Cathy's Art Diary

Striking exhibition at Fabrica in Brighton of a new installation by Ghanaian artists Serge Attukwei Clottey. The space was full of a tapestry made from pieces from yellow jerry cans used in Ghana to import cooking oil but then repurposed as water carriers. This practice is not just unhealthily but is adding to the countries the regions plastic waste problem. I love the fact the work is not just on the wall but is draped across the floor and you walk on it as it crunches under your feet. It was a clever way to make you think about the issues involved. Closes 27 May 2019

Two glorious weekends at the Brighton Artists’ Open Houses looking at an array of art and craft work. The show was on longer but we only managed to do three days over two weekends however we went into full train spotter mode and got round 22 houses! We concentrated on the groups at Five Ways, Beyond the Level, Hove, and Dyke Road. It was a mix of old favourites such as the wonderful sculpture at Collectors’ Selection and Dion Salvador Lloyd’s lovely seascapes, although it was nice to see him branching out into delicate flower pictures.   New discoveries included St Augustine’s Rough Diamonds, not so much for the art but for the amazing things that had been done with the building. Random shout outs go to Claire Morris’s lovely garden sculptures, the eclectic 11 Rugby Road, Frances Doherty’s botanical ceramics and John Beetham’s paintings of archaeological sites and abstracted maps shown with wonderful ceramic heads by Alain Guy. Closed 26 May 2019

Nice exhibition on Brighton Station of photographs by James Bellorini of some of the people appearing in the Brighton Fringe Festival.   This was just a line of photos with good descriptions of tthe people show but include a wonderful array of characters including an extreme doodler, a drag club bear, a singing barber, various comics and a juggler. You have to love Brighton!   Closed on 28 May 2018  

Confusing installation at Fabrica in Brighton by Ipek Duben. The show consisted of a very dark space filled with life sized videos of people talking about their experiences of difference in Turkish society. I was partly confused by the dark. It was actually quite hard to walk around and see people in the space. I found it quite disorientating. I also found it hard to find the right place to stand to hear the soundtracks particularly as one soundtrack rather dominated so it was hard to hear the others against it. The soundtracks were also quite long and I didn’t have the time to give to the show properly. I added to my confusion as I went in through the wrong door. If you are going enter by the Duke Street entrance then at least you get a chance to read the explanation of the show rather than being plunged into dark confusion with no idea what the focus was. I will say though that the life sized videos looked really impressive in the dark space and it felt like the peo...

Varied and eclectic Artists Open Houses in Brighton. I only managed to do one weekend of houses this year but packed them in! There was the usual wonderful mix of pictures, ceramics, jewellery, textiles, basically you name it it was there! I manage to contain my purchases to a croquet hoot necklace, some cards and a small oil painting of a seascape. A highlight was John Constable’s studio which I’d learnt earlier in the day was now lived in by an artist so it was great to see it. As ever I loved the basement in Brunswick Square which was packed with lots of tempting things. A thank you goes out to Francesa McLeod for the invitation to her private view and drinks. Francesca painted the portrait I use as my blog profile picture. She’d done some lovely new work and I particularly liked seeing her pictures based on a cage of stuffed birds alongside the real cage. Closed on 29 May 2017

Interesting exhibition at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery looking at plans for and images of the area around the Royal Pavilion. It was lovely to be seeing this having walked through the Pavilion Gardens and the museum itself being part of the estate. The focus was some wonderful new 3D images for a virtual reality tour  which were really sharp and clear. I’ve not tried the tour yet but I will do. Alongside these modern images were historical ones starting with a picture from when Pavilion area was stables and including the ground floor plan by Pugin. There were also nice photographs including one of pigs in the gardens during the Second World War. I loved the inclusion of books including an 1841 guide book, a Georgette Heyer novel and Raymond Brigg’s “The Snowman” in which the snowman and the boy fly over the Pavilion. Closes on 3 September 2017

Delightful exhibition at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery looking at the four years when John Constable lived and worked in the city. He moved to Brighton with his family because he was worried about his wife’s health and sadly they left when she became sicker and died soon after in London. While in Brighton Constable concentrated on small landscape sketches some of which he later developed into large scale works. The exhibition included his painting of the chain pier on loan from the Tate. The show was arranged to reflect his three main walks around the area, West to Shoreham, North to Devil’s Dyke and East to the Chain Pier. They didn’t quite flow in geographic order but did give you the impression of doing the walk along with him. They were small, delicate pictures. I particularly liked the ones of fishing boats on the shore. I loved the small domestic works as well such as a tiny sketch of a mouse with a piece of cheese and another of moorhens. As his wife be...

Lovely exhibition at the Corridor Gallery in Brighton of new work by the sculptor, Eve Shepherd. Most of the works were in porcelain and explored ideas of femininity and motherhood. I liked the works which seemed to grow out of the earth with figures apparently in great skirts of mud and foliage. My favourite though was a pregnant, nude, female, minotaur poised on a small podium with wonderful, big grounded feet. Closes on 4 December 2016  

A lovely installation at Fabrica as part of the Brighton Festival by Marcus Coates. This consisted of a multi-screen film installation showing people sitting in their own surroundings, on a bed, in a car, at a desk, with the sound of bird song all around you. As you look at the people they are apparently singing in turn. It had a rather calming effect with the lovely sound and these quite still people. When   you read the commentary you also realised that the bird song was actually the voices of the people in the film and they were mimicking the sound of a bird and in some cases the movement. He recorded bird song, slowed it down to simulate human tones, recorded people mimicking that sound and then speeding that human recording back up to the speed of the birds. It created a sound that was, to my city ear, the same as the bird song. The whole thing gave an impression of morning routines both of the birds via the idea of the dawn chorus and of the people. The hand...

Nice little exhibition in the Prints & Drawings Gallery of Brighton Museum of First World War posters from their collection. Posters were the most effective way of reaching an audience at this period before radio and television and this show included a nice selection. Some of them were very wordy rather than visual. I loved the recruiting poster which advertised “No man under canvas” during the training period. Goodness if you were worried about sleeping in a tent goodness knows what they made of what came later! I also liked a big cut out arm with the slogan “Lend your strong right arm”. The display also included posters for the home front such as an advert for cookery classes in Brighton.

Fantastic exhibition at Brighton Museum of the best pictures in this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. There were some stunning images such as “Feral Spirits” by Sam Hobson of parakeets   flying across a grave yard, wonderful splashes of colour against a largely grey background. It had a real sense of joy escaping from a place of sorry. Also “Hollywood Cougar” by Steve Winter of a big cat against the Hollywood sign, but UI felt the title had overtones of the ladies of Hollywood. Each picture came with a good commentary of what it was showing but also how the picture was taken. Also the museum took the opportunity to show the photos with items from their own natural history collection such as a monkey skeleton, various stuffed animals and insects. This gave an interesting contrast between the living specimens caught in a moment in time and the dead ones given new life in display.

Interesting exhibition at Circus Street Market as part of Brighton Festival of eight inventions on the theme of weather, water and climate change. I must admit quite a bit of this passed me by! I wasn’t sure if some of them didn’t do very much or just weren’t working! I get that they wanted you to experience the show and then read about it but I’d have liked more commentary near the exhibits to get a better idea of what they were about. I liked a paddling pool with dry ice which created a cloudscape. It was really relaxing to watch and I spotted one couple dancing round it. I also like an installation of single ear phones hanging from the ceiling an ear height which you walked past and put your ear to listen to different sounds of water. I liked the calmness of this and how it drew you in. Each piece was by a different artist but again because of the lack of clear commentary I’m not too sure now which piece was by whom. In my defence I am behind and I saw this about 4...

Gallery installation at University of Brighton by film maker Agnes Varda as part of Brighton Festival. The installation consisted of pictures of naked men on posts on a beach with jigsaw shaped pieces missing, a video of coloured plastic bags and pictures with a rubber ring. However the best bit was a video looking at a photo she’s taken years before of a boy on a beach which she then analysed however many years on. She revisited the people in the picture to see what had happened to them and asked what they remembered of the day and also looked at what else happened at the time the picture was taken. An interesting way of freezing a moment in time then using it to look to the future and analyses the context.

Small exhibition at Brighton University of porcelain sculptures by Rachel Kneebone as part of the Brighton Festival. The works were like mounds of melting bodies with distinct shapes and broken bits. They have a Renaissance feel as they have a basic classical shape before they disintegrate. They look like a nasty accident in the Bow factory! I wish I’d had more time to study all the detail in them.

Eclectic selection of artist open houses in Brighton as part of the May festival. Sadly I only made it to one weekend this year but we still packed it in! We did the Five Ways trail and some of the neighbouring ones as well as a few choice one that we love such as Eve Shepherds sculptures. I’m afraid it’s a few weeks ago so I can’t remember who was where but highlights included furniture by William Jay, jewellery by Deanna O’Keeffe made from old 1960s and 1970s costume jewellery giving it a modern twist, collages by Frances Bloomfield, ceramics of plants by Frances Doherty and Paintings by Annelies Clarke.

Disappointing installation at Fabrica as part of the Brighton Festival by Jacob Dahlgren. This was a wonderfully colourful show and I liked the effect of the chequer board of brightly coloured bathroom scales but I’m not sure it said anything to me.   Also the frame of hanging ribbons which you could walk through looked nice but that was it. Reading the blurb again it says it is about the sensual pleasure of the material world but I got more sense of that from the three excellent macaroons I ate further down the road. Sorry Fabrica I usually love your shows but this one fell a bit flat for me.

Interesting exhibition at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery which asked 16 residents from the Portslade and West Hove areas of the city to choose work from the Arts Council Collection that reminded them of their areas for this show. The residents wrote the commentary for the pictures explaining why they picked the work and what it meant to them. There were also films of them talking about the work and magnetic boards and words so you could write your own comments. Best of all though it was a chance to see some lively work which would normally be in store. There was a nice Duncan Grant of the cow stalls at Charleston and four works by an artist called Carel Wright who I had not come across before but I’ll be looking up now!

An insightful installation by Yinka Shonibare at the Old Reference Library in Brighton as part of the Brighton Festival. This consisted of thousands of reclaimed books bound in his trademark African inspired wax cloth a hybrid of Indonesian design and Dutch manufacture. Many had gold foil spines with the name of familiar people who has immigrated to England such as Darcey Bussell, Handel and T.S. Eliot. They were put back onto the shelves of the old library. The idea was to create a record of immigrants who have made an impression on British culture. This was a beautiful work but because the contents of the books themselves did not matter, because no one was taking them off the shelves and reading them and because the centre of the room was empty of desk and clutter I found the show had a rather deadening cold effect.   But then that might just be the librarian in me speaking!

An interesting installation at the University of Brighton Gallery shown as part of the Brighton Festival. This consisted of two works by a Swiss artist Zimoun which although of architectural form were designed to generate sound. The first one you came two was hundreds of thin wire rods mounted in a line along a wall which flicked from side to sound a made a noise a bit like a waterfall. The second was a series of big brown boxes forming a wall each of which had a ball on a mechanical pivot which made the ball beat against the box in different rhythms. It was amazing how the boxes amplified the noise and how it was a different   volume depending where you stood in the room. I found this work really relaxing and could have sat with it for ages.  

Wonderful installation at Circus Street Market in Brighton shown as part of the Brighton Festival. This was conceived by a choreographer William Forsythe and consisted of hundreds of metal pendulums hanging from frames in the ceiling. The frames moved slightly every so often keeping the pendulums swinging at different rates. You could walk amongst them and were told not to touch them. This made you walk in an intricate pattern to avoid them.   I had a go myself and find myself doing an interesting little back step as one came towards me. Once you were outside of the frame as you watched people amongst them they appeared to dance. This was a really relaxing   piece and, as the nice steward promised me, you couldn’t help but come out smiling.