All Visual Arts: Jonathan Wateridge

During Frieze Week 2012, I spent a few days with Kings Cross gallery, All Visual Arts; their satellite show Metamorphosis blew me away and I’ve been hooked on their shows since. Every exhibition carries an air of mystery, from the morbid ceramics of Bertozzi e Casoni to their contemporary drawing show Between The Lines, for some reason this gallery’s exhibitions always hit a nerve.

Currently on show is a collection of Jonathan Wateridge’s work, having moved back to All Visual Arts – the artist’s representing gallery – from L&M Arts in LA. The collection is only viewable by appointment for a short period, and like the artist this show is modest – but absolutely worth visiting. Wateridge’s style has developed from his slightly brash, artificially-lit scenes into a softer style – almost like a photographer whose camera has lost focus, or discovered a new medium in switching from the clean shapes of digital to the evocative tactility of analogue film.

Wateridge’s new works are mesmerizing in their simplicity: a triptych of a man’s suited shoulders so rich that you can almost feel the fine threads of the jacket; the wire mesh of a tennis court scored in sharp white dashes, pulled tight and hot in the blazing sunlight.

The show is comprised of cropped, almost abstract pieces, as well as the portraits and larger pieces which characterize Wateridge’s career. A young artist, this show evidences the way that his style is developing – his most recent work displaying a more sombre tone and velveteen finish. 

Although Wateridge only began exhibiting nine years ago, having rejected painting for almost fifteen years, his work shows no sign of being underdeveloped or amateur. Instead it is self-assured, unapologetic and sublimely crafted. A true modern master.

Jonathan Wateridge is at AVA until the 15th June. 

Images courtesy of L&M Arts

 

GAIETY IS THE MOST OUTSTANDING FEATURE OF THE SOVIET UNION

One can just envisage a wry smile lighting up the face of the art world’s most infamous rich kid as he came up with the title of this new show, supposedly featuring the greatest of Russia’s contemporary cultural offerings.

Lightness however, is an element scarcely present within Saatchi’s latest exhibition -instead chiefly memorable for endless murky images of poverty and depression – until, that is, you reach the top floor. Up here spotlights bounce off slick oil paintings which hang proudly in the top floor galleries, waiting to be appreciated – if you ever make it there. 

Full review to follow here:

http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/blog/review-of-gaiety-is-the-most-outstanding-feature-of-the-soviet-union-london/

An exhibition saturated with gloom, yet spattered with a few vibrant splashes of hope and, actually, even a little gaiety.

Losing my Saatchi virginity…

Ok, so that’s not entirely true – although this is the first time I’ve ever bothered to go all the way with the Saatchi gallery, i.e. stay long enough to see all of the works on show. Usually I give up by about gallery 6, which is not very good going for an art gallery with fourteen rooms.

The current exhibition: Korean Eye, shows the latest work  flying out of Korea into the international arts scene – and it’s impressive! A huge range of mediums, subjects and styles but all still identifiably Eastern.

As usual for the Saatchi Gallery most of the artwork is large scale and powerful; however usually when I visit Saatchi the work seems to be powerful just because of this vast scale – the same cannot be said for Korean Eye, and even some small paintings have snuck in!

These works are by Bae Joonsung, who is actually a man – that sounds like an odd thing to say, but usually artworks give a clue about the artist’s gender, you can usually just tell, and these pieces are overwhelmingly feminine. It’s fantastic to see some really accomplished painting being appreciated – especially in an institute like Saatchi which is usually quite edgy, and has featured ‘artworks’ like cling film hanging from the ceiling.

Joonsung paints these multi-layered compositions with the aid of lenticular – as the name suggests this is a type of lens which can also be printed over images using an oversized lithographic press to create a transformative effect.

His interest in Lenticular began with a plastic writing sheet, which to Joonsung ”were something with an importance beyond that other kids could imagine. (-) Of the precious sheets, the paramount was the so-called “transforming plastic sheet”- a yellow smiley face flaunting itself right in the center, now smiling, now crying. That was my first encounter with lenticular in my childhood.”

He combines this lenticular with masterful oil painting and digital photography, overlaid with oils for an uncannily real moving effect: it’s a brilliant combination of classical imagery and techniques, with a little of the new, softly added.

Sometimes it’s just nice to see something beautiful and completely inoffensive in a contemporary gallery, and especially to have good draughtsmanship appreciated – as if you’ve ever read a couple of my posts before, you’ll know how much I hate – nay, loathe – ‘naive’ aka bad painting. There’s just no excuse!

Before the title of  each of Joonsung’s ‘Lenti + Canvas’ paintings comes the phrase The Costume of Painting, which

 ”signifies a certain layer derived through eyes of the artist. I have always believed that when an artist paints, with his or her eyes caressing over the model, the painting created through eyes of the artist brings birth to another model. However, the model painted or created, hovering somewhere around the artist’s free will, demands in turn that the artist paint again. This demand springs from the physical and mental time of the artist’s painting. In the end, the phrase,”the costume of painter”, implies not the costume painted by artist, but what suddenly happens to the artist while painting the costume.” – Bae Joonsung

More artists should include notes on their websites, there’s something about having the work directly explained to you by the maker.

So, get over to Saatchi to see some real-life moving paintings – just like Harry Potter! There’s much more to come from me on the subject of Korean Eye, but firstly I felt that Joonsung deserved his own post and secondly I am yet again very ready for bed.

 

Farley Farmhouse: The Surrealist’s secret Sussex hideaway

The fireplace at Farley Farmhouse features Penrose’s interpretation of the face of The Long Man of Wilmington, an ancient chalk figure carved into the Sussex hills – the house looks out at the Long Man, but here Penrose has invited him inside.

So a few weeks ago I wrote a blog about Lee Miller: muse of Man Ray, Picasso and many others of the Surrealist circle. I went to visit the house she shared with Roland Penrose yesterday and was ahhhhmazed.

Farley Farmhouse is a little place in the Sussex village of Chiddingly, near Lewes, and it looks very ordinary: a modest red brick cottage set in pretty gardens. However this was actually the home of  a Surrealist painter/writer/biographer, and his model/muse/photographer wife so inside the house it’s a whole different story. Above the Aga is an original Picasso ceramic haphazardly plastered between ordinary kitchen tiles, the dining room is a salon-hang of Penrose’s works, original Man Ray collages adorn the hallway and items from Hitler and Eva Braun’s last billet sit in a case in the living room. These are only a handful of the amazing pieces on show, of course there are also Lee Miller’s modelling shots, and her own photographs of famous Surrealists in their studios, the horrors she witnessed as a war correspondent and happier snaps of her travels with Penrose. The artworks featured in the house are endless, I could go on and on and on! I wasn’t allowed a camera on our tour so I was just scrabbling away at my notebook which I got a few weird looks for, obviously the rest of the group weren’t artiiiiistesss pffft. I’m not really a tour person to be honest, and I was quite dubious about it but it was actually incredibly informative and definitely necessary to understanding the lives of the couple that lived here – and anyway you aren’t allowed to just wander about the house as of course it’s filled with priceless pieces.

Sorry about all the screenshots and googled images, I had no choice.

Roland and Miller above, solarised profile of Lee Miller below – between them the couple developed the method of Solarisation.

 It’s worth going to Farley Farmhouse just to listen to the tour and gain an insight into how the 1930s Surrealist circle lived, great fun but with some pretty horrific consequences. Muses are lovers, husbands are left behind, alcoholism was rife and beauty was treasured above all. Lee Miller had an amazing life which was possibly a lot down to her equally amazing face: if it weren’t for the men who fell in love with her, her life would have been very different. Siggghhh to be a beautiful American in Paris.

I’ve studied the Surrealists a lot, but maybe only specific ones as somehow I hadn’t heard of Penrose – he rings a bell but no artwork comes to mind. This must just be my own ignorance as he’s a key figure: he started the Institute of Contemporary Art which is still going today (and whose new TV exhibition I want to see), was Picasso’s biographer, invented our very first army camouflage and was also a pretty decent painter!

I won’t give you his life story, but these paintings above are portraits of his first wife Valentine. The first is called Conversation between Rock and Flower,  1928, you can see the ‘flower’ on the left is Valentine, with her feminine form on the front of her profile and an angrier craggy face on her back, whilst the ‘rock‘ is Penrose with one eye looking out at her. Below this is Winged Domino, 1938, again of Valentine but he painted it during their break-up so it was finished from photographs. The necklace of thorns is stabbing into her neck and the butterflies sort of claw at her lips, so you can see that obviously things weren’t good. According to Laura, our very informative guide, Valentine was a bit of a fiery one, sometimes soft but often aggressive and cold – hence the two-sided, or two-faced, ‘flower’. Apparently this was all just due to her hormones, simple PMT, but it made her so difficult to live with that she and Penrose split, freeing up space for Lee in his life.

Penrose and Lee adored each other; they married in 1947 and here are just  a few of Roland Penrose’s many many portraits of her.

The paintings are all mysterious and dark like Miller whose aloof and distant appearance was a product of a horrific attack she experienced when she was only seven years old – it left her with the ability to disassociate herself from people and it was possibly this cool quality which attracted her lovers – as well as that face. Anyway, her detached nature caused Penrose to often paint parts of her as absence, landscapes and floating clouds. The piece above is a portrait of Lee Miller after the war, in 1946, whereas the painting below was painted in 1937 before she became a war photographer; for this reason in the above painting she’s fragmented and only has a hint of a face whereas the portrait below is much happier and her earthy legs fix keep her grounded. Miller had a fascinating life but it wasn’t plain sailing: her modelling career was cut short by an agency selling her off to a Kotex advert – after which the Paris fashion mags wanted nothing to do with her – and after visiting Belsen and Dachau the day after they were liberated she suffered post-traumatic stress. Then, to make matters even worse, once she returned home to take back her Roland who had now shacked up with a second woman, she fell pregnant, after which she was plagued by post-natal depression. All of this, plus her already troubled childhood meant that the beautiful Lee Miller became an alcoholic for twenty years.

Below…Lee Miller and Roland Penrose with First View, his portrait of a very pregnant Lee.

Still, she got over her alcoholism by becoming an obsessive cook and finally became the caring mother to Anthony, her son, that she couldn’t be before. Strangely, she, Roland and Roland’s first wife Valentine all lived together until first Lee and then Valentine died, following which Roland continued to live at Farley Farmhouse with his son and a series of girlfriends until his death – old habits die hard!

I didn’t intend to write a summarised biography of Penrose and Miller, but I got so into it that that’s sort of what you got. Sorry if it’s all too wordy. Anyway, go have a look, see the house, the gallery and the sculpture gardens……

 

….then after all that culture take a ten minute drive to the town of Lewes afterwards and have lunch at Bill’s like me and my Mama did. It’s tasty.

Surrealism Sunday… Man Ray’s Muse.

Happy Mothers’ Day!

I’ve discovered someone fascinating today and it’s all down to my good ole Mum. I was going to write a post on her favourite artist, being the doting daughter I am, she umm-ed and err-ed before saying “oh, I just remembered, have you heard of Lee Miller..?”

I had not, but now I’ve looked into her life and she was an absolutely fascinating model, muse, photographer and Surrealist.

Miller by Man Ray.

The reason Mother mentioned her is that the house she came to settle in for the last thirty-something years of her life is just up the road from us in East Sussex, near Lewes and it’s open to the public from the 1st of April.

Lee Miller and Surrealist writer and second husband Roland Penrose came to Farley Farm House in 1949, and it became an unlikely meeting place for many leading Modern Artists such as Picasso, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Joan Miro, Richard Hamilton…the list goes on… The house is permanently filled with works of art by these and many other big names, and has been preserved “as if Miller has just popped out to gather some vegetables”.

A model for Vogue in 1927 at just twenty years old, leaving New York for Paris at twenty-two to become Man Ray’s assistant-come-muse, Elizabeth Lee Miller began her artistic career  at the centre of the Surrealist movement. She moved back to New York in 1932 at  the age of twenty-five to open her own studio and went on to be a portrait, travel and war photographer.

In 1937 on a trap to Paris, Miller met Roland Penrose and began to attend the Surrealist group, becoming a model for Pablo Picasso, as well as her already close friend Man Ray.

In 1947 after three harrowing years spent as a photojournalist in Second World War Germany and Eastern Europe, Miller finally married and settled with Penrose in England where she contributed to his  biographies of Man Ray, Miro, Picasso and Tapies.

Here are a few beautiful photographs taken of Miller by Man Ray and for Vogue, followed by her own works…

‘Lee Miller’s Neck’ by Man Ray.

‘Lee Miller in Hitler’s Bathtub’ controversial image for Vogue.

Picasso by Miller.

Charlie Chaplin by Lee Miller.

Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning - have a look at her, personally I think she was an absolutely incredible painter – by Lee Miller.

Women with fire masks, Downshire Hill, London, 1941, Lee Miller.

Woman with hand on head, 1931, Lee Miller.

Nude Bent Forward, 1930, Lee Miller.

…You can tell from ‘Nude-’ that she worked with Man Ray, just look at the similarity in their works….

 So anyway, I now have one trip planned for Easter, I’m going to avoid the London crowds and instead head to a lovely farmhouse to see some world-renowned artists.

Not only can Miller and the Surrealists’ work be seen at the house, this year the first exhibition, Two Painters and a Sculptor, features the wonderful abstract painter David Armitage, emerging Spanish artist Samuel Paradela and Michael Cooper who works with bronze, silver, marble and stone. Plenty!!

Stunning photographs and an amazing life: Lee Miller, Man Ray’s secret muse.

iPhone Art…more than just Fat Face.

I haven’t blogged since last week, tut tut tut… This is partly due to a nasty nasty man stealing my beloved iPhone from me on Saturday night. Oh well, I guess this is the mess you end up in when you head to a grimy dive bar with a £500 phone in your handbag – uninsured of course!

Anyway, in my hunt for a new baby I’ve discovered quite a few iPhone ‘artists’ – including Mr David Hockney himself!

Hockney is showing in A Bigger Picture, currently on at The Royal Academy – 50 years’ of work including recent iPhone and iPad paintings – not bad  for a 75 year old!

To be honest, although one of the most famous artists of recent years, Hockney’s not really my thing… So here are a few amateur iPhone artists I quite like the look of.

iPhone art, another thing that dirty pickpocket has deprived me of *sniff*

I want to be here….                                    or there….

 

 

 

 

…slightly hideous but I like..

 

 

When I do finally replace my lost one, I may be mucking about with more than Fat Face and Face Blur. Maybe. They are a lot of fun…

Henry Darger… extraordinary escapism.

This is possibly one of the most fascinating tales I’ve ever come across…

Set on a large planet around which Earth orbits as a moon, inhabited mostly Christian people, a species called the Blengigomeneans, gigantic winged beings with curved horns who occasionally take human form, and the evil Glandelinians, is the longest illustrated novel in history written by one solitary janitor in a single room in Chicago, over a half century period.

A Blengigomeneans or Blengian, winged creatures who aid the Vivian Girls in their rebellion.

Henry Darger was a recluse who settled in a second-floor room of an apartment building in 1930, it was here that he stayed for the last 43 years of his life to finish The Story of the Vivian Girls:What is known as the Realms of the Unreal,of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. With fifteen volumes totalling 15,145 pages it is possibly the longest novel ever written, and it contains several hundred colour illustrations and paintings – some up to 10ft long. The book follows the adventures of seven princesses of the Christian nation of Abbieannia, the daughters of Robert Vivian, who fight against an evil regime of child slavery imposed by the Glandelinians.  Darger had worked all of his life to protect children, relating to them better than adults, he even tried to adopt a child at one point but a history including spells in several mental institutions meant that any applications were rejected.

The girls are sometimes represented as hermaphrodites, and behave like men, while the scenes themselves range from cheerful and innocent to much darker imagery.

Darger couldn’t fully communicate with the outside world and so was shunned, it was only in his books that he could live freely and created an alternate identity: General Darger.

Darger spent most of his life alone, only to be seen regularly searching bins for old newspapers and magazines from which he took some of his inspiration. It was never expected that he was turning these into art.

His life works which included the Vivian Girls, an autobiography and several other small volumes were found in his one-room apartment after his death in 1973.

For more info, Jessica Yu made a documentary in 2004 about the life and works of this elusive artist – here’s a trailer…

I’m going to go to university now and scour the library for this DVD, outsider art – they love that stuff!

Darger’s works are now held by the American Folk Art Museum in New York which also runs The Henry Darger Study Centre in which the books themselves can be flicked through.

A tragic story but these amazing works are a little silver lining at least…

Kim Keever: Turner in a tank.

Looking at Kim Keever’s massive c-prints of mystical landscapes and fantasy worlds you’d think he’s either extremely well travelled (Narnia…Middle Earth…) or a genius with the Photoshopping; however in fact he creates his works by setting up miniature scenes inside a 200 gallon fish tank, filling it with water and various pigments, then throwing a little coloured lighting, and voila! Sandstorms, Jurassic jungles, ice bergs and ancient forests all born out of the same old  goldfish bowl.

So how does he do it…? Keever uses an analogue camera and zero digital editing, so it’s crucial that he catches his construction at just the right millisecond when the pigments are still drifting about to create that painterly ethereal look which all of his works have in common. The scenes are made from a combination of moulded plaster and found objects, and loosely based on real landscapes or paintings so they are simultaneously otherworldly yet eerily familiar.

Keever creates imitations of possible places with dramatic scenery and oversaturated colours which are far more exciting and desirable than the real world.

Definitely JM Turner in a tank, the submerged sublime, Caspar David Friedrich for the fishes.

Anselm Kiefer at White Cube… colossal canvases in a gargantuan gallery..

This post sort of ended up as an advertisement for one of my great loves, Mr Anselm Kiefer, I’ve been a little bit obsessed with him since I was seventeen and this is the first time he’s taken a UK gallery all for himself!

Il Mistero delle CattedraliTh or ‘the mystery of the cathedrals’  is Kiefer’s largest ever UK exhibition and for it he has taken over White Cube’s huge new Bermondsey site, there’s only seven days left to catch it so if you’re a bit of a Kiefer disciple like me then go go gooo!

As always these works reflect Kiefer’s obsession with past mythologies and histories, mystical and political systems, but focusing in particular on his fascination with the transforming nature of alchemy.

The man himself explains that…”The ideology of alchemy is the hastening of time, as in the lead-silver-gold cycle which needed only time in order to transform lead into gold. In the past the alchemist sped up this process with magical means. That was called magic. As an artist I don’t do anything differently. I only accelerate the transformation that is already present in things. That is magic, as I understand it.”

Magic!

I’ve always loved Kiefer’s works because of their vast scale and weight; Kiefer builds up layers and layers of shellac and plaster on which tin planes balance precariously and metal struts jut out supporting huge iron hooks, scythes and satellite dishes. Every piece begins as a landscape which is then worked on rigorously, left out to the elements, oxidised and dissolved, and worked over again and again until it has the cracking, crumbling but still completely overpowering and domineering appearance that characterise Kiefer’s works.

The combination of Kiefer’s looming canvases, gigantic sculptures and the huge white expanses of White Cube, Bermondsey will make you feel like a tiny tiny ant…go see. Sometimes it’s good to feel insignificant.

Brown Eyed Girl…

I made a fool of myself on Sunday. I ended up eyelash to eyelash with either Ayo or Oni Oshodi.

Brown Eyed Girl is part of the Midland Art Centre’s Their Wonderlands, curated by They Are Here, provided with only a tiny torch I blundered about the darkened gallery and when I came to this eerie little portrait I just had to have a closer look. I was convinced it was a film installation, a screen hidden behind the painting – but no, it’s the eyes of artists themselves which blink in place of this ghostly girl’s. It took me a good…3 minutes…to work this out.

Oh well, I hope Ayo or Oni enjoyed playing opticians with me.