Cathy's Art Diary

Fun public sculpture trail around London of decorated eggs to mark the Easter holidays. The trail was organised by Elephant Family to raise money for their conservation work and had a total of 147 eggs scattered around the city. It was accompanied by a good app on which you could log your egg sightings and learn more about the designers and sponsors. The map was a bit difficult to read at times particularly in locations on various levels but that adds to the sense of it being a hunt. The eggs seem quite delicate as quite a few had been taken away for repair. I collected 46 mainly over four sites Covent Garden, Marylebone, Battersea Power Station and Canary Wharf. I’d hoped to do Sloane Street which seemed to be packed with them but I ran out of time. It was a good excuse to have a wander round these areas and some of them took you into strange locations like pharmacies and hotels. I think my favourite was this shell egg in Covent Garden by interior design company Campbell-Rey ...

Effective new public sculpture at Canary Wharf made by artist/architect duo Jason Klimoski & Lesley Chang (StudioKCA). The work is a large leaping whale made from plastics from the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean sourced by the Hawaiian Wildlife Fund. It looks very effective in emerging from Wood Wharf and dominating the space. I love the fact the concert base is made from old coffee grounds from cafes around Canary Wharf but I would question the environmental impact of bringing the waste plastic from across the Atlantic. The gesture might have been more meaningful if more local waste plastic had been used, maybe from the nearby Thames? Permanent but new

Delightful sculpture trail around Canary Wharf of guide dog sculptures decorated by various artists. The trail was to raise awareness of Guide Dogs and had been organised by them and Wild in Art. A number of the works were designed by artists with experience of sight loss and some featured tactile elements such as the black and white “Guide Lines” by Sue Guthrie where the back stripes were in a rough finish, or braille elements. I managed to see all but two of the works. I loved Becky Smith’s “Life is Golden” which looked lovely on the sunny day when I went. I think my favourite was the Sherlock Holmes dog “Baskerville” by Mik Richardson. An added bonus was chalking up my 10,000 steps, partly as I kept getting lost! Closed 17 May 2024  

Interesting outdoor exhibition at Canary Wharf looking at the importance of clean water to women’s health focusing on Malawi. The display, sponsored by WaterAid and the Wimbledon Foundation, consists of tender photographs by Laura El-Tantawy exposing the emotional toll of pregnancy, childbirth and childcare without clean water and decent toilets, each with a short commentary. I think this display is doing the rounds and has already been next to Tower Bridge last year.

Disappointing sculpture trail around the Canary Wharf site. I say disappointing because I went on the last day and a couple of works had been damaged and removed and I think a couple of others I couldn't find had disappeared too. I didn't have a lot of time so I only saw four works of the 11 in the end. The commentary says the works look at how "play is the overlooked epicentre of the human experience" but I didn't find those items I did see that playful. The description would lead me to think the works might be interactive. This is the 2nd edition of this show organised by Brooke Benington and Canary Wharf and I will give it another go if there is a 3rd but will make sure I go earlier in the run. Closed 11 November 2022

Disappointing sculpture trail around Canary Wharf featuring works utilising daylight. I say disappointing because I never found two of them. One seemed to be the other side or in a building site with no signage to help you around it. Most of the works would have benefited from being larger. However it did take me around Wood Wharf which is a new area I’d not walked around before. “Love Birds” by Atelier Sisu was pretty in the trees of a park and might look better of an evening when I assume they light up. I did like “Gleammhh” by OGE design group which worked well with the buildings around it. My favourite stop though was an exhibition of glass pieces by Louis Thompson in the lobby of One Canada Square. These were strong works including examples of installations for other places eg Freud Museum. I’ll certainly look out for his work. Closes 20 August 2022  

Beautiful art trail around Canary Wharf by Mark Humphrey to mark Remembrance weekend. It consisted of seven sculptural installations around the site. Each one was dedicated to a different a charity set up to help x-service men. I suspect at peak times each was manned by a representative of the charities but I went mid-morning on a weekday and only one was represented. However each had a security man attached to it who were really enthusiastic and informative. My favourite piece was “Lost Soldiers” over by the new Crossrail station which had helmets on poles from different campaigns with the name of the campaign on the pole. All the helmets were contemporary with the campaign. The remains of a Battle of the Somme helmet were very poignant. This was a simple but effective idea. Another clever one   was “Point of Everyman’s Land” in the Jubilee Place shopping centre which consisted of Perspex cubes with different types of ground in the bottom and a poppy shape made b...

Lovely open air exhibition at Canary Wharf of light sculptures and installations. There were about 15 pieces on display the weekend we went round and although it was very cold it was fun to look for the different works, popping into shopping malls as we went to much needed hot chocolate. Our favourite wasn’t that exciting to look at as it was a column on lights in red, white and blue but when you read the commentary it said it reacted to mobile phone signals so we phoned each other up and found that it moved in rhythm with our speech. Even better our laughter at this sent it into overdrive. It was called Totem by the Bitone Collective. I also loved Bit.Fall by Julius Cope on Middle Dock which was illuminated drops of water falling to create words from news stories. It’s hard to describe but it was a magical cascade of words in the air. Also worth a mention is Fantastic Planet by Amanda Parer, a large inflated crouching figures. This is the second year I’ve b...

Interesting exhibition in the lobby of One Canada Square, at Canary Wharf featuring work by the Hungarian artist Bálint Bolygó. The website write up says he “explores mechanical and natural processes to make kinetic sculptures and installations that harness the physics of nature, science and engineering”. This means he creates works mechanically and shows both works in progress and finished works. I loved the big wall picture being made by a Spirograph type construction. It was quite dense when I saw it but it would have been nice to see it at different stages. It hung with finished works. He used the same techniques to create images on globes.

Fun trail around Canary Wharf featuring light sculptures. Some of the works were beautiful and static such as the three dresses by   Tae Gon Kim and the deer by Cedric Le Borgne. Others were more interactive such as the cube you walked round the outside of pulling the light effect long with you and the Ice Angel by Cinimod which I had a play with.   Thank you to my companion for the afternoon Hilary for the photo! The event would have benefited from better signage. The map was good but only showed where the exhibits which are staying for the whole month are it didn’t show the ones for the specific Winter Lights weekend. Some of them were hard to find and it was hard to plan a route. I also admit it was blooming cold (not the exhibitions fault!) which made I more imperative to be able to move between objects quickly and accurately!

Small exhibition at One Canada Square of photographs by Christopher Jonas. These were shown in the reception area of the building and I was looking at rush hour so it wasn’t the most peaceful environment but there were some interesting works. I liked his street scenes such as that of a street vendor holding an orange. My favourite was called “Game set and match to Murray” and was a photo of a crowd watching Murray win Wimbledon on a big screen in a street. He just caught the perfect moment. I also like the cityscapes and landscapes particularly one called Nether Wallop Hedgerow which was a picture of a field through a gap in the hedge. As I went round I realised that Christopher Jonas had been president of the RICS where I work in about 1992. The blurb said he is developing a second career in photography while still active as a business man.  

Fun festival at Canary Wharf with ice sculptors from around the world working on large pieces throughout the day. It might of been better to go later in the day when the works were more finished but even at lunchtime it was fascinating to watch a block gradually become a work of art. I found it interesting how they seemed to keep the design in mind and knew just which but to cut off and when. Many of them had the final design on show. Sometimes they seemed to be cutting away most of the block with a chainsaw. It was an interesting way to see sculpting happening quickly and get an idea of what must be involved in the much longer process of stone carving. Review Independent