Richard Hamilton Retrospective Exhibition
Tate Modern April 2014

This retrospective at Tate Modern charts the evolution of Richard Hamilton’s artistic output very thoroughly, which makes for a highly absorbing exhibition – I felt quite exhausted by the end!

I hadn’t been aware of the diversity of Hamilton’s work until seeing this exhibition – it explores his relationship to design, painting, photography and television, as well as his engagement and collaborations with other artists. I discovered that Hamilton’s art is anti-romantic. Rather than evolving a single style to express his personality, he seems to have regarded each work as a separate intellectual problem – exploring each analytically.

I particularly liked his ‘My Marilyn’ 1965 – a collage from contact prints that Marilyn herself had marked with crosses those she pictures didn’t like and which Hamilton has painted over – indicating poignantly her vulnerability and tendency for self destruction. Stronger I thought than Warhol’s Marilyn portraits, but not as eye-catching.

Here is another of the landscapes that I’ve completed recently – acrylic on paper…

I was really pleased to have another of my life drawings accepted for the exhibition ‘Drawn Together’ at Richmond Riverside Gallery (in the Old Town hall). The exhibition looks really good happily, with a lovely mix of interesting art – pop in and take a look if you’re in Richmond.

Tate Modern December 2013

This extensive, biographical exhibition sets Klee’s work along side his personal life, his links to other artists and the momentous historical events that affected him and his contemporaries.

I was familiar with Klee’s work before going to this exhibition, but mainly from books and had only seen a handful of his paintings in previous exhibitions. Seeing his work en masse for the first time, the first thing that made a big impression on me was his wonderful sense of colour.

We learn from the accompanying text, that a trip to Tunisia in 1914 has a profound affect on him as an artist, he writes:

‘Colour possesses me, I don’t have to pursue it. It will possess me always. I know it. That’s the meaning of this happy hour: colour and I are one. I am a painter.’

There was so much information to absorb that I feel I should go again to just look at the paintings, but I did come away with a much better understanding of the man and the way his work developed.

I especially liked the inclusions of quotes about him by some of his contemporaries, e.g:

‘He falls in love with a leaf, a star, a butterflies wing and since the heavens and all infinity are reflected in them, he paints those in too.’ (Hugo Ball ‘Flight out of Time’ 1917).

I’ve included a couple of my favourite pieces from the exhibition:

 

I really enjoyed this exhibition at The Royal Academy – very comprehensive and interesting to learn how Australian art developed from the time of the first settlers to modern times.

Highlights for me were the Australian Impressionists – especially Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts, whose work I wasn’t aware of until this exhibition. Of Sidney Nolan’s work, the surreal ‘Pretty Polly Mine’ appealed to me (see attached pic). From the 1960’s – 1980’s period I particularly liked Fred Williams abstract landscapes such as ‘Yellow Landscape’, which captured the essence of the outback.

The exhibition is on until 8th December 2013.

Arcadia Revisited Exhibition

25-27 October 2013

Orleans House, Octagon Room

Riverside, Twickenham, TW1 3DJ

For artsrichmond’s Autumn Art Exhibition this year, it is curating an exhibition of work by Local Artists on the theme of ‘Arcadia Revisited’.

As part of the 2013 Richmond upon Thames Gardens Festival, artsrichmond has been working with its partners to encourage local artists to ‘revisit’ the borough’s rich heritage of Arcadian landscapes, views and vistas. The culmination of which is the exhibition Arcadia Revisited in the Octagon Room at Orleans House Gallery from 25-27 October 2013. Private View on Friday 25 October from 6-7.30pm.