Cathy's Art Diary

Intriguing images at the Simon Lee Gallery by Jeff Zilm made by extracting the images and sound tracks from films which become an emulsion with which he then paints a black and white abstract image named after the original film. Or at least I think that’s it! I think he paints the image the commentary just said the film is “transcribed in its entirety onto a single canvas” from looking closely I think that means painted using all the emulsion from a single film after peering closely at the image.   The images themselves are quite ethereal and slightly play with your eyes. I liked the fact the canvases were prepared with screen paint used by home movie enthusiasts so that the support represents a movie screen. Also the fact each picture was named after the original film giving integrity though from the original. I did however hear my mother’s voice in my head with one of her favourite phrases “It’s clever but it’s not art”! I liked the images but did feel they...

Colorful exhibition at the Simon Lee Gallery of new work by Bernard Frize. These works were big colourful swirls which on first glance looked like they had been digitally produced but on closer inspection you realized they were very carefully painted. They are created by a sequence of colours on a wide brush which is then used to apply the paint in joined up swirls. It looks like a new sequence of colours is then added round the edge. There seemed to be a feathering effect in places like the effect you often see in cake decoration but I couldn’t work out how that was done. Although the works looks very free flowing you can tell from one picture which splits the pattern on a vertical line that they could be very laborious to produce. The works in the show were in pairs some of them with the paint being applied in reverse colour order on one picture. Others are painted twice with one pattern over another giving a slightly ghostly look. I loved the sense of vibrancy and ...