ART PODCASTS
Symbols of war and oppression together with unsettling images of Victorian medical procedures are among the curious mixes that the young South African artist Peter Mammes has peppered his paintings and drawings in his first UK solo exhibition, Presumed Alive.
Continue reading “Peter Mammes – Presumed Alive”
The world of Suzanne Moxhay is one of decrepit interiors where plants seem to grow out of the floorboards, where ceilings have collapsed, fireplaces cracked, walls broken and where the wallpaper dissolves into fading images of old romantic landscapes.
Continue reading “Suzanne Moxhay – Conservatory”
“I like the clay to speak for itself”, says ceramicist Margaret Curtis, speaking to me at the launch of her new exhibition, Surface, at the Contemporary Ceramics Centre in London. Her pieces, whether they be large vases and cylinders or small bottles and cups, have one thing in common – their imperfection. “I make them in the round, sort of precise, then I start pushing them and poking them and distorting them and let the movement of the clay give a lot of feeling.”
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From a distance, Matteo Massagrande’s works could be photographs. The rendering of the tiles, the wooden frames of the windows and doors and the exterior seascape and foliage have an extraordinary precision and detail to them. Yet this Italian artist from Padua is anything but a hyper-realist figurative painter. There’s something not quite right about his paintings.
Continue reading “Matteo Massagrande – A Grand Tour”
In so many aspects of our culture – fashion, film, all forms of art in fact – the human body, particularly the female form, has become sexualised. To many feminists, the idea of the male gaze, for example, where men gain pleasure from looking upon a passive female subject, is symptomatic of male oppression and female objectification.
Continue reading “We Sing the Body Electric – Gallery 46”
Confusion, paradox, contradiction, illusion. These are the kind of abstracts that American artist Joshua Hagler addresses in his new London exhibition, Chimera. The title is a reference to the Greek mythological beast that sported the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent. It has come to symbolise something that is hoped for but impossible to achieve.
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Female photographers, particularly those concerned with landscape, get very little gallery time compared to their male counterparts. So it’s refreshing to see Flowers Gallery inviting nine women to exhibit their work together, using examples from larger series. It’s above all a very thoughtful exhibition that works on many levels.
Continue reading “Her Ground: Women Photographing Landscape”
There’s a certain cinematic quality to much of Emma Stibbon’s work. Her landscape paintings, prints and drawings that have earned her an international reputation, depict environments in a state of turmoil and flux. Erupting volcanoes and retreating glaciers and ice shelves, are meat and drink to her. Her new solo exhibition, Fire and Ice, conveys a sense of drama, not only with what you see in the pictures themselves but also with the way in which they were made. Her subjects show that apparent monumental and permanent geological structures can often turn out to be fragile at the hands of nature and mankind.
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“When you paint, you should feel empty and calm and the painting will come out automatically, full of energy, full of life.” So says 64-year-old Chinese artist Mao Jianhua whose first UK exhibition, The Spirit of the Valley has opened at London’s Saatchi Gallery.
The exhibition comprises a series of 48 landscapes in ink on paper rooted very much in the ancient Chinese tradition of Shan Shui. They reflect the philosophy of universal harmony and immortality.
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There’s a scene in her son Nick Willing’s BBC documentary, timed to coincide with the opening of this exhibition, in which Paula Rego tells that the first thing her future husband said to her at a party in the 1950s was to ask her to take her knickers off. She complied. It seemed to encapsulate so much of the essence of this remarkable show at MK Gallery – explicit, sexually charged and compliant.
Continue reading “Paula Rego – Obedience and Defiance”
Considering Art 