Influences and inspirations

Paul Neagu Palpable object 1970 - 72 (Tate collection)

The further I get into this designing and making art lark the more I am able to distinguish retrospectively between influences and inspirations affecting both the work itself and my making of it. It is an interesting exercise to look back and see how events, sightings, and experiences have marked my progress.

Today two sets of thoughts co-mingled. Forty years ago three doors opened for me: I became engaged, I graduated, and I met Paul Neagu. A few of us are returning to Edinburgh later this year to celebrate our graduation, and I have been reminiscing about the late 60s. One of my favourite occupations used to be lone visits to the gallery of Richard Demarco. These visits were my introduction to contemporary art, and Richard Demarco was an incredibly generous host. He very often saw me wandering about and spoke to me at length about the artists whose work I was taken with.

In 1969 there was an exhibition of work by Paul Neagu. I found the work extraordinary - it stretched my brain. Again Demarco was not only generous with his own time, but also introduced me to Neagu who talked all afternoon about the work. I cannot remember specifics, but do remember the feeling of shutters and windows being opened and a sense of light and sounds flooding into a previously dark closed room. The light left me blinking for a long time, but eventually it influenced what I could see as well as how I see, and my senses have been primed to take in the slightest new nuance.

The exhibition included many containers, curious boxes which intrigued me and which I have often since dreamed about. The one at the top of this post resembles the kind of thing, except that what I remember most is lots of towers. By one of those strange coincidences, recently I have been thinking about artists' books and making my own. I have been scrolling through the V&A's archive looking at work such as Genevieve Seille's Mappa ed Veneiis, (and also coincidentally Meabh Warburton's blog recently reminded me of the artist Tom Phillips and his wondrous book A Humument). Now I find that my now doubtless distorted memories of Paul Neagu's work have become an inspiration for my own.

Life provides such a glorious spiral, rather like my beloved Gugenheim Museum in New York, where as one progresses it is possible to look back, look across, and make new connections and enhanced decisions all the time.

A dip in my 'archives'

From time to time I feel the need of a private viewing - a bit of individual nourishment using collected reproductions of an artist's work while situated within my own workspace. One topic I've been loosely pondering recently is repetition, and the other day my mind strayed towards the paintings of Sonia Lawson. At the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition shows she is entitled to include the usual Royal Academician's quota (I cannot remember off hand how many that is - six?), and every year I enjoy seeing her work.

As can be seen in the links, including this one for the Boundary Gallery in London, she not only deals with repetition, but also does a nice line in powerfully brooding women. They conjure characters from novels: elusive yet magnetic, universal but unknowable - wondrous stuff.

I immediately took to her work because she seemed to be one of those artists who could see inside my head (another of those is Alice Kettle - see the link at the side of this blog). This may sound arrogant, but what I mean is that this was a language that I recognised - not that I immediately wanted to copy what she has done. I had been doodling repetitions in a generally similar way for some time,

and I also am very drawn to such enigmatic females. It is a tremendous reassurance and encouragement to find such an artist whose work I admire. I love the surfaces of her paintings too, carved and scratched into like work on a wall, rough and looking as if it has been around since Roman times.

I have a folder of catalogues and postcards of her work, and one of my favourites is the postcard from the 1993 RA Summer Exhibition reproduced above: Three Seated Women charcoal and watercolour 81 x 108.5cm. Looking through her work again has given me just the boost I needed in my vaguely sagging self confidence (which it does from time to time).

Birthday treat

Somehow a birthday outing can feel even more like a treat when it takes place some time after the actual day. There's the anticipation, and the extending of the enjoyment of self-indulgence. Yesterday I met a friend for a great gift of an afternoon at Barrington Court.

By one of those glorious coincidences there was an exhibition for me to visit on the way. Prompted by Meahb Warburton's blog post of 20 April to order the Tapestry 08 catalogue I was reminded of a weaver I'd met and whose work I'd admired some years ago. On looking up Hillu Liebelt's website I saw that she has an exhibition on at Black Swan Arts.


I loved the exhibition. It is a mixture of tapestries and sculptures, most of what is illustrated in the website in fact. There was no-one there at all, so I really enjoyed the light crisp atmosphere, the meditative quality of the work, and drew delight, peace, and inspiration from the whole. I took no photographs - not only because all is done so well on the website, but also because I felt it would break the mood to be clicking away.

I did however take many pictures of the beautiful gardens at Barrington Court.

The place is beautiful, with several building styles,

and the setting is splendid with a wealth of growth all around: garden rooms inspired by the planting style of Gertrude Jekyll,

various picturesque outbuildings,

a walled kitchen garden,


water features,

and so much more.



It really was a treat of a day.

Computer as a serious art-making tool?

David Hockney continues to excite, divert, and produce ways of forcing the art world to look from another angle - he has made art using a computer program, and the prints are on show in London.

Hockney is quick to ridicule the misconception that this work was some sort of computer art, in which the computer rather than the artist dominates. “Most people thought they knew what ‘computer art’ looked like, but of course that is like saying they know what ‘brush art’ looks like. It is daft. What did Leonardo use to paint the Mona Lisa? Well, he used brushes; so if I get a brush I can do that, can’t I? No! A brush, like a computer, is merely a tool.”

This is a quote from yesterday's Sunday Times newspaper which has an interesting article about the exhibition. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand it is great that work made by, with, or from a computer might possibly be taken seriously as art now that a grandee of the art world is participating. It is also great that the work appears to be being originated using a computer, rather than largely being a manipulation of something existing.

On the other hand I have doubts as to the real seriousness of Hockney's use of the tool. In 1986 I saw a television programme, Painting with Light showing a handful of artists experimenting with the newly developed Quantel Paintbox (which I wanted to get my hands on immediately, but it was way too expensive in those days). I remember Larry Rivers' participation because he made the best attempts, I found. Hockney was another of the artists, was not comfortable with it, and said that he did not think it would catch on. To be fair, not many people, and especially artists were used to computers in those days. But even if it is a dabble, Hockney's foray into photocopy art was remarkable and stimulating even if it was short-lived, so I look forward to seeing more of these prints, and am curious to read reviews of the exhibition.

Hockney has been quoted as saying it is only recently that Photoshop could produce the effect he wants - and I wonder if he means the simulated oil, or watercolour effects. If this is so, he is using the wrong program. I have been able to achieve the effects (not in any way the quality of vision or result that Hockney achieves!) with my Painter Classic since at least the late 90s. Is Hockney using Photoshop because that is what his sister uses to handle her scans?


Nonetheless, as I say, I am delighted that origination of work using a computer will gain a wider acknowledgement, and I will perhaps no longer be looked at askance when I say that I use a computer as my primary image and art-making tool. I am also delighted that David Hockney's sister Margaret could show him a new way of making art. And so long after the death of Picasso, it's also great to have it reconfirmed that one does not have to be young to innovate!

Batiks on paper

I finally got around to taping onto a window the final work I did at the workshop in February and photographing the pieces with light coming through. Some parts will doubtless end up appearing in my work somewhere some day.

Cornucopia

a peony which shouldn't be out until at least the end of the month

This Spring continues to amaze me. With some narcissus still in flower, plants from April, May, and June are all blooming at the same time. We have had hardly any rain so the blossom is persisting beautifully, but I now begin to wonder if Summer is to be a desert.
Meanwhile, however, I'm loving the show!

Amazing accordionists!

We went to an astonishingly wondrous concert yesterday: The Motion Trio. I have always liked the accordion as an instrument, but this was something else completely. This was instrument as complete band - contemporary minimal, rock beat or even trance, exquisite romance - moving, joyous, sad, complex, ... FANTASTIC! Just listen to more than one example to hear their range.