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So exciting to have been featured in the March issue – thank you Computer Arts!

With an eye to the centenary of the Russian Revolution, a new show of art has opened at the Royal Academy of Arts. It covers just a few years, 1917 – 1932, but what a turbulent time it was as the new order asserted itself.

The image above is rather a playful impression of Stalin by Georgy Rublev which would not have found favour if it had been seen and, rather tellingly, it never left the artist’s studio in his lifetime. The exhibition shows how the rather muted, post-impressionist style of painting was replaced by vast canvases of bold colour as the revolution got under way, followed by images celebrating industry, the vitality of making, the glory of the ‘heroic’ body and the importance of women.  But all of this is followed by a subtle sense of loss, of memories of the old order and an acknowledgement of the art world to conform to a rigid regime.

It must have been a tough time to have been an artist.  Obedience was a necessary part of the ideology of the new Communist regime and artists have never wanted to adhere to rules.  There are some wonderful portraits of the creatives of the day for whom things did not end well. For example, I loved the portrait by Alexander Golovin of Vsevolod Meyerhold, an experimental theatre director who was arrested, tortured and executed in 1940.

Abstract art was regarded with great suspicion but Supremacism found favour and there are examples of huge geometric works by Malevich to illustrate this bold movement.

While the communist ideals were eagerly adopted in cities and within manufacturing it was a different story in the countryside.  Boris Grigoriev captures the doubt in the face of the Old Dairy Woman and a group of farm workers who look a bit grim.

 

And yes, there are collages!  I rather like the idea that this most subversive of art forms could be used to record of all that was happening but always with that edgy potential for irony. Here’s a detail from Red Army: First Cavalry by Solomon Telingater (1928) Sorry that it’s rather out of focus – blame the camera on my phone.

The show is on until 17th April 2017.

 

 

 

I’ve been a fan of David Hockney for years and have tried to catch every London show of his work over the last few decades.  This retrospective show at Tate Britain brings his phenomenal career together – not that it’s over!  This most twinkly-eyed of artists may be 80 years old but he shows no sign of slowing down.  His ever curious sense of pleasure in all that he sees of the world demands that he finds a way to record the sights that surround him.   The thing he feels so strongly about is the importance of really LOOKING. He laments the loss of drawing as an important part of art education.  Yes, you can take a photo of something, he says, but what matters is the sensation of a view, the notion of sharing the artist’s eye and becoming immersed in the view or psychology of the image.

Wandering around the Tate was an immersive joy. Hockney plays with eye-lines and perspective everywhere you look.  You find your eye zig zagging across a picture hunting for the focus point and that dancing sensation draws you into his world.  The early paintings, made when he was a star pupil of the Royal College of Art established his style but feel weighted with a kind of English gloom. Then everything bursts into glorious technicolour – a bit like that scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy wakes up from her black and white world of Kansas into the saturated colours of the enchanted world of Oz. And for Hockney California was that magical place.  The fabulous colours are like the kick of a cocktail or that hit of the sea you get from eating an oyster.  That sky, those pools, that heavenly blue…. who wouldn’t love that environment.

Of course I’m very drawn to his portraits and with some of the galleries I felt as though I were entering a room full of old friends – oh, there’s Mr & Mrs Clarke and Percy, Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy sitting in their chair, Hockney’s mother gazing at us, his father peering at the paper, Kasmin the art dealer and many more.  It’s such a pleasure to see these people all together and available for close scrutiny.

Hockney returned to Yorkshire in the 1990s and was struck by the transformative beauty of the countryside and  the alteration of the seasons. He express this with a series of large scale, multi-canvas impressions of trees, paths, bends in the road and vistas of the rolling Wolds.  I was transfixed by the video installation of Four Seasons which makes mesmerising use of slow motion films of a lane shot by cameras mounted on Hockney’s Landrover which drove past the trees and hedges  in spring, summer, autumn and winter.

We have a treat in the last room which includes portraits and sketches done on an iPad. You can see the drawing process in action and the way his hand moves across the screen using different colours, materials and tools to create the images.  Wonderful.  This show is a joy to behold and I hope everyone gets the chance to see it.  It’s on until 29th May 2017.

 

 

 

 

I was very struck by the work of Domitilla Biondi on show at Collect (at the Saatchi Gallery).  Naturally, being drawn to all things involving paper, I thought her work was breathtaking. Domitilla carves thick paper with a surgical blade and creates sensational, miniature bas reliefs. A shadow from the paper is cast from the cut which resembles the detail of fine porcelain.  There’s a very particular energy to the way each cut contributes to delicate and fluid shapes like no other medium.

On at Collect until Monday 6th February 2017.

Makers are amazing. They are artists, artisans, inventors and innovators. And they use such a variety of materials which is why it is an absolute joy to see the array of creative excellence on show at Collect.  This show, presented by the Crafts Council, is currently on at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea.  The vast building is filled with visual delights which make you stop in your tracks and think “how on earth did they make that?”.

There are too many sensational pieces to go into great detail here, but I’ve posted a little pick and mix of photos I took at this morning’s press preview.  It’s always good to see work by Grayson Perry and his two Essex House Tapestries are a focal point, there’s also a chance to see one his early pots (below).

But Collect is primarily a selling show and a wonderful opportunity for collectors and craft enthusiasts to buy some remarkable and highly individual pieces.

For an artist, it is thrilling to see what people are making and the materials they are using and it’s a visual treat for the eye. Collect is on until 6th February and well worth a visit.  http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/collect/ 

If you’re in need of a boost of sunshine and vibrant colour to brighten up a damp and dreary February day then the Josef Frank show at the Fashion and Textile Museum could be just the tonic.

I confess I was unaware that artist, architect and designer Josef Frank was behind some of the most colourful and enduring designs of the 20th century.  Born and brought up in Vienna he had strong views that a house should be cosy and comfortable. He found intense inspiration from natural forms – flowers and plants, animals and landscape.  But he combined serious draftsmanship with a wonderful sense of abstract art and used fierce, primary colours, combined opposites and brought an element of fun and humour to his designs.  His designs from the 1920s, 30s and 40s look fresh and contemporary to today’s eye and must have been a joy to see when they first appeared. No wonder they have endured and it’s easy to understand how Scandinavian designers adopted and celebrated his pared down but exuberant work.

The Fashion and Textile Museum in London’s Bermondsey Street (not far from London Bridge Station) has done him proud. They’ve also assembled examples of some 4oo watercolours which he painted in later life.  His use of bright colours to depict interiors, still life, street scenes, gardens and landscape convey his enduring delight in the natural world and human activity.  Everyone seemed to emerge from the show with a smile on their face.  Josef Frank: Patterns – Furniture – Painting is on until 7th May  www.ftmlondon.org  #joseffrank

So, Peter Capaldi is handing over the keys to the Tardis to a new Doctor.  He’s had a brilliant four years as a Time Lord and brought a much needed gravitas and slightly sinister air to our favourite immortal.  Hearing him speak on Radio 2 I can totally see that playing a role like this is the closest an actor might get to having a ‘proper job’ – without being in a soap – and it would be wrong for him to closet himself away for too long.

I’ve long been an admirer of Peter Capaldi and look forward to seeing him tackle new roles which will make fulsome use of his impressive dramatic skills.   With this in mind, I decided to make a portrait of Peter last year.  I challenged myself capture not only a good likeness of Peter but to represent something of the enigmatic character of Doctor Who and the depths of intellect which Peter brings to his work.  It took quite a while to get the many layers sorted, to work into the tones, the contours of the face and keep that piercing stare in place. I’m pleased with the result and would be interested to see what Peter thinks.

The background went through several stages and in the end I decided on a collage of  midnight blue paper printed with pale blue emulsion. Don’t ask me to analyse it too deeply, it’s artistic intuition!

So good luck, Peter, and I hope you enjoy your final year flying around the universe, dipping into its many time zones and doing battle with all those monsters. I look forward to seeing what you do next.

If anyone out there is interested in buying the picture, let me know. And remember,  you can commission me to make portraits in my paper collage style by checking out the Paperface website: http://www.paperface.co.uk