Happy Birthday!

What do Paul Gauguin, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Damien Hirst all have in common? Well, of course, they are all well known artists. But they were also all born on this day, 7th June.

Despite sharing this birthday, the three artists have entirely different styles in their art.

Gauguin was born in Paris in 1848 but spent his early childhood in Peru. He was always interested in art but after returning to France and serving in the navy, he became a stockbroker. It wasn't until 1885 that he began to paint full time.

Tiring of expressionist painting, he developed his own style influenced by Cloisonnism as well as African and Asian art. His works show bold images and colours. Many of his later paintings are of people in the Polynesian Islands, where he died in 1903. Read more about Paul Gauguin.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was born in Glasgow in 1868. He may be best known for his architectural work but he was also an accomplished artist. He produced many drawings and watercolours and had a particular interest in landscape and floral and themes (see picture).

He was one of "The Four", a group including his wife, Margaret Macdonald, her sister, Frances and his friend and work colleague, James Herbert McNair, who together influenced the Glasgow Style of Art Nouveau graphic and decorative design. A couple of years ago we enjoyed a visit to the Mackintosh House at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow to see furniture and interior designs that he had produced. Read more about Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Damien Hurst was born in Bristol in 1965. He may not be everybody's favourite artist but he certainly makes an impact on the art world. His controversial works include dead animals in tanks of formaldehyde. More conventional work includes print making. We visited an exhibition by Damien Hirst at Bowes Museum earlier this year. You can also read more about Damien Hirst on Wikipedia (his official site is under construction at the time of writing).

Interestingly, two other artists that we hadn't heard of were also born on 7th June.

Malcolm Morley, born in London, was the first Turner Prize winner. He is known for his photo-realistic paintings. Read more about Malcolm Morley.

And Red Grooms, whose works include sculpture, pop-art, printmaking and multimedia, was born in Nashville. Read more about Red Grooms.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

We're Still Here

Phew! We survived. Along with many of the other sinners in the world we were getting a bit worried about the warnings from Harold Camping, a preacher from California who predicted that the end of the world would be last Saturday. Fortunately he was wrong and we live to write another blog post.

Mr Camping is not alone in trying to predict the Rapture, artists have been trying to do this for centuries; not the date but how it might look. We've thought we'd check out some of the paintings that depict Judgment Day - a Christian and Muslim belief that good people will be taken to Heaven or Paradise when God makes his final judgment.

Probably the biggest is Michelangelo's The Last Judgment on the wall of the Sistine Chapel. This shows Christ in the centre with various saints around him. The people who have been saved are floating happily in the sky, with the condemned being forced into the mouth of Hell by a gruesome boatman at the bottom. In fact the boatman, Charon, is a mythical character from Roman and Greek history; Michelagelo was allowed to merge biblical and mythological stories together in the fresco.

The Last Judgment by Michelangelo

Another recognisable painting is by Hans Memling. This is an oil on wood triptych. In the centre panel Saint Michael is in the foreground weighing up the souls of the resurrected. On the left panel, the good are being welcomed into heaven whilst on the right, the evil are cast into Hell.

Last Judgment by Memling.

A more recent representation by Kandinsky takes a highly abstract approach, leaving everything to the observers imagination. Unusually, it is painted in reverse on glass with a frame for protection.

Last Judgment by Kandinsky (Half way down page.)

There doesn't seem to be as many paintings depicting the Islamic Judgment Day but here are a couple.

Day of Judgment by Mohammed Modabber

Day of Judgment by unknown artist

Finally, our favourite from those we've seen is this one by Fra Angelico. It is quite colourful, has a nice balance between good and evil and is less gruesome than most of the others (apart from the people cooking in the cauldron).

Last Judgment by Fra Angelico

Sorry if we missed your favourite. There have been dozens of works produced over the centuries and hopefully we'll have time to look at some more before the world ends on 21st October 2011 (according to Mr Camping's revised calculations).

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art.

The Art of Jewellery

I love buying and wearing jewellery but try as I might I've never yet persuaded Vince to buy me any. I think he's scared of getting it wrong, because I'm very fussy (subtle hint: a pair of Tiffany diamond studs!). Vince wears a watch occasionally and that's about as far as he gets with personal adornment. He says that jewellery should enhance the natural beauty of the wearer. So he might have been surprised by the latest exhibition at mima in Middlesbrough on The Modern Jewel: In Time and the Mind of Others. Here jewellery becomes more than an object to be worn; it is a piece of art.

I was fascinated by the exhibit "Charlotte's Choice", two sets of cast carob beads, one set from gold and one from silver. Each set has equal value which works out to be 251 silver and 4 gold beads. Charlotte Wood, a 19 year old fashion student and Teesside resident, can choose which set she keeps and wears. The other set will be kept for exhibiting by the museum.

I would have loved to have been in Charlotte's shoes when she was given the opportunity to commission artists Lin Cheung and Laura Potter to produce this jewellery for her. Still, I can influence her choice as visitors are invited to help Charlotte by putting a gold or silver token into a box. I opted for the silver; 251 beads would make a wonderful necklace! I wonder whether Charlotte will follow the visitors' advice or make her own choice?

In any case, her choice is not final: she is allowed to swap one set of beads for the other. The rules for this exchange are set out in a contract that is part of the exhibit, along with a book to record the details of the exchanges over time. So Charlotte and the beads will become part of an on-going living art project.

The exhibition is part of the museumaker project and is a collaboration between the artists, local residents, mima and other Middlesbrough museums.

You can read more about the artists and the projects here:

Lin Cheung

Laura Potter

mima

Museumaker Project

Vicky,

Love Your Art

And the winner is...

On Saturday evening we sat eagerly awaiting the lottery draw. The first number came out... We matched it! The second number came out... Oh no! It didn't match. Sadly, none of the others matched either. So no luxury mansion and posh car this weekend.

With nothing much else on TV we got round to talking about what art we would buy if we had won the lottery. With a few million pounds, there wouldn't be much that was out of our price range. And with so many interesting artists and such a wide variety of art, coming up with a single choice would seem impossible. Eventually we decided to pick two items each, not necessarily our favourites but something we would enjoy having around to look at, feel and admire.

Vince's first choice was Three Elements by Ronald Bladon. This minimalist sculpture is formed from three plywood trapezoids stood on end at an angle of 65 degrees.

"I like the simplicity and strength of the slabs," said Vince. "And the way they defy gravity."

Three Elements

Vince's second item was a more classical choice, The Hunters In The Snow by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. This picture has so much detail and reflects the hardships of the time it depicts. The story it tells is full of historical insight, social issues and symbolism. A very interesting picture.

The Hunters In The Snow

"I think I would choose one of Edward Bawden's linocuts," said Vicky. "Perhaps one of the rarer ones like 'Campions and Columbine'. I like the simplicity, the style and the Britishness of his works."

Campions and Columbine

Another artist whose work Vicky admires is Marc Chagall. "I love his folksy depictions of animals and people as well as the bright bold colours. As I have a fondness for cats I would choose 'Paris through the Window' as my second picture."

Paris through the Window

Even if our luck was in and these works came up for sale, we would probably only win a tenner on the lottery. Still, it was fun discussing and choosing what we would do if we did get lucky.

Artistic Influence In Hartlepool

Vince's interest in boats combined nicely with our mutual interest in art last week as we headed over to Hartlepool for an afternoon out. After a quick look round the marina, we called in at Hartlepool Art Gallery to see an exhibition by local artist John McCracken.

We found an extensive show, filling a large part of the gallery, mainly portraits including several self-portraits of John at various ages (See picture above). We hadn't come across this artist or his work before but that didn't stop us appreciating his varied styles, mixture of subjects and versatility.

A couple of paintings that caught our attention were of people sat on a train. These pictures reflected a favoured style of John's: painting ordinary people in everyday situations. We could almost recognise the people sat chatting, reading the paper and gazing out at the dramatic views along the Durham coastline.

Also on show were paintings by artists who had influenced John's work such as Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach. Some of these pictures had been loaned from the Tate Gallery, MIMA and Newcastle’s Hatton Gallery. It was interesting to compare the styles of all four artists in one place.

Originally from Belfast, John later settled in Hartlepool and came to have a wide involvement in the art scene in and around Hartlepool. He lectured at Hartlepool College of Art and was a curator at the Gray Art Gallery and Museum. He acquired a number of important modern works of art for the town’s collection including Lucian Freud’s ‘Head of a Woman’ and Frank Auerbach’s ‘Shell Building Site’. His friendship with Lucian Freud also allowed him to bring a major exhibition of Freud's work to Hartlepool in 1972. This is the only venue outside London to have held such an exhibition.

Apart from art, John wrote poetry and enjoyed jazz music. Sadly, he died in 1982 at the age of 46. We were surprised to discover that he married his wife, Carol, in the church that is now the art gallery where his exhibition is being shown. A very appropriate tribute to this versatile artist who had so much influence over art in Hartlepool.

The exhibition, 'John McCracken – His Work and Influences', continues at Hartlepool Art Gallery on Church Road until 2nd April 2011.

You can read more about John McCracken on Wikipedia.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art

Colours Of The Landscape

We were hoping to visit Ann Whitfield's exhibition at the Witham Gallery in Barnard Castle this weekend and were disappointed that other commitments made this impossible for us. We've come across Ann's work a couple of times recently and had made a mental note to take a closer look and hopefully chat to Ann to find out more about her unique style of painting.

As luck would have it, Ann had read our blog and invited us to visit her a couple of weeks ago for a chat and to see a broad range of her work. So we wrapped up well against the early snows and trekked along to Barnard Castle.

Ann began to focus on painting landscapes around eight years ago when she and her husband, Terry, moved from Dorset. She is inspired by the scenery in and around the Dales but rather than make a realistic depiction, she prefers to give a slightly abstract feel to her pictures.

Working with acrylic paint using a palette knife, she sometimes incorporates other materials in the pictures including tissue paper, gold leaf and metallic foil (apparently Green and Black's is the best - both the foil and chocolate!). The tissue paper gives an interesting texture to the paint and the foil and gold leaf adds an extra dimension when it catches the light.

On the face of it, her choice of colours (not that it's really a conscious choice) are unusual. But the lively purples, oranges and pinks are used by Ann to express her emotional response to the subject matter. She recalls a visitor saying that her pictures were "full of joy". We have to agree, they are quite uplifting and very different from conventional landscapes.

Apart from the colours, Ann told us that she likes to portray the hills and valleys accurately so that people are able to recognise the places. She and Terry often go walking to find interesting and unusual views for Ann to sketch and subsequently paint. She finds that fellow walkers like to see and buy her paintings and love to relate stories from the locations they are familiar with. We'd also like to visit some of the locations in Ann's pictures to see them for ourselves. But perhaps we'll wait for the snow to melt first.

The exhibition is running from 10th to 15th December 2010, from 10am to 5pm each day. Ann is sharing the exhibition gallery with Anne Mason, another popular artist from nearby Eggleston.

Ann also has a selection of her pictures permanently on display at her home and is pleased to welcome visitors. You can arrange a visit by email (info@annwhitfieldart.co.uk) or take a look at Ann's web site.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art

The Art Of Geometry

When you think of art, you don't normally associate it with mathematics. But an artist we met recently combines her skills in both art and geometry to create distinctive carved ceramic works. We met Halima Cassell at the preview of her "Dreams Made Manifest" exhibition at Darlington Arts Centre and again a few days later when she gave a talk about her work.

Easily recognisable, her unique style comes from her observation of patterns and their transformation into three-dimensional forms. She takes inspiration from the patterns she sees in Islamic architecture and Asian and African designs.

A versatile sculptor, Halima occasionally works in bronze, stone and wood but her favourite material is clay. Using a variety of clays from around the world she first makes the basic form then calculates, measures and marks a geometric pattern into it and finally carves out the three dimensional pattern. The resulting pieces have individual colours and textures and are described by Halima as "faceted forms"; they reflect light and produce shadows creating a sense of movement as you walk around them.

As we browsed around her exhibition, we were delighted to see that almost all of her pieces had names (we've lost count of how many times we've visited exhibitions where everything was labeled "Untitled"). Halima told us she usually comes up with the names herself but on the odd time she gets stuck, she simply invites a group of friends around, opens a bottle of wine and by the end of the evening, somebody has usually come up with a great name for the anonymous piece.


Halima is a remarkably talented artist. Her imaginative ideas and observational skills combined with her dedication to quality and precision make her work popular around the world. Yet she remains down to earth, friendly and accessible to her fans (which now includes us); she can explain her work equally well in both a technical way and in a simple, jargon-free way that even we can understand. We look forward to our next encounter.


Halima's web site is at www.halimacassell.co.uk.



Love Your Art

Vicky and Vince

It's Alive!

Illustrations for books form a specialist art genre of their own and are growing in popularity among collectors. The opportunity to own an original illustration is enticing for several reasons: it represents favourite books or characters especially from childhood; it brings a story to life; it's a work of art in its own right; and it's for investment reasons. The Alive! exhibition at the Myles Meehan Gallery, Darlington showcases important illustrators some of whose images are instantly recognisable as well as including many unseen illustrations that were unpublished.

The role of the book illustrator is to interpret the story and depict it in a visually appealing way. In children's books these pictures are often whimsical depictions of people and anthropomorphised animals sometimes in comical situations. For example, I laughed out loud at Emma Chichester Clark's Croc - a cute, harmless bright green crocodile wearing a pink scarf - opening gifts on Christmas Day in "Presents"; or sitting on chair in an outdoor cafe enjoying a nice cold drink with her friend Melrose in "Cafe Scene".

Both adults and children will be familiar with the work on Quentin Blake; of his works featured here, I particularly liked "Reader with Parrot" rendered in his well-known pen and ink style with watercolour. The simple, quickly drawn lines portray the humour and absurdity of a purple parrot perched on top of the head of an elderly man sitting reading in a chair. This picture is part of a series Blake has produced featuring birds doing human tasks in "The Life of Birds".

Ronald Searle also switches between illustrating for adults and children and I didn't know he had produced illustrations for Jeffrey Archer's short stories in "Cat O'Nine Tales". The story of "The Commissioner" is illustrated with a portrait of the Bombay Chief of Police as a rotund looking man: dressed in a grubby cream military uniform bursting at the seams; with an elaborate upturned moustache; a gun holster is hooked around his neck, and he is using a large white hanky to mop his head.

Coming to exhibitions such as this is enjoyable as I'm often introduced to artists whose work I want to see more of. One is Oliver Jeffers for his simple but humorous illustrations with complicated titles such as "He Thought He Might Lasso The Star With The Life Belt" and the book eating boy in "He Was Going Through Them At A Fierce Rate".

Another is Paul Cox, whose work I'm going to nominate as my exhibition favourite for his picture in Durrell's "My Family and other Animals" entitled "Don'ts says anythings to anyones". This shows Spiro and Gerald driving, in an open top car, back from town where they'd been to buy some goldfish. It's a large dramatic picture fizzing with personality and energy allowing the characters to live beyond the pages of the book.

The Alive! Contemporary British Illustration exhibition continues at the Myles Meehan Gallery in the Arts Centre, Darlington until 13th November 2010. The works have been selected and supplied by Chris Beetles Gallery, London.

Love Your Art,
Vicky

Computer Art

We had the opportunity, recently, to see some pictures produced with the assistance of a computer. This brought up the debate about whether computers are a valid way of creating art. Here are some of the points we discussed.

A computer can produce better results because bad bits can be fixed or re-done. Yes, but artists have always painted over bits of their pictures that they didn't like, or torn them up and started again.

An artist's individual skill is still needed to decide on the subject, compostion, style, etc. Computers can't come up with the ideas unless somebody has already built that feature in to the system. That's right but who knows what computers may be capable of in ten or twenty years time.

A computer to paint pictures is like a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. If you want a painting, use paint and a brush. But a computer is simply a tool that can be used to create a picture, it is just a more complex tool. New technologies have regularly been adopted by artists. Oil paint was a new technology at one time.

Using a computer is cheating, you avoid the skilled and time-consuming work that the artist does to create a work of art. It may simplify some of the work but the computer only does what the operator tells it to do.

It comes down to the point that if you want a painting, pick up a brush and paint. OK, for traditional art that may be the best option. Computers may be better suited to new styles of art rather than mimicking current styles of drawing or painting.

A computer can't make an artist, there has to be some artistic ability and skill to use the computer as a tool for creating art. Yes, art is, perhaps, the creation in the mind of the artist, not the resulting physical representation of it.

Whether or not you like art produced using a computer it still needs the creativity and skill of an artist to come up with a subject and control the computer. But the advantages and flexibility of using this method mean it is likely to become more and more prevelant in the near future. Of course, there is always the potential that computers will be programmed with some of the artists skills, it is happening now in a limited way. Will creativity be the only role left for the artists of the future?


Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

Do The Locomotion

One of the last places you might expect to see an art exhibition is in a railway museum. But Durham County Council have been using Locomotion, the National Railway Museum at Shildon, to display the entries in a local art competition.

The pictures were framed between towering steam engines and crumbling carriages. We expected to see lots of pictures of trains. In fact, there were only a couple but with paintings and sculptures from over 100 artists, we had plenty to look at.

The first prize of £1000 had already been awarded to Dr M Quinn with a charming painting of "Sessy", an older lady sitting in a chair, sewing. It had lots of fine detail and the artist had caught the light from an adjacent window very well.


The fun thing about an art competition is that you can pick your own, unofficial, winner. We agreed with the judges that the painting of "Sessy" was excellent but set about looking for the ones we preferred. We particularly liked the pictures of local places; countryside as well as town views. Also the intimate portraits of people who were probably friends or neighbours of the artists. "Solitude" by A Jackson evoked a mystical feeling in both of us and we marvelled at the detail in two miniature paintings by R Earnshaw.

And so to our winners. Vince chose the wooden carving "Resting Miner" by A Brookes. The detail was fantastic and the organic shape very realistic. You could almost hear the miner snoring away in a corner.

Vicky plumped for the portrait of "Seamus The Cat" by Lydia le Brun. "He's got such a cute expression!" Vicky exclaimed. She also liked the kaleidescope of bright colours chosen by the artist.

Running an art competition is a great way to show the work of local artists. Displaying their works in the middle of a popular railway museum also connects with people who may not have visited conventional galleries.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art