Summer Exhibition 2021

Bright exhibition for this year's Royal Academy’s Summer show.

There seemed to be lots of colour in this year’s show but there were few works that leapt out to grab my attention. Maybe I’ve just been too often and it’s getting a bit samey. Looking through my notes I am struggling  to remember many of the works I’d marked as memorable.

I thought Yinka Shonibare had some interesting things to say in his curation but at times if felt a bit woke. I did like the small show within the show of work by Bill Taylor, who was born a slave in 1854 and didn’t stat art until he was 85.

It was good to see a work carving prison soap again by Lee Cutter who started doing art when he was in a young offenders’ institution as well as two large, jolly Humphrey Ocean duck pictures. Leigh Bank’s “Last Orders” putting dead pop stars in place of the disciples as the Last Supper was a bit naff but fun and Catherine James “At Home”, a picture of a Dutch dolls house made in blue and white tiles appealed.

Amongst the smaller pictures I loved Jessica Rose’s woodcut of the inside of a cinema called “Silver Screen”. Also Harriett Mena Hill’s painting of part of the Aylesbury Estate on a block salvaged from its demolition.

I chose to use Stephen Cox’s “Alberti: The Hunt: After Uccello” as my illustration as it appealed to my love of the original paintings and I loved the way it was painted in stone dust across six planks from one tree.

Oddly for me, my favourite piece was a video installation by John Akomfrah called “Peripeteia” which took two real portrait drawings by Durer of black sitters and imagined their lives. I’ve seen a few of Akonfrah’s videos now and always find them thought provoking and mesmeric.

Closes 2 January 2021

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