but look harder and you find a child’s abandoned shoe, a small pink sock, and a tiny toy teddy bear all cast in bronze. Many people walked straight out saying it was empty (I actually told a couple what to look for as they came out saying there was nothing, but they didn’t venture back out again to see?) – I may have been slightly more aware of what to look for as these pieces had been used for the Folkestone Triennial in 2008.
Once again, Hayward Gallery has pulled off another great exhibition – despite the ‘buggy brigade’ that appeared to be visiting the same time as me…which I found curious and a little bit amusing given some/most of Emin’s subject matter (childlessness/abortion)…however, having visited Tate Modern’s Miro exhibition earlier in the day, where there was loads of ‘mature’ couples , Emin’s was mainly filled with women. The few men at this exhibition had clearly been dragged there by girlfriends etc and appeared to have little real interest in what was on show…except one solitary ‘suited n booted’ gentleman who was looking a monoprint with text along the lines of ‘When everything is all fucked up’ and quietly laughing…

Women War Artists - Imperial War Museum, London 21st May 2011

Only decided to accompany my parents and nephew on a visit to the Imperial War Museum at the last minute - and what a treat it turned out to be!

Having looked at everything the IMW had to offer from WWI through to contemporary ‘conflicts’ (and this included masses of stuff from when I was last there with Junior School pre 1979: Falklands War, Reagan years Cold War (particularly memorable), Bosnia, Kosovo, Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, IRA terrorism.....so much for ‘peace time’ after WWII), it made my brief visit into Women War Artists exhibition all the more thought provoking...however, Mum dipped out of looking around as she was cold, so I didn’t have my usual person around to chat to about, debate and discuss thoughts and theories with...so my opinions have solidified on the journey home & with subsequent research.

The curation is broadly chronological, and all work is 2D with most mediums being used, painting, drawing, pen & ink, photography and was very small. I imagine this is not only due to being a small gallery space within the larger confines of the museum, but also due to the relatively small number of Women War Artists that there have been.

With the first Female war artist being Linda Kitson commissioned in the 1982 Falklands conflict, female artists ‘pre’ this have been restricted to images of ‘the home front’ or only as close to the ‘front line’ as far as Ambulance drivers/Nurses/hospitals etc and this is clearly evident in this exhibition, with the art depicting scenes of Ammunition factory workers at work, on tea breaks, in production lines/war industry settings, nursing the injured, queuing for food etc - and clearly evident of a ‘feminine’ quality. Art Critic Florence Waters review of this exhibition for the Telegraph 8th April 2011, implies that the work is inferior when compared to other well known Male War Artists, Stanley Spencer et al and states that it ‘should not be seen as a definitive history of changing attitudes towards women during war...” and herein I believe lies this critics mis-understanding both of the exhibition, the work and the history of the works shown, women will always have a different perspective on war as it has effected them differently. If women weren’t allowed on the front line, not allowed to ‘take up arms’, share trench life, dug outs, shoot at, bayonet, and otherwise ‘participate’ in the inhumanity of war, then how can they be expected to ‘showcase’ this aspect of it...no...on the whole, these Women War Artists have provided a narrative of the Women’s War, the working in factories, the queuing for food, for nursing the injured, keeping the ‘home fires burning’ while quite often the homes were being bombed, for carrying on without their men.

Obviously, since 1982 and Kitson’s commission, Women and War have moved on - women are now (in certain but not all circumstances) allowed on the front line - both as War Artists and as combatants, however, the physical and psychological aspects of War have moved on also, and were as in the past there was the ‘battlefield’ - marked out and squared off with lines of trenches and ‘no-mans-lands’, the very idea of a ‘field’ of battle is non-existent. Contemporary ‘Conflicts’ (no-one likes to use the term ‘War’ in these post WWII ‘peace’ times!!) now involve the lives or more appropriately, the deaths of ‘civilian’ casualties much more than ‘military’ ones (we have even invented the ‘Collateral damage’ phrase to disguise this!!) - and with the reporting of war moving on into the realms of the ‘embedded journalist/war correspondent’ of recent times, the horrific visions are bought instantly to us, streaming the ‘front line’ into our ‘front rooms’!!

At the very beginning of this exhibition is a piece by Rozanne Hawksley called Pale Amistice - a ‘wreath’ of ladies white gloves clasping one another with white Arum Lillies at the bottom - a touching and ‘quiet’ work that perfectly summed up the female roll of WWI - not participating, but mourning the loss of life - and reminded me of J R R Tolkeins Lord of the Rings where the character Eowyn (a ‘shield maiden’ - not allowed to go to battle but to protect the women, children and sick of those left behind) points out that “The Women of this Country learnt long ago that those without swords can still die upon them”...

Compare this work with that of the last piece in this exhibition called Fundstucke Kosovo (Kosovo Finds) by Frauke Elgen, a collection of photographs of the personal possessions of the victims of ‘ethnic cleansing’ during the Bulkan Conflict - still commenting on the ‘loss of life’ in war, but now a direct loss of ‘civilian’ life rather than ‘military’ - and we no longer need the image of corpses (these are amply provided by the ‘imbedded’ journalists), the horror of war is summed up in a photographic image of the exhumed clothing of these ‘casualties’. Their mass grave is/was the modern ‘battlefield’.

Therefore, I agree it is NOT a ‘compare and contrast’ exhibition of male and female war artists - for my reasons stated above, it could never be, it is an exhibition to highlight an otherwise less publicised and less acknowledged genre of feminine art.