Cathy's Art Diary

Neat exhibition at Cristea Roberts of prints and editions representing the still-life genre over six decades. It was co-curated by the artist Clare Woods who had a show in the upstairs gallery and it was interesting to see the works with an artist’s eye. The earliest piece was a Braque from 1953-54, a vase of brown simplicity. The most recent, hanging next to it, were three bright flower pictures by Michael Craig-Martin but also simple in style. My favourite was this steel relief by Tom Wesselmann who I had not come across before. Closed 20 April 2024    

Beautiful exhibition at Cristea Roberts of new work by Clare Woods. The main selection of work were some bright bold collages made of painted paper. The subtle shading made you think at first that they were paintings. There were some landscapes but my favourite were the flower arrangements with heavy nods to the Dutch Golden Age as well as using a technique which made you think of Matisse. There was also a series of lovely silk-screen prints of stoneware pots and jugs in more muted colours. Closed 20 April 2024  

Fascination pair of exhibitions at the Cristea Roberts Gallery of prints by Georg Baselitz. I find Baselitz’s upside down pictures intriguing and these two shows were no exception. Upstairs was a series of large linocuts called “Belle Haleine” made in 2002 and named in reference to a work by Duchamp. Baselitz resented Duchamp’s assertion that painting was dead and here he revels in the mark making. Each print depicts a copulating couple with the genitalia blocked out by a large white dot, thereby both hiding and highlighting the act. Because of the upside down nature of the work I did find myself playing hunt the legs at times. Downstairs were less racy recent prints of portraits, hands and feet and deers. I didn’t get the deer ones at first then suddenly I saw them, a bit like a magic eye picture. They felt like a whole new taken on “The Monarch of the Glen”. Closed 22 December 2023 Review Guardian

Fascinating exhibition at Cristea Roberts of prints by Joe Tilson. The show included pieces from the 1960s to date. I know Tilson’s recent Stones of Venice pictures, combining images of the sites of the city surrounded by patterns from the buildings, but I hadn’t realised he was part of the British Pop Art movement. I loved the early prints with collage added which had been deemed at the time to be “not original prints” since then Tilson has sought to break other rules of print making. I liked the works based on Greek myth as I have just finished a book on them but my favourite section was the Venice prints downstairs. Closed 17 June 2023

Interesting exhibition at Cristea Roberts of works on paper by contemporary female abstract artists. The show has been designed to complement the show at the Whitechapel Gallery I I’d been to shortly before extending the narrative into contemporary art. It had a small selection of work by each artist with a good commentary on them on a press release. I was particularly drawn to Rana Begum’s interlocking grids which gave different mixes of colour to give different effects. Closed 22 April 2023    

Thoughtful exhibition at Cristea Roberts of new work by Lubiana Himid. These were a fascinating blend of painting and screen printing presenting focused images from Hogarth print series. Himid had painted the canvas with a colourful abstract which was then overprinted with etching ink passed through silkscreens to a layered surface.   I loved the way sometimes the print affect used the positive version of a Hogarth print but at others the negative. Also the way she picked very specific deals which made me see things in the image I’d not noticed before such as an auction lot number on a figure a young black boy sorts through in a Marriage a la Mode print. It was an aesthetically pleasing and thoughtful way to comment on the images. Closed 22 April 2023    

Interesting exhibition at the Cristea Roberts Gallery bringing together works on paper by Richard Serra and Eduardo Chillida. These black and white works looked stark and beautiful in this white space. I didn’t find them attractive as individual objects but as a group they looked good and I loved the processes and thinking behind them. Both artists are both better known as sculptors and these abstract works seemed to explore the idea of form. Reading the commentary they were both interested in the physical process of print making and some of these used unusual materials such as Paintstik and silica and the type of paper they used seems to have been important in the process. Closed 23 April 2022

Thoughtful exhibition at the Cristea Roberts Gallery of new work by Barbara Walker. All the pieces confronts and readdresses the under-representation of Black figures in Western art history in exquisite drawings of old Master Works leaving t confronts and readdresses the under-representation black figures in Western art history the white figures that usually hold the attention and thereby emphasising the black. Some included the backgrounds but others isolated the figures. Many of the works are familiar ones but all these pieces were just called Vanishing Point with a number and the earlier artist in brackets. I did find myself looking up a few of the works I didn’t know. I loved a lone Magi and his attendant and a Dutch family group picture with the family now blank and only the servant visible. I thought this was a subtle and interesting way to make a point and worked well because the drawings were so beautiful. The most moving ones where those which so obviously felt like a p...

Delightful exhibition at Cristea Roberts Gallery of tiny drawings by Marie Harnett. The drawings, often smaller than a postcard, are exquisite drawings of film stills from period dramas. The drawings are all black and white despite the films being recent and coloured which gives them a old fashioned look. I had to get really close to them to prove to myself they were drawings. It was fun spotting films you knew such as the recent version of Emma. Some works overlapped drawings based on two stills superimposed on one another giving a sense of movement. Closes 15 May 2021  

Interesting exhibition at Cristea Roberts Gallery of two sets of recent prints by George Baselitz of hands. In one set of etchings “A Hand is Not a Fist” he draws his own hand in different positions. As he is known for his upside down paintings I did wonder how he approached these as hands could be any way up. I found there was a lovely directness to the works and that they were quite moving being an artist recording his own hand or means of creativity.   The other set “Mano (gold) and Mano (white)” were aquatints of hands emerging from dark backgrounds. They felt more abstracted and had a skeletal effect. Some looked like bodies with eh figures as legs. Closes 15 May 2021