ART REVIEWS
London-based for more than 40 years, Jiro Osuga talks about his difficult childhood in Japan, how he loves observing the detail and absurdity of city life, his penchant for visual humour, his use of different canvas formats, his highly original interactive website and his fascination with airports that inspired his latest solo exhibition Departures.
Continue reading “Considering Art Podcast – Jiro Osuga, painter”
In this episode, Liza Giles talks about her previous career as an art director and interior designer, how she always painted concurrently, how her use of colour transferred to her fine art practice, how the artist Sean Scully helped raise her profile, the influence of the urban skyline and architecture on her work, how she experiments with collage in preparation of her large-scale paintings and how she balances hard lines and edges with intuitive painterly mark making.
Continue reading “Considering Art Podcast – Liza Giles, abstract painter”
In this episode, Scottish painter Ken Currie talks about how his tough background shaped his view that violence is part of the human condition, he tells the stories behind early works such as Glasgow Triptych and Scottish Mercenaries, about the nightmarish Krankenhaus, the rituals behind Bird People, the terror of his Down in the Woods Triptych, the ambiguity within his new series Black Boat, his occasional portraits, and he lists some of the paintings that continue to haunt him.
Continue reading “Considering Art Podcast – Ken Currie, painter”
In this episode, Victoria Cantons takes us through her troubled transgender history from childhood to her transitioning at the age of 39. She tells how photography became her first artistic expression before she opted for painting and fulfilled her long-held wish to go to art school. She also talks about learning technique from both contemporary artists as well as old masters and how her recent self-portraits express themes of power, identity and gender politics.
Continue reading “Considering Art Podcast – Victoria Cantons, painter and photographer”
In this episode, British painter Victoria Crowe talks about how her paintings reflect both her external and inner life, how she was attracted to the landscape of the Pentland Hills in Scotland that she made her home, the influence of Russian icons, how she responded artistically to the death of her son, the inspiration of Venice, her portrait work and her collaborations with poets, musicians and tapestry weavers.
Continue reading “Considering Art Podcast – Victoria Crowe, painter”
In this podcast, eminent UK sculptor and drawer Nicola Hicks talks about the privilege of having both parents as artists, her difficulties fitting in at school, the problems of early success, her raw sculpting style, the darkness of her subject matter, and how working on her latest exhibition, Dump Circus, helped her through the anxiety she felt during lockdown.
Continue reading “Considering Art Podcast – Nicola Hicks, sculptor”
There’s an underlying sense of sadness in this new exhibition by British portrait artist Ishbel Myerscough. Half way through preparing for the show, her mother died suddenly without warning. This followed the death two months earlier of her father-in-law.
There’s nothing like the death of a close parent to remind one of one’s own mortality but also to cherish what one has and holds. Grief, Longing and Love provides a series of intimate portraits of family and friends that captures stages in life’s journey from the innocence of youth through the experiences of motherhood to family bereavement.
Continue reading “Ishbel Myerscough – Grief, Longing and Love”
“I’m a total believer in absolute nonsense. The absurdity of life is my single goal.” So says artist Glen Baxter whose latest exhibition has just opened at London’s Flowers Gallery in Cork Street. Its very title is appropriately absurd. Gamboge is a yellow pigment that Buddhist monks use to dye their robes. Put it next to the wonderful word “unflinchingly” and you get what he calls “a little explosion”.
Continue reading “Glen Baxter – Unflinchingly Gamboge”
Many will know Tai Shan Schierenberg as one of the judges in the Sky Arts series Portrait Artist of the Year and Landscape Artist of the Year. He specialises in both art forms and is a former winner of the National Portrait Gallery’s John Player Portrait Award. Lesser known is his love of football. Last year, he travelled up from his London home to the West Midlands every weekend to follow the fortunes of West Bromwich Albion Football Club for a Channel 4 Artist in Residence series.
Continue reading “Tai Shan Schierenberg – Men Without Women”
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”
Considering Art 