Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting trail of open houses and studios as part of the Brighton Festival around the Brunswick area of the city plus a couple of other favourite houses. Highlights included Francesca Mcleod’s portraits and nice to see some new landscape works by her. Also wonderful detailed drawings by Ian Hodgson in the Naked Eye Gallery including a wonderful picture of a glitter ball. We also popped into St John’s Church to see the new pictures by Annelies Clarke based on Revelations which were fantastic as ever. I bought a clock from her made from one of her artists palette. If I can’t afford a painting this is the ne4xt best thing! Closed 30 May 2016

Great trail of open houses and studios as part of the Brighton Festival around the village of Ditchling. As ever an excellent selection of arts and crafts in this village. There was an interesting show about typefaces at the Jointure Studio and wonderful jewellery at Pruden and Smith including work made from Roman glass. I bought greeting cards of Vanessa Worrall’s lovely seascapes. It was nice to meet the lovely dogs at Four Free again however the best house was the Handmade House on the outskirts of the village which had wonderful and much needed cakes as well as some interesting works including sculpture by David Price. Closed 30 May 2016  

Super exhibition at the Science Museum looking at the life and work of one of the inventors of photography, Fox Talbot. It was fascinating to see his sketch book from Italy where he used a type of camera obscurer to compose the images and started to think about how you might capture the image directly onto paper rather than drawing it. The section on about his house, Lacock Abbey, and the images it appeared in was really interesting and I particularly   like the pictures of the lattice windows and the rocking horse, Firefoot.   It was wonderful that a large picture of Holyrood House by Fox Talobot’s great rival Daguerre. I’d never seen a painting by him and it was all about light and shade. There was a large section on the various books he published with originals of the photographs used as well as looking at how they were used in the books. I was most intrigued by his valet and assistant Nicolaas Henneman who set up a print workshop in Reading to mass produc...

Interesting exhibition at the Science Museum of the winner and shortlists works in the Wellcome Image Awards. The commentary says the awards aim to showcase the best in science image making and they include ordinary photos, digital photos, clinical photography and painted and drawn illustrations. Each picture had a good commentary with them giving a explanation of what was being shown and details of the methods used to produce the picture. I loved a picture of moth scales by Mark R Smith where the colour was created from light on the scales, the scales themselves where not actually coloured. Also a stunning picture of an allergic reaction to a henna tattoo by Nocola Kelley which showed the skin raised and blistered and yet covered by a beautiful intricate pattern. Closes on 19 June 2016  

Fascinating exhibition at the Science Museum looking at the inventions of Leonardo Da Vinci. The exhibition was based on models made for an exhibition in 1952 in Milan which were shown against reproductions of paintings and sketches. There were really good interactive displays to help you understand the science of the   machines which would be great to catch children’s imaginations. I liked the labels on the objects which classed them as innovative, a development of a previous idea or an idea which wouldn’t have worked in practice. I loved the section on the war machines and designs for fortifications particularly as many of these were designed for Cesare Borgia and I’d just finished a book about him. Also the section on the work he did to improve manufacturing for the Sforza’s in Milan. Most visually dramatic was the section on how he imagined ways in which man might fly. It described how his ideas developed as he realised that human muscle power would be insuffi...

Illuminating exhibition at Fabrica in Brighton of light works by Ron Haselden as part of the Brighton Festival and apologies for the pun! These were large neon light sculptures in a dark interior based on drawings by older people., According to the commentary the idea was that the art work emits light and that that older people bring important knowledge and perspective to society. I must admit I didn’t grasp that at the time but I liked the work. The separate works were put together into a large cube shaped installation and your view of it changed as you walked round it. I loved a roughly draw dog, a big man’s head then a strange rabbit in a bow tie. Closed 29 May 2016  

Wonderful video installation at the University of Brighton as part of the Brighton Festival by Gillian Wearing. The video was a collaborative film using short clips of people sent to her by people all over the world of their curtains or blinds opening in the morning to reveal the view from their window. As part of its display in Brighton she had invited Brighton and Hove residents to take part. You know I can often be rude about videos in art galleries but I loved this one. It gave a wonderful view of landscapes from around the world and had a uniting effect as opening our curtains, or in my case blind, in the morning is one of the first things we do and we all do it. Because the clips were so short you sat mesmerised to just see one more, then just another one. When Brighton scenes came on there was some pointing and smiling from the audience. I wish I’d had longer to watch more of this and I don’t often say that about video art! Closed 29 May 2016

Stunning open studios at Phoenix Brighton as part of the Brighton Festival. We went along thinking we’d be there about half an hour and staggered out three and a half hours later having seen some wonderful art and had some great conversations! Almost too many favourites to mention! We headed first for our friend Eve Shpeherd’s studio. She produces wonderful sculptures and it was great to see works in progress in the studio as we usually only see her finished works at her open house. We had a long chat about a classical head she was working on and about how it had been commissioned and how she hoped to develop it from its current neat classical form. I was delighted to find a photographer whose work I’d seen earlier in the week at the Sony World Photography Awards, Denise Felkin, whose current series of pictures looks at women who have not had children. I’ve attached a picture of her work to this post. They are lovely caring pictures. She was kind enough to give me a c...

Innovative exhibition at the Phoenix in Brighton as part of the Brighton Festival of work by contemporary artists who work with the book as an art form. The display area itself was really innovative with units made of reinforced cardboard creating a maze to walk round. A great idea to make the display itself of the same material as the exhibits. The art works were a mix of reusing and working books and creating works in a book format. I loved Maddy Rosenberg’s street scene, Marianne R. Petit’s pop up books and Buzz Spectre’s art works made from books, particularly as one he’d destroyed to make an art work was The Slade House which we’d read with my book group and not really enjoyed! Closes 12 June 2016

Wonderful trail of open houses as part of the Brighton Festival around the Fiveways area of the city. There was a wonderful selection of arts and crafts. Stand out work this year included ceramics by Yolande Beer who I always love seeing as I have a vase by her I brought a few years ago. I also like the lovely upholstery by Nicki Tarr combining funky materials and vintage chairs. There was nice jewellery by Charlie High which I think are casts of real leaves. Best paintings were Alison Rankin’s interesting still lives of fruit. The best house was the Ceramic House featuring the wonderful ceramic botanic work by Kay Aplin and Paul Scott’s interesting take on blue and white china. The house itself is beautiful as it is all decorated with Kay’s ceramic tiles and sculptures. As well as the house they show the studio and a new gallery up a small flight of ceramic steps. Closed 30 May 2016

Interesting exhibition at the National Theatre looking at the five productions of Hamlet they have put on from Peter O’Toole in 1963 to Rory Kinnear in 2010. There were nice displays of costume and set designs as well as programmes and posters. There were also recordings of some of the shows via headphones displays on red skulls. I loved the sections from Peter Hall’s diaries on directing the play including the wonderful quote about he was having the usual problems with the practicalities like “Where do you keep the spade?”

Strange exhibition at Somerset House of jewellery made of coal. This jewellery was created as part of the global fight against climate change. The work was for sale and for each piece sold they were going to buy a bag of coal to bury to create a store of coal which will never be burnt. They also aim to buy a coal mine and not work it! I must admit I didn’t really understand why and which real difference burying a few bags of coal might make. . I guess it was also saying something about luxury and consumerism from ordinary materials. However I did like the jewellery! There were lovely glittering colours set in resin. Some pieces looked like jet Closed 22 May 2016  

Beautiful installation at Somerset House by Katie Paterson. This was a small room with a revolving glitter ball in it throwing specks of light around the walls. When you read the commentary you realised the glitter ball was made up of images from every solar eclipse since 1778 using drawings and digital images. There were grouped by the phase of the eclipse they show. If you look very careful at the ball you can see these different tiny images. I liked this as it worked as a beautiful thing and as an interesting concept. Closed 22 May 2016

Diverse exhibition at Somerset House to show the winners and shortlisted entries in the Sony World Photography Awards. The professional sections showed sets of pictures in broad themes. Works which stood out included those by Jordi Pizarro called “Good Things Come in Together” looking at the town of Kerala in India which has the highest incidence of twins in the world. Also Matthais Hangst pictures of synchronised swimmers under water. After my recent holiday looking at art in Rome I keep finding visual links to it so Nokolai Lomas’s pictures of boxers just after a fight reminded me of the wonderful bronze boxer in the Pallazzo Massimo. It seems that some themes are universal. Most shocking were the winning ones by Ashgar Khamseh called “Fire of Hatred” of people disfigured by social violence. These pictures were very hard to look at but in most cases your first sight of them sees normality and then sees the scars. Your see the person not the injury. The open sect...

Interesting exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the work and legacy of Botticelli. I liked the approach of starting with contemporary works although it did need you to have a good knowledge of the work of the artist. I loved the video by Bill Viola called “Going Forth by Day” which referenced a cassonne. It was a long format with people walking through a wood entering at one end of the screen and exiting at the other. A very calming work. I also loved the Dolce and Gabbana suit and dress using a print based on the Birth of Venus. There was a good room looking at the influence of Botticelli on the Pre-Raphaelites including a Burne-Jones picture which had been owned by Yves Saint Laurent. I liked the fact that there were gaps in the display in this room which let you glimpse the works in the final section which were the real Botticelli’s. It was a good idea to keep the real works to the end as they upstage everything that went before. It’s a shame th...

Excellent workshop at the National Gallery looking in detail at Botticelli’s Venus and Mars led by David Bellingham. We began by looking at Venus’s in art to this point, thinking about the role of the ancient statues in setting models for painted Venus’s. We also looked at other works by Botticelli with Venus’s in them. We then went to look at the picture in the gallery. We thought about its unusual shape and what it might have been used for. We also talked about the fact it’s not dated and how we can place it stylistically. We then talked about which sections used ancient models and which were contemporary. Back in the lecture room we looked at the layers of meaning in the paintings. Most fascinating was the idea that it shows a well-known contemporary couple Simonetta Vespuci and Juliano de Medici, friend and brother of Lorenzo de Medici. We also talked about how it may refer to another picture referred to in ancient texts o Alexander the Great and his wife Roxanna. ...