Cathy's Art Diary

Fun, eclectic art fair organised by Saatchi Art at the Old Truman Brewery featuring over 100 stalls for individual artists. It was a real visual treat and a good opportunity to meet artists and hear more about their work. You walked up and down aisles being bombarded by different styles and media. I came away with lots of cards and names of artists to look out for in the future. The best sculpture was Ed Elliott’s small figurative pieces but checking out his website since it looks like they works scale up to life sized and are very striking. Marie Lenclos’s cityscapes stopped me in my tracks and I loved their clarity. Joshua Donkor’s portraits, often in pairs showing two aspects of a person’s character, were beautiful and thoughtful. I also liked Justine Smith’s maps made up of world currencies. There was good photography too such as Paul Broun’s of windows on the sides of buildings. My favourite, shown here, was Rod Kitson’s work painted and sold in one foot squares. I’m not ...

Fun exhibition at the Old Truman Brewery looking at the work of the costumiers Angels. The first section of the show looked at the history of the company including designs contemporary to their foundation and talking about their origins hiring clothes in the 19th century to jobbing actors as they were expected to provide their own costumes for plays and were often picked on having the right clothes rather than their abilities! The second half focused on costumes they had produced and films they had worked on in a rough chronological order. I loved the 70s section including a dress for Margo on the Good Life and Glenda Jackson’s Cleopatra outfit from the Morecombe and Wise show. I also liked the costumes from Wicked which I’ve not seen but it’s now on my to do list! It was also interesting to see costume for films being made now which are out now such as an outfit for Maggie Smith in “Lady in the Van”, not exactly high glamour but fascinating to see the attention to de...

Interesting exhibition at the Old Truman Brewery of work by Nathan Sawaya made in LEGO bricks. I found the show a little pompous in places but some of the work was stunning. I particularly liked the figurative sculptures such as “The Swimmer” the top half of a swimming map on a glass table and the three large masks showing different facial expressions. The show was really well lit to make the best use of the shadows thrown by the bricks. I wasn’t so convinced by the pictures as the bricks gave them a rather pixilated effect. A few of the works were like shop displays such as the big dinosaur and the two op groups at the end but then I am a girl whose screen saver is the Queen and corgi made in LEGO in Hamley’s, so who am I to me snooty! Reviews Guardian Independent