May 2017

If like me you haven’t been lucky enough to go to the Venice Biennale this year, treat yourself to a morning at the Camden Arts Centre. The exhibition there of Geta Brãtescu’s work is inspirational.
The scope and variety of her work in the humblest materials is truly impressive, especially given the restrictions she faced living and working under Soviet occupation and the Ceausescu’s dictatorship.
At 91 years old she is still hard at work, brimming with ideas and representing Romania in Venice this year.
Ending on 18th June – not to be missed!!

I’ve always been a huge fan of Howard Hodgkin’s work and have just spent a very enjoyable morning looking at his portraits in the exhibition ‘Absent Friends’ at the NPG. It includes a few of his early figurative portraits which are interesting to see along side his later works, which set out to capture the essence of the subjects. Fabulous stuff!

It was such a pleasure to see these early David Hockney artworks at Tate Britain. As a schoolgirl in the 1960’s these are what inspired me to want to go to art college.

In shall be exhibiting with several other artists at The Lightbox in Woking.

22nd November to 4th December 2016

The Lightbox, Chobham Road, Woking GU21 4AA

There’s an interesting exhibition inside the old Reading Prison at the moment….
INSIDE Artists and Writers in Reading Prison.
Some highlights for me were – visiting the cell that Oscar Wilde occupied with the books he was finally allowed to have, a portrait of him by Marlene Dumas and two intriguing sculptures by Robert Gober. A great setting for an exhibition with the theme of separation.

The artist Georgia O’Keeffe has never been as highly rated in Britain as in her native America and apparently there are none of her works in British Public Collections. So, I was very interested when I first heard that Tate Modern was to put on a major retrospective of her work.

I am happy to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the exhibition today. As so often with painting, I first saw her work as printed images, so it was a pleasant surprise to discover the subtly and depth of colour in much of her work. Another surprise was the hard edged abstract work such as the series based on the motif of the patio door of her adobe style home in New Mexico.

You may not come away convinced that her art lives up to her legend, but this is an excellent exhibition and there are some ravishing works here.

Just back from a visit to the Dulwich Picture Gallery to see the Winifred Knights exhibition.
This is a carefully curated exhibition which includes the artists intricate preparatory studies alongside her major works, giving an insight into her in-depth artistic processes.
After winning a scholarship to study in Rome, Knights became inspired by the Early Italian Renaissance artists such as the wonderful Piero della Francesca. (I’ve attached one of his works for comparison).
I particularly like her use of soft muted colours. These beautiful serene paintings quietly draw you in and transfix you with their strange presence.
A lovely exhibition!

I was thrilled to learn that John Iddon, who opened the RAS show, chose my painting ‘Strawberry Hill Gothic’ as his favourite of the Icon section of the show.

I then received Visitors Choice for ‘Eel Pie Land’, so all in all a successful show!

I’ve spent the winter months working on a new series of mixed media artworks using ‘Reflection’ as a theme. These three are 30cm x 30cm and on canvas board.