A profusion of painting talent

Karachi 

The city is teeming with art galleries and even though they cater mostly to modern and abstract art which may be absolute Latin to the genuine art fan who has not been initiated into modern stuff, often these galleries put up shows which are highly appealing and even captivating to the amateur art fans.

One such show opened at the Grandeur art gallery in Defence on Friday evening featuring an assortment of realism, semi-abstractism, and a random mixture of all sorts of art. It made a wholesome amalgam.

The exhibition, based on 58 works by 11 artists, embraces all genres of art. However, some works really stand out, like Marium Khan’s simple but highly artistic floral patterns and landscapes.

As regards her floral arrangements, they are absolutely simple yet her colouring techniques really make the flowers come alive and fresh. 

She is a lyrical colourist, indeed.  Even her landscapes are a treat to watch and are so reflective of her being at one with nature. Two of her works, “Dream Garden”, and “Welcoming spring” are captivating, indeed.

Marium is a really prolific artist and has 44 paintings exhibitions to her credit. 

Then there are works by Fauzia Khan two of which, highlighting bougainvilleas are a treat to see. “For me, landscape is a wide canvas because it embraces all the elements of nature that add to its beauty, like flowers, leaves, roots etc., which all add up to a picture-perfect landscape”. 

“My sole inspiration originates from nature,” she says.

Then there are works by the young, enterprising Shazar Ali Siddiqui. He has painted something as abstract and intangible as time through an hourglass. 

It is his coloration techniques that make the work so profound. Other works of his are a profound reflection of nature.

There are works by artists who are influenced by mysticism, like Naushad Alam and his whirling Derveshes. Alam has also been designing for a famous media group of Karachi.

Resource: http://www.thenews.com.pk

Artist creates mixed-media ‘gardens’ of composers

“People are all much more complicated than what appears on the surface,” says artist Barry Leibman, 71. The same is true of his abstract mixed-media paintings that depict imaginary gardens of composers and musicians. 

These are featured in the exhibition “Imaginary Gardens: A Collection of Recent Works,” on view at Duane Reed Gallery through March 5.

A resident of St. Louis, Leibman started painting only about 30 years ago. 

“I never went to art school but, in 1988, a friend gave me a set of watercolors and something clicked,” he said. “My first show was in 1990.”

The theme of layers features prominently in his pieces. He is attracted to the emotional and intellectual depths in music, and these depths are reflected in the layers of paint, collage and canvas board in his work.

Leibman adds and subtracts these layers until he reaches a point where everything comes together. Because of the physical weight of his pieces, he uses wood instead of canvas as a support.

“I can nail fabric and canvas board to the painting and don’t have to rely on glue,” he said. “I don’t worry about putting glass over the surface, or about the weight of the layers.”

The artist has been interested in music for a long time and has presented several gallery shows of work on musicians and composers. 

“The first group of works I ever did was on Mozart and his compositions,” Leibman said. “I had a strong feeling for a piece he wrote for the clarinet, and I followed the music with what I was doing on canvas.”

Leibman considers the life of the composer as well as the music when he produces a piece. The work titled “Dmitri Shostakovich” depicts a predominantly red background. Leibman attached black fabric to canvas board rectangles, which he layered so that they physically stand out from the surface. Their vertical arrangement resembles a tree with multiple trunks. Above the trunks are a series of brightly colored floral-print fabric swatches.

“As a painting comes to fruition, the music of a particular composer comes to mind,” he explained. “Shostakovich created profound music in the Soviet Union when Stalin was in power. He and his music often risked being purged or banned. The red and black suggested to me his individual struggle, and the fabric at the top (represents) the music he was still able to create under such duress.”

Beethoven’s music also greatly interested Leibman. To make the piece “Ludwig van Beethoven,” Leibman covered some canvas board squares with black fabric and others with white. He positioned and layered them to create a three-dimensional, generally symmetrical composition of more black at the top and more white in the center. He then placed six floral-print, fabric-covered squares in the center.

“In this painting, I wanted to make something intense but not too heavy,” he said. “That’s where the floral elements come in. This piece captures the feeling of Beethoven’s music in its solidity. It measures 45 inches by 40 inches and weighs about 45 pounds.

“Beethoven was deaf and yet composed some of the most beautiful pieces – that’s the mystery.”

Leibman’s exploration of mystery led him to novels and authors as well as musical compositions. 

“I’m drawn to mysterious fiction and mysterious musical compositions,” he said. “That’s the beauty of them. In my first show, I did pieces on writers such as Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett. I was involved with Left Bank Books for many years. Literature is in my bones.”

One series of paintings was inspired by Italo Calvino’s novel “Invisible Cities.” The novel tells the story of Marco Polo’s visit to China and his conversations with the emperor about the cities Polo visited. As a result, Leibman’s pieces represent his ideas about location.

Like every creative person, Leibman shuttles between finding success and encountering obstacles in his work. 

“There are times when you have a sense that you’ve hit on something. That’s a wonderful feeling,” he said. “What’s challenging is doing something better and more meaningful. Although the effort of that can be daunting when it isn’t working, you want to keep going whether it’s successful or not.”

Resource: http://www.stljewishlight.com

Bringing Alive a Fancy World

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Bright floral colours spread out on canvas sums up the ongoing art exhibition at the Alliance Francaise art gallery in the city.  ‘Hues of Revival’ by Sheeba Manghat showcases artworks celebrating nature and flora.

From plain white to bright flaming red, flowers are the subject of her paintings. Flowers of various shapes and a variety of colours come alive on canvas in the artist’s second solo exhibition since 2010. Shades of bright colours came together forming beautiful flowers through her acrylic paintings, with the artist bringing alive the floral world of her fancy. A particular work which grabs attention is a painting of bright yellow flower petals seeming to dance gently in the breeze. The bright yellow petals seem so brilliant,in its beautiful and bright flaming red background that it looks alive. Another work featured a group of flowers, looking similar to marigolds, in yellowish red hue of colours.

The collection of around 30 paintings by the artist also includes a series of works as well as independent ones.

Elaborating that she has always found flowers attractive, Sheeba adds that she feels painting them lets her get in touch with her creative and spiritual side. Stating that she loves adding elements of imagination to her works, the artist says, “I have positioned flowers, as per my fancy.”

Resource: http://www.newindianexpress.com

Ottawa painter Nicole Allen finds inspiration in nature's beauty

Nicole Allen of The Loft Artists Studio on Gladstone Avenue paints with colour and gusto: predominantly big flowers and big rocks, as well as small canvases of birds. Slender and fine featured, she in many ways, resembles the delicate birds she paints.

Raised by parents who encouraged her gift,  she found her thirst for painting at age five, when her dad, Don Moore, helped her paint a cardinal — a canvas that still hangs in her living room. Allen remembers painting side by side with her father — a chiropractor, talented hobby painter and avid fly fisherman — on their family’s dock at their Muskoka cottage. To this day, the rugged, textured landscapes of the picturesque wilderness north of Toronto speak to her.

“I am constantly inspired and intrigued by colour and the moods that certain combinations evoke,” says the mother of two who runs, practises yoga and enjoys drinking scotch with her husband on their balcony by the light of the moon.  “Technically, I am always striving for a balance of the organic line with the linear in my work, which is why my landscapes and florals tend to have a graphic feel.”

She describes herself as more of an intuitive and “quick” painter, vastly different from her dad’s more intellectual approach. “He has had a huge influence stylistically on me as he works quite freely and is very mindful of colour theory. His paintings filled the walls of our home growing up.”

Allen, 44,  grew up in Oakville, studied art history in Kingston at Queen’s University and then found her way to Victoria, B.C., where she worked in the art rental business.

She and her husband, Jeff Allen, who is a training consultant and Founder of Crimson Training Solutions Inc., moved to Ottawa in 1997 where she received an applied museum studies diploma at Algonquin College. With two young children, she continued crafting her painting skills by attending classes at the Ottawa School of Art. Today, Charlie is 15, and Sydney is 12, who according to Allen, “is also very artistic” while her husband provides the “muscle behind every art fair and show.

“I don’t remember not drawing or painting,” says Allen, who six years ago put her toe into the art market for the first time by participating in a small mixed show at Irene’s Pub on Bank Street. All of her paintings sold, prompting her to paint full time.

Allen’s art is luscious and bold; she achieves this effect by using acrylic paints in layers over charcoal, Conté and ink. Her impressionistic landscapes use colour fearlessly and, she says, appeal more to men, as do her giant canvases of crows or cardinals with attitude. Her floral still-life paintings, which are both blocky and delicate, are favourites with women. 

When I ask whether a painting of vibrant poppies seen from a bee’s vantage point, called Order in the Chaos, was inspired by her own garden, she laughs and emphatically says, “No.” She confesses her back garden in the Glebe is a “work in progress” since the construction of an infill next door displaced many of her plants. Instead, inspiration came from a photo in an old English gardening magazine. 

Surprised and delighted by her art success, Allen also seems unfazed by it. Gearing up for her third active year of painting and exhibiting, she realizes the vocation was always there.

I point to a painting with fluttering petals of white cosmos, and ask its name.  “We each have our own path,” she says with a smile.

Resource: http://ottawacitizen.com

Alesandro ­Ljubicic’s retail therapy flowers with artistic flair

It’s an art exhibition with a ­department store sell.

When painter Alesandro ­Ljubicic’s debut exhibition at ­Michael Reid Gallery in Sydney opens today, visitors will find ­floral arrangements adorning the hang of 45 paintings across three levels.

If Ljubicic’s large decorative canvases, priced at $5000 to $10,000, are beyond your range, he’s made a series of little sample oils on birch priced at $1600 each. Limited edition scarfs are selling for $900 and there’s a custom magnolia eau de parfum made to the artist’s specifications for $50 a bottle.

A marketing masterstroke amid difficult trading conditions or a return to the 19th-century idea that art, design and beauty are part of the same continuum?

Reid said the floral extravaganza was a deliberate attempt at sensory overload in which gallery visitors are invited to “participate in the vision of the artist”.

“We’ve finally come round to the notion of beauty as available in everything, a well-designed toast rack or a painting,” he said. “It’s about participating in the ­vision of the artist.”

The vision of National Art School graduate Ljubicic, 29, stretches to excellence in watchmaking, to which end Swiss watchmaker IWC and its agent Gregory Jewellers will host a client party in the exhibition space.

Ljubicic said: “Why not have a multilayered experience so when people come to the exhibition, I don’t need them to buy a painting but they can still walk away with something and have a story.”

The Reid Gallery show is the third time Ljubicic has exhibited his floral paintings alongside bouquets by florist Sean Cook but the first time an Australian artist so early in their career has branched into fragrance and fashion as well.

The exhibition catalogue was emailed to subscribers on Wednesday morning; by that afternoon, half the paintings were sold.

Two canvases were bought by collectors in Los Angeles and Hong Kong, who are among ­Ljubicic’s 14,000 followers on ­Instagram.

Reid said he attempted to favour Australian buyers in a deliberate attempt to grow Ljubicic’s following here but so far his paintings had not been acquired by any of the public art galleries.

An international exhibition is planned for next year. In between time, Ljubicic will return to his day job running The Sydney Art Store, a retail art supplies shop he founded while he was a student whose generous experiments with oil and canvas proved more expensive than his part-time job could afford.

The store now has six full-time employees, including his parents. No prizes for guessing where the artist’s knack for retailing was hatched.

Resource: http://www.theaustralian.com.au

Painting She-roes

There I was with a glass of wine in one hand and a paint brush in the other. As I created a real painting on the canvas, I marveled as I thought this was a talent I did not possess. Women (and men) around the country are discovering their inner artists at "studios" where painting and wine go together. Women haven't always used wine to lubricate their painting abilities. Women painters have been around for centuries and have made major cultural contributions. Match the artist with her accomplishment:

____ 1. The first African-American woman to have a solo exhibit at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City. 

____ 2. Remembered for her paintings of mothers and children, some of which have been featured on U.S. postage stamps. 

____ 3. She began paintings in her late 70s and became an international superstar with her "American Primitive" depictions of rural America. 

____ 4. She painted many of the plants and animals that surround the birds in Audubon's Birds of America. 

____ 5. Known for her vivid flower paintings and depictions of the New Mexico landscape, her work has been featured on U.S. postage stamps.

A. Maria Martin Bachman

B. Alma Thomas

C. Mary Cassatt

D. Georgia O'Keeffe

E. Grandma Moses

It might surprise you to know that many of the plant and animals that surround the birds in John James Audubon's Birds of America were painted by a woman - Maria Martin Bachman. For twenty years (1831-1851), Bachman anonymously painted the backgrounds needed for Audubon's bird drawings. When her brother-in-law (and future husband) collaborated in 1839 with Audubon on a book about the animals in North America, The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, she also anonymously painted those backgrounds. Today, we know which drawings are hers and we also know that her work appeared in an American work on herpetology (the study of amphibians and reptiles) and some of her drawings are in the Charleston Museum.

Mary Cassatt spent much of her adult life in France and became reknown for her paintings of mothers and children. Born in Pennsylvania in 1844, Cassatt's youth involved travel, learning languages, and being educated abroad. Although her family did not approve of her becoming a professional artist, she was not deterred. In 1868, one of her paintings was accepted for a juried art show. After a brief sojourn back to U.S., Cassatt returned to Europe in 1871 and, in 1877, was invited to join the Impressionist salon. Residng in France for the rest of her life, Cassatt focused on women and children after 1900 and, from 1914 on, became a suffrage supporter. She and her paintings have been featured on U.S. postage stamps and she has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

The first fine arts graduate of Howard University (1921), Alma Thomas had wanted to be an architect or builder. Instead, she taught art in the public schools as her professional career and pursued her own painting in her off-work hours. After she retired from teaching, she was able to develop her distinctive painting style. Her abstract paintings debuted at Howard University in 1966, when she was 75 years old. A significant role model for African-American women as well as older women, Thomas was the first African-American woman to have a solo exhibit at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City. In addition, her art was shown at the White House on three different occasions.

Modern artist Georgia O'Keeffe is remembered for her vivid flower paintings, her landscape art, and her depictions of New Mexico. After her first exhibit was mounted in New York City in 1916, she became recognized for her paintings of New York skyscrapers and flowers. Her 1929 trip to New Mexico would influence her art and her life and she would move there permanently in 1949. Many of her paintings reflected the New Mexico desert terrain and adobe architecture. Today, she is honored at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her paintings have been featured on U.S. postage stamps and O'Keeffe has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Like Alma Thomas, Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson) is a significant role model for older women. Taking up painting in her 70s after arthritis made embroidery too difficult for her, Grandma Moses was discovered in 1938 by a New York collector who happened upon her paintings displayed in the drugstore window of Hoosick Falls, New York. Her public debut occurred in 1940 at the Galerie St. Etienne in New York City, followed by a Thanksgiving display at Gimbels Department Store. Grandma Moses, with her depictions of rural America, called "American Primitive", became a superstar. Her life was told in a documentary and one of her paintings was published on a U.S. postage stamp.

Learn about more she-roes and celebrate amazing women. All of these painters are among the more than 850 women profiled in the book Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America. We cherish their cultural contributions.

(Answers 1-B, 2-C, 3-E, 4-A, 5-D )

Resource: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

‘Let go of the fear and just create’: Orono artist paints 100 paintings in 100 days

In Shalece Fiack’s father’s studio in Phoenix, Arizona, a quote hangs on the wall.

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done,” it says. “Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”

Andy Warhol said that. Fiack just learned how to live by it.

Shalece Fiack challenged herself to paint 100 paintings in 100 days. She began on Oct. 21 and achieved her goal on Jan. 29, but for the stay-at-home mom living in Orono, art only recently came back into focus.

John Horejs, Fiack’s father and a professional artist for over 30 years, came to visit the Fiacks in Maine for two weeks. While there, he did what he has done for his entire life: painted.

“He said, ‘I really want to work on some little pieces. While I’m here, why don’t we get some supplies and experiment?’”

Fiack decided to pick up a brush and join him.

That experimentation didn’t end when he left; in fact, Fiack hasn’t stopped painting since.

“He left here, and I just could not leave the studio,” she said.

“I’ve created a monster,” Horejs joked, according to Fiack.

Fiack has always been artistic. She has dabbled in pastels and oils and worked with pen-and-ink drawings as her three daughters have grown. She has no “formal” training, but growing up with an artistic father left its mark.

“Twenty years of watching my dad paint every day was my training,” Fiack said.

When Fiack challenged herself to paint 100 paintings in 100 days, she had that Andy Warhol quote in mind — a phrase that inspires her.

She hadn’t touched acrylics until her father introduced her to them but decided to work within that medium, creating abstract and impressionistic pieces that mix color to create art filled with movement. In addition she painted floral pieces and seascapes depicting local scenes, such as Sand Beach, which is featured in “Soliloquy,” her 100th painting.

“It’s definitely evolved over the hundred days. It’s just gotten me into the habit of working every day on my art,” Fiack said.

And even though her father had gone back to Arizona, Fiack spoke with him almost every day about the pieces she created as part of the challenge.

“I would send my dad photos and have him critique my work,” Fiack said. “He would say, ‘No, don’t change it. Keep that one that you have and then move on and use that technique in the next one so you’re learning from it, not covering it up.’”

Fiack treats each of her pieces as a learning tool, but painting has brought her more than just the works of art that are scattered throughout her home.

“I started with Hobby Lobby canvases, and now I’m building and stretching my own. As the daughter of an artist, that’s what I did as a teenager to make money — I built my dad’s canvases.”

She has been reacquainted with an old friend, in a way, and as she continues to paint, her relationship with her father, who inspired her to begin, has blossomed.

“I’m able to relate to my dad in a way that I hadn’t been before,” Fiack said. “I never understood why he never wanted to leave the house until I started painting. … It’s been fun to work with him and gain from his knowledge. Who could have a better mentor than that?”

But her journey hasn’t ended yet. She continues to paint. Completed works of art sit throughout her home, waiting for new owners to scoop them up.

As she has taken to social media to share her work, she has found other artists challenging themselves to do the same thing: create. She has watched her own friends find the inspiration to rekindle their creativity, and she has been inspired by her own daughters, who are artistic themselves.

“I take a lot of inspiration from my youngest child. She approaches everything with no fear. She just picks up color and creates,” Fiack said.

“I think about that when I’m approaching my canvas: I want to be free and fearless when I paint,” she said.

Now that Andy Warhol quote in her father’s studio hangs in her own home as well. She uses it as a reminder to keep on painting.

“Let go of the fear and just create,” she said.

An artist’s reception will take place from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 2, at the Rock and Art Shop at 36 Central St. in Bangor. A selection of Fiack’s 100 paintings will be on display at the Rock and Art Shop from Feb. 29 to March 14.

Resource: http://bangordailynews.com

Federated Guild plans annual antique show

MOULTRIE — Plans are shaping up for the Moultrie Federated Guild 59th Annual Antique Show to be held on March 18, 19 and 20 at Southern Regional Technical College on Veterans Parkway.

The show will be open to the public that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 10 a.m. each day. Tickets can be purchased from any guild member or from Sid’s Antiques and Gifts for $5 or at the show for $7. Delicious lunches will be available each day, along with homemade layer cakes.

Lasagna will be served on Friday, from 5 to 7 p.m. Tickets for the lasagna meal are available by calling Jackie Mise at 229-891-6711 or from The Colquitt County Arts Center. “Soul Food Sunday” lunch will be catered by Chef V starting at 11 a.m. These tickets are available by calling Vanessa Hayes at 229-337-7248 or by email at chefv_personaltouch@hotmail.com.

“The ladies of the Guild are noted for their wonderful homemade cakes and salad lunches. A treat you will not want to miss,” said Mary Vines, antique show chairman.

Special events this year will include Ronnie Barrett with Flowers by Barrett, who will be giving a floral demonstration at 10 a.m. Friday.

On Saturday morning, Marie Harrison Brown, interior designer with Brown Design, will present a workshop on home décor. She will be giving suggestions and pointers on current trends in fabric and color for the home.

“Whether you are thinking of freshening up or starting over with your décor, this workshop is for you,” said Vines.

This year the preview dinner will be held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Lavon Stipling on Thursday evening. After a gourmet meal, patrons will have dessert at Southern Regional Technical College and be treated to a preview of the show. Tickets are $50 each and can be purchased by calling Katrina McIntosh at 229-985-8579.

Another popular event during the show is the Mother-Daughter Tea, which will be held for little girls on Friday afternoon. This year the tea will be held at the home of Mrs. Jack N. Gay, with Joan Gay giving a presentation on etiquette and the origin and purpose of different antique pieces. To purchase tickets for this event, contact Myra Jane Brown at 229-985-6096.

Several vendors will be returning to the antique show this year. Pete Clapp with “A Silver Chest” of Florida will bring sterling silver pieces, hollowware, flatware and related pieces. Karl and Judy Killingstad with “Old Friends” of North Carolina will have a collection of items including jewelry, crystal, silver and more. Sylvia Rowell with “Windsor House Antiques” of South Carolina will show items such as crystal, silver and collectibles. More dealers returning this year include Molly’s Antiques and Fine Collectibles, Coleman’s Collectibles, Antiques by Wanda, P & S Antiques, The Gliding Goat, Bob Howell and Sid’s Antiques & Gifts.

Local artist Randy Gibbs will also be appearing at the show this year. A painter who has captured Colquitt County on canvas, he has painted everything from the Colquitt County Courthouse and the local schools to gopher tortoises and farm equipment. Gibbs has said that the ideas of what he can paint or draw in the community just keep coming.

In addition to the show, gift drawings will be held on Sunday afternoon. Participants do not have to be present to win. The raffle tickets are $5 each for a chance to win one of the following gifts: A Packer football, signed by senior players and Coach Propst; restaurant package valued at $200; $200 gift certificate to Hall’s Nursery and Garden Center; $200 gift certificate to Turner’s Dress Shop; $200 gift certificate to Griner’s Jewelers; handmade white ash box and small walnut bowl; original acrylic on canvas painting or a one-half day quail hunt for four people at Southern Woods Plantation. These tickets can be purchased from any guild member or by calling Susan McCranie at 229-941-2652.

The antique show is Moultrie Federated Guild’s only fundraiser and benefits the community through various projects and programs. Without the support from community leaders and sponsors, the show would not be possible.

“If you missed this show last year, you should make your plans now to attend … It was a hit with visitors,” said Vines. “Sounds like a fun weekend to spend with friends and family, enjoying classes, food, and strolling through the show for that perfect gift.”

Resource: http://www.moultrieobserver.com

Art Review

Leonard van Munster: Ein Goldener Berg (top photo)

The extras may seem an odd place to start. but first thing I saw as I entered the fair grounds was Leonard van Munster’s golden mountain – set back where no-one else seemed to notice it, but very popular with the geese! The Dutch artist has made several striking public commissions, but is probably best known for his kinetic self-portrait The Dancing White Man, 2012. Here his intervention is made of lifesaver foil – as used to wrap people in post-traumatic situations – and so brought in all sorts of current affairs associations beyond the initial epiphany of its improbably aureate presence. And it was hard not to think of what I was soon to see: Bosch’s great triptych in which hay stands in for the gold which the foolish pursue at the cost of their eternal damnation.

Other less predictable presences included a house transported from Detroit by Ryan Mendoza; live baking, photographing and consumption of bread; a mysterious cordoned-off corner protected by a VIP-style bouncer which - if you were persuasive enough – turned out to lead to a studio visit by Skype with an artist; and a the programme of 56 one minute videos curated by the impressive trio of Cécile B. Evans, Nathaniel Mellors and Shana Moulton. Off site was the chance to see Erik van Lieshout’s new installation in a church and to visit the Atelier Van Lieshout studio, so putting an end to any danger of confusing Rotterdam’s most famous artists. And a bus would take you to various institutions, the hardest to ignore being the Museum Van Beuningen (Mike Nelson plus a spectacular if not fully persuasive Ugo Rondinone show featuring life-sized clowns in a rainbow of colours) and Michael Portnoy’s compelling two hour series of linked performances using a troupe of actor / dancers moving around Witte de With and having no problem taking the audience with them). 

Slightly further afield, the Stedelijk Museum in neighbouring Schiedam mounted an excellent Jan Schoonhoven survey. He'd be an auction star has he been Italian. I was surprised - given that Schoonhoven (1914-94) was a career civil servant who made papier mache constructions in his spare time - to find photographs of him being painted with spots by Yayoi Kusama at the Museum in 1967, then dancing naked save for those embellishments, glasses and socks. 

Of course, I didn't like everything: also at Witte de Witte, obsessive teddy bear collector Charlemagne Palestine delivered one of the most self-indulgent and vacuous whole floor displays I’ve ever seen. Ulay is embroiled in a court case to obtain a fairer share of earnings from his collaborations with Marina Abramovic, so I guess he could do with more substantial recognition of his solo photographic work, but his his Polaroids at the Netherlands Photo Museum fell some way short of making the case (though the 'Quickscan' survey of new Dutch photographers was good), Then there's the Rotterdam Contemporary Fair, which is such a consistent festival of bad art it maybe deserves some credit for clarity of vision (though the organisers slipped up with a pretty good video programme, and by allowing interesting artist Martijn te Winkel to take a stand); and opposite that the Kahmann Gallery somehow got away with charging an entry fee for a what turned out to be simply a display of its own artists.

Hironimus Bosch: Visions of a Genius at the Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch

You could cheat slightly this year by counting the convenient fact that the 500th year since Bosch’s death is being celebrated – as the centrepiece of a year-round festival - by a stunning, if unsurprisingly crowded, show in his home town 80 km away (13 Feb – 8 May) . The vast majority of Bosch’s known panels and drawings have been brought together* from around the world, and the combination of a medieval worldview with what can seem a proto-modern way of envisioning it remains startling. Culled from Bosch’s less well-known drawing practice, the central image above didn’t feed into a known painting, increasing the fresh impact of a typically bizarre scene: a man armed with a lute is about to try to bash back the birds emerging from the anus of figure immured in a basket.

Rotterdam is a dynamic background city, and the Van Nellefabriek factory - a modernist icon which swallows the fair easily enough - has the added advantage of giving work a characterful context to play against. That’s something artists don’t really have at Frieze, for example.

Rotterdam is a dynamic background city, and the Van Nellefabriek factory - a modernist icon which swallows the fair easily enough - has the added advantage of giving work a characterful context to play against. That’s something artists don’t really have at Frieze, for example.

Greek-born Montreal based Valérie Kolakis had a solo booth (for London’s FOLD) which collapsed modernism by unbuilding elements of a house in quietly uncanny style. More strikingly, she had covered the entrance area’s extensive glass doors and windows with an intricate lace-like pattern of Vaseline. I say ‘strikingly’, but those who didn’t know the building may not have suspected unless they spotted a smeared section, so convincing was the way an aspect quite other had been slid onto the Van Nellefabriek. Whether noticed or not, I like how the entrant above has clothing transformed on pushing through the doors...

It’s hard not to enjoy Richard Woods’ sassy melding of art, design and architecture, and  this mixture of old and new didn’t buck the trend. It included the seasoned  Leaning Wood and Light Sculpture, 2011, a Dan Flavin rendered satisfyingly absurd; and the sappy wall painting Duck Weave, 2016, which jazzes up what Woods says is an ancient rush-based method of constructing houses, but is also bound to trigger an art association with cotton duck canvas. Either way, a tidy contrast to Leendert van der Vlugt’s highly rational building.

Dutch video artist Pierre Derks navigates wittily between the personal and the collective as aspects of our identity construction through two main approaches. First, found scenes which fit his agenda, such as what I'm assured was the remarkable coincidence of how a passing party's coats matched a less nuanced piece of modern architecture than the Van Nellefabriek's (Here We Are Now #1, 2016 - still above); second, photographing the same scenes at different times and overlaying them so that, for example, commuters emerging from a subway feature in phone adverts behind them, or passers-by walk seamlessly between a quiet street and a protest march. 

I was amazed to find that this shrine to discarded technology set up in a building which preserves a different moment was former punk musician Joep van Liefland’s 41st iteration since 2002 of his ‘Video Palace’ project. The Berlin-based Dutch artist uses cathode ray TVs and video cassettes and their players as his building blocks: some cassettes are arranged in painted grids, and apparently abstract stripe paintings depict the red, green, and blue light of analogue TV signals. He was a frequent viewer of low budget movies on VHS who saw them as ‘a sort of punk… low budget, improvising, but also creative in their solutions’. He then developed the idea of ‘exploring and collecting the lowest segments of the culture industry’, hinting through posters declaring its wonders at how ephemeral our superior digital means will also prove to be.

Indeed, much of the best work saw the artist, like van Liefland, put forward a distinctive view of the world, often with a focus on the mediation between human / technological and animal / natural.  Bosch would have fitted right in, if you count God as technology instead of technology as God…

Perhaps the most eccentrically interesting stand was the Belgian Bram De Jonghe’s. A neighbouring gallerist told me she’d been pleased to find considerable greenery was to be introduced, and was disappointed to find that the substantial hedge in front of Billytown’s booth remained shrink-wrapped, in line with much of De Jonghe’s work (Untitled, 2016). Perhaps the artist was blocking off any rash short-term acquisition by hedge fund managers of the sculptures which he makes out of fired tar, alluringly shiny black shapes which retain slow motion liquid properties, and so will return to a pooled state in ten years or so.

David Jablonowski, a Dutch artist who examines the evolution of contemporary communication technologies in sculptures, videos, and installations, has moved into somewhat painterly territory in his new high-tech-meets-nature series ‘Replica’. Not, of course, that any paint is involved: computer-cut aluminium forms the iconic minimalist grid, on which what looks rather like a motherboard traps the chromatic flare of a parrot’s wings. Might this be the back of a computer revealing that the dreams of freedom once epitomised by flight have migrated to the virtual world? Or is there something more sinister in how beauty is pinned down here?

How come Finland has produced so many good photographers? Pentti Sammallahti (born Helsinki, 1950) has travelled widely to make landscape images which are often literally animated by the fleeting and humorous role of non-human presences. Most famously he’s used dogs (emphasised by William Wegman’s canine oeuvre being shown nearby) but the best images here set their scale and temporal atmosphere by means of avian punctuation – one was of two birds on a Houston sidewalk. Yet Sammallahti retains a particular affinity for the almost visible silence and cold of the north, as in my choice of silver gelatin print, in which it's hard to resist the ridiculous impression that a balancing act is going on.

Paul Kooiker (born in Rotterdam itself in 1964) subverts the tiresome coding of sepia-tinted photography as nostalgic by using filters to make contemporary riffs on the form. His Berlin gallery showed 7 of the 66 triptychs which form his recent project and book Nude Animal Cigar. Each conjoins impersonal female art subject (voyeuristic, geometrically emphatic faceless nudes) with fully visible animal (much more engaging, taken in zoos) and personal if burnt-out male art maker (remnants of some the countless cigars Kooiker has smoked in the studio). The typology yokes genres to an effect which, absurd as it is, puts various possible contrasts and equivalences crisply into play. 

The Finnish artist Mikko Rikala is nothing if not ambitious, his goal being 'to understand the world beyond the rational mind'. Whether or not he succeeds, that leads him to make varied, thoughtful  and elemental works: he covers a kilometre with meditative slowness by drawing it in 1,000 parallel one metre lines; has water write to the clouds; overlays the sea at different points to condense time into too-intricate waves (Water Equals Time, 2016, shown above); and makes a sculptural play on Venice as representing the paradox of wood holding up stone. 

Margit Lukács (Amsterdam, 1973) and Persijn Broersen (Delft, 1974), who live and work between their two home cities, featured in the separate Projections film space with Establishing Eden. Referring to the shots used to establish a landscape location, and to New Zealand’s iconic role as a setting in recent cinematic history, Broersen & Lukács have reshot the original places, only to present them as moving collages of overlapping flatness which return the world-be-Eden to its status as illusion. The result is an effective new twist on the popular theme of how the mass media confuses reality and fiction. 

Finally, a special prize for courage goes to Kees van Gelder, who may have been the gallerist posing himself the most problems. First, he had to recruit students to make the commercially unavailable grey confetti with which Olivier Mosset planned a floor piece. He then attempted to open with the floor unprotected, but as the odd trample occurred, was driven to increase the piece’s protection incrementally until it was cordoned off fully by the time I arrived: on the one hand less pure, on the other emphasising the value created – it was for sale at some £30,000 - by its status as the work of the veteran Swiss-born conceptual minimalist (Mosset, with Daniel Buren, Michel Parmentier and Niele Toroni, was a mid 60’s founder member of the BMPT group, which famously challenged traditional means of making and personalising art).

Respurce: http://www.artlyst.com

BUILDING BLOCKS

Is it possible to pull out an old, drab piece of clothing sitting at the back of your closet, lay it out on the floor, and give it a makeover — block by block? Yes, it is. Block printed fabrics are not new to us. In fact, you see them almost everywhere — from fashion weeks, to home decor fairs to DIY projects on Pinterest. But, it's the traditional form of hand block printing that is slowly being driven out by machines and artificial colours. 

In Bengaluru, Pooja Gokul of Block Beauty, and Padmini Govind of Tharangini have refused to give in to the trend.

The process of block printing takes a great deal of patience. It requires a high degree of skill in the placement of motifs and the application of pressure. They are created using carved wooden printing blocks that are inked and pressed by hand directly onto the fabric. This unique and time-intensive process means no two pieces of prints are the same. 

As a daughter of the Diwan of Gwalior (of the pre-independent India), Lakshmi Srivathsa (who is Padmini Govind's mother) was always exposed to arts. A graduate in arts and textiles from Delhi, she came to Bangalore in 1977 and set up the design studio, Tharangini, with an aim to promote indigenous art.

As Tharangini progressed towards its vision, weaving saris and fabrics using age-old techniques of hand block printing, batik, it also started holding workshops on traditional Indian folk art forms such as Channapatna toy-making, Tanjore gold-leaf painting, mask-making and kalamkari. The self-funded project has also provided employment to women.

Govind now looks after the studio located at a heritage estate near Sankey Lake. "I took charge in 2007 after my mother fell ill," says Govind, who comes from an IT and management background. 

With a desire to move with the times, Govind is now spearheading a modernisation of sorts at the design studio. The print designs are contemporary; some even abstract art, keeping the traditional motifs of paisleys and elephants. The design house, which has more than 2,000 unique blocks, also works with designers for bulk orders. 

"Though designers do approach us with wholesale work and we do enjoy it, I am partial to creating individual pieces because it is a more creative and fulfilling experience," she says. Govind also conducts workshops and awareness programmes in aided schools and government schools.

Pooja Gokul, a graduate of fine arts from Chitrakala Parishath, did not have a legacy to carry forward, but was driven by her passion for art. She set up Block Beauty in 2011, which, like Tharangini, aims to promote the traditional style of block printing. She also conducts classes regularly, teaching participants to print on fabric, wood, canvas and paper (think dining linen, napkins, scarves, tees, handkerchiefs and wrapping paper).

Gokul also conducts a monthly workshop on block printing as part of Kynkyny Art Gallery's Culture Club, where she talks about the history of hand block printing, and the significance of the motifs on the blocks, and provides hands-on training. She also customises and sells blocks in all sizes and designs made out of teakwood by professional block makers who, she claims, have been making these for over two decades. The designs created on the block are called buttas and range from an inch to 12 inches. She also offers tips on how to take care of your blocks and maintain them. The artist takes orders on printing on cloth and offers starter kits for those who want to try out the technique. 

As the world is waking up to environmental consciousness and eco-living, this form of printing is gaining prominence. "But, it is sad that the art has become niche. It's a boutique item now," Gokul laments

Natural colours

The colours used in the traditional hand block printing come from natural raw materials. From treating the base cloth with Fuller's earth (multani mitti), soaking it in turmeric, to stamping the cloth with beautifully patterned blocks of wood, using natural dyes of earthy hues — this technique is eco-friendly. 

The natural colouring agents it uses include alum, turmeric, pomegranate, dried flowers and indigo. Blue comes from indigo, green from indigo mixed with pomegranate rinds, red from madder root and yellow from turmeric. 

Tharangini and Block Beauty source their raw material for dyes directly from farmers or from locally grown flowers. Govind has also discovered a process of creating colours from raisins, which takes about a week to 10 days to prepare. The whole process of carving the blocks takes an additional three or four days, besides one day, which is required to place the prints on fabric. 

Gokul of Block Beauty likes to innovate on designs and styles. From animal prints to quirky moustache designs for T-shirts, skirts, gowns and jackets, Gokul is attempting to make the designs more appealing to the younger customers.

"It is extremely important to innovate because otherwise we lose on a huge potential clientele: the youth. It is difficult to rope in the younger crowd for this time-consuming art, but people are waking up to the heritage value of hand block printing," Govind says.

Resource: http://www.bangaloremirror.com

Welsh art bad boy Neale Howells has designs on shaking up London Fashion Week

David Bowie might have achieved a myriad of glittering achievements during his long successful career - but it’s getting Neath artist Neale Howells onto the catwalk of London Fashion Week surely must stand as one of the oddest.

In fact, nothing about the bad boy of the Welsh art world - the man who once infamously submitted to the national Eisteddfod a painting composed from his own bodily fluids - screams haute couture, his daily get-up seemingly consisting of beanie hat, paint splattered T-shirt and battered jeans.

Yet, it’s thanks to the Thin White Duke that Howells’ idiosyncratic and eye-grabbing style will this weekend be strutting its stuff next to models wearing the starry likes of Julien Macdonald, Zandra Rhodes and Simone Rocha.

Sort of.

“The first time I met Neale I stood outside his studio unable to knock the door... all because I could hear Bowie’s Young Americans playing inside,” says Jayne Pierson, the Llanelli-born, US-raised fashion designer with whom Howells is collaborating on his first ever clothing collection.

“So I knew from that point we’d get along famously.”

That feeling was cemented when Jayne spotted an old pair of boots on the studio floor, which Howells had bought from a local charity shop and painted in his own inimitable way.

“We were discussing how we might work together and I spotted them out the corner of my eye,” adds Pierson.

“It was a real Cinderella moment and I told myself that if I tried them on and they fitted me it would be a further sign that this was meant to be.

“At which point I popped them on and they were perfect on me.

“To top it off, Neale gave them to me to keep.”

A former rocker - her band Gouge enjoyed brief notoriety in the States in the mid-’90s - Pierson hung around the record business after the group folded following moderate chart success.

“I got into A&R, styling various bands and helping them with their image, acts like Chemical Brothers and Gwen Stefani from No Doubt, along with Ash - remember them, a really great Northern Irish band.

“In fact, their guitarist Charlotte Hatherley will be walking on the catwalk for me and Neale on the weekend.

“She’s also doing some DJing at the after party.”

And, after later studying fashion at Carmarthen, she had a stint working for such iconclasts as Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood, before starting her own label.

So, as she admits, she’d had a fair wedge of experience dealing with maverick talents before hooking up with Howells.

“It was inevitable we’d work together really, because I think we’re both pretty bonkers in our own way” laughs Pierson.

“I just didn’t know if his designs would work when applied to different fabric - but I knew that, if they did, they’d look incredible.

“From there on it was just a case of trail and error until Neale got the mix right, and I think he really enjoyed going from painting in 2D to doing it in 3D.

“Watching his designs wrap themselves around my creations and accentuate the curves of the jackets and trousers I’d made was a really exciting process.”

The theme fo the collection, she adds, is one of reclaiming, reappropriating and reinterpreting heritage Welsh tweeds, woollens and Royal taffetas with draped and up-cycled leathers.

There are also elements of Celtic myth, stories symbolism, shamanism and spirituality thrown into the mix.

It’s an eclectic and disparate mish-mash, much like how some have describe Howell’s work over years - his large-scale graffiti-style being born from a time-consuming process of layered painting using acrylic, oil, pastel and pencil on wood.

Often likened to the work of Jackson Pollock or Jean-Michel Basquiat, he admits that working with Pierson showed him a whole new way of working.

“Apparently there are these things which exist called ’deadlines’,” laughs the arty enfant terrible, confessing to sometimes spending up to several months at a time on one piece.

“Often I won’t know where to stop and my mum will come in and say, ‘Right, bed now Neale’.”

I feel he’s only half joking.

“I dunno, maybe a painting is never finished, just abandoned - or perhaps it’s only ever completed by the person who takes the trouble to look at it.”

Nevertheless, having to turn this new batch of work around in a matter of days, if not hours, proved a revelation to him.

“The pressure of working with such tight turn-arounds definitely brought something new out of me.

“It was a massive test but I really got off on it.

“Half the stuff I’ve done with Jayne I had a few weeks to complete, the other 50% just a few hours.

“And, If I had to say which of the two I preferred I’d probably the say the part that I managed to do in no time at all.”

That said, it would be impossible to knock out his usual eight foot by 32ft creations in anything near that time frame.

“Oh no, and when this weekend is all over I’ll probably go back to putting my feet up and taking my own sweet time again,” he smiles.

“Pressure is great fun, but only for a while.

“The rest of the time my life is about as exciting as watching paint dry - actually, that’s exactly what I do end up doing - and I kinda like it that way.”

Getting his art seen by a whole new crowd, however, especially those who might not bother to venture inside a gallery or to an exhibition is something Howells has be longing to do for a while.

“I’m really going into the lion’s den here because the critics in the audience won’t be looking it as art per se, but as fashion.

“But I love the reaction on people’s faces when they see my work for the first time,” he adds, although the days of deliberately trying to shock are long gone.

“I always hated being told what I could and couldn’t do with my paintings and would react against it.

“I’m not that manic anymore though,” says the dad-of two, who admits to never having been much of an agitator, even during his teenage years at the height of the punk era.

“I was more into Pink Floyd, to be honest, “ he whispers conspiratorially.

“I like listening to everything though, from George Benson to Benson &Hedges..ha ha.. but music’s always on the studio when I’m working.

“I can’t cope with silence, it’s a bit too deafening for my liking.

“Whether it’s dubstep or Frank Zappa, it all flows through me right onto the canvas.

“I’m like, how do you say it again, a contwit?

You mean a conduit, I tell him.

“A con, a twit - that’s exactly right,” Howells laughs.

Resource: http://www.walesonline.co.uk

The Fine Art of Moving Countries

When my wife, Beth, and I moved to London, we discovered there was an art to preserving memories and feelings of home while leaving behind all the space in our house and trying to settle into somewhere much smaller.

London’s exorbitant housing prices were about as based in reality as an episode of the British TV show “Doctor Who,” so if we wanted to be in a city of 8 million people and not enough places to live, we were going to have to adjust to a rental apartment (sorry, “flat”) a fraction of the size of the house outside New York City we had to sell.

We had to decide what to discard and what to keep in the month between my wife accepting a promotion and starting her new job in London. That meant we would have to leave behind many beloved things that were too old, too big or too dispensable to travel with us. For my wife, that included her flower garden. For me, it included my drums. For my then-9-year-old son, Nicholas, it included a lot of his toys. I felt like a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art having to fit its collection into a small gallery in the upper-class (sorry, “posh”) London neighborhood of Mayfair (not that we could afford Mayfair).

Friends came by the house with their pickup truck to help us donate a sofa, chairs and gardening equipment to our church. I made many trips to the local recycling center and libraries in the car I later sold. Parents of my son’s friends dropped by to take their pick of toys he couldn’t take along, and we sold his vast, outgrown Thomas the Tank Engine collection via the classified ads on a local website. We literally found a buyer for our house in one day.

But we knew we also wanted to sustain certain ties to the past, so one thing we didn’t part with was our collection of my father’s art, which hung in our house. An expat himself, my father, Rolf, and my mother, Mia, had moved from Hamburg to Montreal, where I grew up. At work my father had been a respected graphic designer whose pieces were displayed at the Museum of Modern Art on a couple of occasions. But at home he was a painter. He spent hours in his upstairs studio surrounded by a clutter of canvases, crumpled tubes of paint, and works in progress propped up on an easel. Mind you, his work wasn’t always to my taste when he went through a period of very straight lines and cold colors. But as he aged, he seemed to relax, and so did his paintings. The lines flowed more freely, the colors warmed up.

While we chose a place to live and to hang the art, we faced the usual dilemma: less of a commute versus more space, with the all-important issue of school quality blended in. We decided on a borough in southwest London, known for excellent schools and with a one-hour commute for my wife. At first, we were dismayed: The flats we were shown were far too small for even the few belongings we brought along, which had fit in a blue 40-foot shipping container. Then we found a property with a garage.

As we unpacked the cardboard boxes and thick paper wrapping, we chose which of my father’s works to exhibit to ease the transition to our new home, like an artist changing medium but still holding onto his favorite set of brushes. Not that we were unique in trying to create a sense of belonging in London: About 84,000 Canadians and Americans live in the great city on the River Thames, according to the British Office for National Statistics.

By the time we were done, we had seven of my father’s pieces on display. One of his later pieces looked like a Montreal snowstorm, full of white streaks, while two other pieces depicted Hamburg in black-and-white expressionism. It was as if the art collection itself was an expat: We took some pieces away from their North American roots but others came home to their European ones. We held onto his more geometric works out of respect for him, but kept them in the garage for sheer lack of space, saving them to display should we move to a bigger home.

My son, meanwhile, quickly adapted to London. He had fallen in love with the city on a previous trip as a tourist, but I also think it helped to hang familiar posters in his room as soon as we moved in. That included a poster his grandfather conceived in his graphic design days, showing a paper airplane folded out of a musical score soaring skyward. It keeps company with the toys we managed to bring with us, which my son was so happy to see again he acted like it was Christmas morning and he was unpacking them for the first time.

I also chose the airplane poster because I wanted to keep alive my son’s memory of his grandparents. My father created all the pieces in our collection while a vibrant man who cycled to the tennis club. But about a year before we moved, he was in the hospital with lymphoma erasing his once-robust body. Within weeks of sketching in his hospital bed with a colored pencil in his sure hand, he was so frail his writing became illegible, and he passed away soon afterward. We hung the pencil drawing in our flat.

My mother, whose dabbling in art included collages of flower petals and fern leaves, survived her husband of 55 years, but I knew it would be difficult for her. About a month after we moved to London, she passed away. Two of her collages that hung in our house, and had hung in our flat since we moved, became another memorial.

When my parents were still alive, my son painted a picture at a summer art camp, with bursts of fall-foliage colors framing a bridge. The span rises from left to right like a link from our past to our present and it, too, has a place in our gallery.

Resource: http://blogs.wsj.com

Eugène Delacroix at the National Gallery

“The first merit of a picture is to be a feast for the eye,” reads the final entry in Eugène Delacroix’s journal.

From the writhing, rolling, snake-eating, body-slashing, fire-chewing crowds in the Romantic artist’s “Convulsionists of Tangier”, to Renoir’s glowing blue-gold portrait of a Sephardi store-owner in Paris “L’Algérienne”, to Matisse’s harmony of emerald shawl flung over cushions and rug “The Red Carpet”, that statement resonates across a century in the National Gallery’s rich, jumbled, stimulating new show, Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art.

Delacroix was the first major French artist never to visit Italy. Instead he went to Morocco, and on that choice swung the evolution of French painting: away from neoclassical clarity of outline and carefully modelled form, towards colour, movement, sensation. Before Delacroix, nothing had been imagined on canvas approaching the confusion, emotional charge and shuddering vitality of “Lion Hunt”, where hunters are savaged by their prey, or the bravura textures and scintillating hues of the yellow-cloaked rider and red-saddled unruly steed in “A Moroccan Mounting His Horse”.

The hinge between Romanticism and Modernism, Delacroix is a unique force, and the National Gallery unravels how his frenzied manner, blended tones, density of design and restless spirit set 19th-century painting free. Work by work — but unfortunately in an inconsistent, sometimes bewildering thematic hang — we see how Delacroix variously liberated the Impressionist brushstroke, the Symbolist reverie, Gauguin’s decorative patterning and psychological charge — the undulating arabesques depicting Tahitian women in “Under the Pandanus” — and the chromatic audacity of the Fauves.

“We all paint in Delacroix’s language,” insisted Cézanne, whose “River Landscape”, a luminous composition of trees reflected in smooth waters, privately owned and annotated “copie de Delacroix” by his son, is the exhibition’s most compelling rarity. Renoir, grappling with multi-figure compositions in the 1870s, declared allegiance by making a full-scale copy, the lively “The Jewish Wedding (after Delacroix)”.

And even Signac’s lovely “Snow, Boulevard de Clichy”, the cool tonalities and urban mood far from the heat and fury of Romanticism’s exotic subjects, goes back formally, in the pointillist dots, to Delacroix’s interwoven flecks of colour.

Exhibitions of Delacroix outside France are difficult. Monumental salon masterpieces such as “Massacre of Chios” and “Death of Sardanapalus”, demonstrating the artist’s grandest manner, do not leave the Louvre; the last UK retrospective was in 1963, the centenary of Delacroix’s death. But “Sardanapalus” is here in the artist’s reduced-size replica, from Philadelphia, and it conveys how in the original the fleshy coral pinks of dying concubines in their crimson and gilt prison transform a narrative of destruction — the besieged king’s demand that all his household is killed — into an orgy of blazing colour: paint as its own subject.

Paris has lent only two small pieces, though glorious ones. “Combat of the Giaour and Hassan” is a ferocious mayhem of horses, draperies and limbs, based on fights between Arab horses rising on their hind legs “to tear each other apart”, which Delacroix witnessed in Morocco, but inspired too by Byron’s 1813 poem about the battle between a Turk and a Christian avenging the murder of a slave.

That is the quintessential Romantic narrative, while the Louvre’s 1837 “Self Portrait” is the archetypal Romantic likeness: powerful jaw, bright narrowed eyes, glossy black hair, intense concentration and fashionable elegance not quite masking disdain, all explain why Baudelaire named Delacroix “the tiger”.

Delacroix, Baudelaire continued, “was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible”. For, like many Romantic artists, Delacroix had, despite his disillusion with academicism and the sophistications of Europe, a longing for the classical. He believed that in Morocco he had found a version of “living antiquity”, simplified and dignified in its unbroken traditions.

“The Greeks and Romans are here at my door, in the Arabs who wrap themselves in a white blanket and look like Cato or Brutus,” he enthused soon after he arrived in 1832. “I’m like a man in a dream, seeing things he fears will vanish from him.” He spent the rest of his life digesting the experience, reworking the oriental motifs that had electrified Paris on his return.

Statuesque in her frontal pose and enigmatic gaze, the woman towering over drowsy men in “View of Tangier with Figures” (1853) here embodies the ideal of classical calm and beauty. “Women of Algiers in their Apartment” (1847-49), an exquisite reduced-scale variation of the Louvre’s lavishly ornamental picture, which was the sensation of the 1834 Salon, is a highlight of the show.

This version comes from Montpellier’s Musée Fabre; Van Gogh saw it in 1888 in Arles and was entranced by Delacroix’s use of the secondary colours purple, green and orange. Delacroix, he wrote, “speaks a symbolic language through colour itself”. Overwhelmed by a motif outside his Saint-Rémy asylum, he told Theo, “it’s too beautiful for me to dare to paint it . . . the olive trees . . . if you want to compare it to something, it’s like Delacroix”. The sinuous, turbulent “Olive Trees”, where olive greens, lilacs and orange-brown earth are swept up in a current of energy beneath a sulphur sun, is his expressionist response to Delacroix.

So mesmerising were Delacroix’s orientalist pictures to the French cultural imagination that at moments of creative crisis both Renoir, in 1881 at the break-up of the Impressionist movement, and Matisse in 1912 when Fauvism had run its course, followed the master by visiting north Africa. In Renoir’s “Arab Festival”, an S-curve of figures in Arab dress wind down a gorse-covered hillside to surround whirling dancers, each evoked by a quick touch of a loaded brush. Brilliant white accents flicker across the surface in this all-over, open-ended composition, which pushes on from Delacroix’s full, complete structures to risk formlessness, even abstraction.

Monet bought this painting when he began work on his “Water Lilies” in the 1890s; from their publication in 1893-95 until his death in 1926 he also obsessively reread Delacroix’s journals as he developed his own vision of interiority in painting. Here too Delacroix was the guide: “O young artist, you want a subject? Everything is a subject; the subject is yourself; they are your impressions, your emotions before nature. You must look within yourself and not around yourself.”

This show feels fresh and insightful: we are still talking Delacroix’s language.

‘Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art’, National Gallery, London, to May 22 nationalgallery.org.uk

Slideshow photographs: The Minneapolis Institute of Art; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts; Musée Fabre, Montpellier; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; The Minneapolis Institute of Art; Private collection; Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Minnesota; Musée d’Art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg; Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Resource: http://www.ft.com

Escaping the frame: making a mess of art

In between the constellation of bread crumbs and the crumpled caress of a brown paper bag, between the scrapings and scraps of a meal scattered across the tablecloth, there is artistic expression in each stroke of its stains. Kichka's Breakfast (1960) by Daniel Spoerri is the first in his series of ‘snare-pictures’, an art where random objects such as the remains of a meal are mounted on the material on which they are found and then hung on the wall in exact configuration.

These assemblages dare not only to defy the laws of gravity but also the laws of looking at and appreciating art, the world to which we are accustomed: perspective is quite literally flipped on its side as we are left dangling in disorientation. Its composition extends to include the butt ends of cigarettes, breathing in the dust they once spat out. Not even the chinaware can escape the eager snatch, as cups and coffeepots are likewise captured by the canvas. It’s a mess, but a beautiful mess, like the beautiful mess of existence itself.

These pieces turn stale at the thought of crumbling into an expiry date, the smudge of a kiss still clinging to the rim of glass lips, seemingly fuelled by the fear of being forgotten. Its concept is hooked upon the idea of a hunting device, the wire noose of a ‘snare’ that entraps and entangles, looping tight around the prey’s neck until lifeless: to ‘snare’ a moment of time in this manner is a beautifully poetic idea. The moment never lasts long enough, it flutters from the hand, but these pieces clutch with eager claws to the crumbs that remain, aiming to knock time off its path and to tame its ephemeral essence.

In our world, we are surrounded by snares: the snare of love, the clutches of capitalism, the ever encroaching tip-toe of time. The world is a snare, its chase is constant and we cannot escape its grasp. Though this artist must avoid being caught in the trap of his own art, reduced solely to his series of snare-pictures. In his ‘détrompe l’oeil’ paintings he is master of optical illusion, reinterpreting the world through a poetic lens as real objects found at flea markets are unexpectedly attached to naturalistic paintings. A piece of particular interest is La douche (1961), where a shower tap is mounted onto a landscape painting of mountain streams. As such, it seems that at the turn of a tap the art becomes alive, leaping to life like never before. Another example is Nu blessé (1962) where the elegant pose of a nude lady in a painting is disrupted by the plaster that Spoerri has stuck on her buttock.

This is an apt moment to mention that Spoerri is often closely associated with the Fluxus art movement, founded in 1960 by George Maciunas, who declared delight in humour and spontaneity. At its heart is the heavy influence of the ideas of John Cage, who believed that the artist should embark on the art piece without having a conception of the eventual end. It is a vision in which the paintbrush is supposed to slip, ever so slightly, from the painter’s firm grip, and be at the whim of the work itself. In essence, the process is more important than the finished product, a metaphor for a popular approach to life.

Fluxus artists would often produce a large number of identical pieces to deliberately devalue the object. This would even descend into destruction, as with the famous art piece by Ben Vautier - a box of matches with directions to destroy all art printed on the cover: Total Art Matchbox from Flux Year Box 2 (1968). It can be assumed that many of these boxes were burned, the audience involvement being integral to completing the piece of art. Fluxus artists not only aimed to make art available to the masses, to cause rupture and revolution, disrupting the balance of power in the art world. They also wanted art to be accessible in the sense that anyone can produce art and at any time. As I glance around my apartment I see a broken wine glass, a rotting flower, an exhausted candle, an orange rind. I delight in the idea that I too can be an artist and this messy chaos can be my art: it’s all just a matter of perspective.

Resource: http://www.varsity.co.uk

My Life’s Work: Erica Devine, consultant conservator

What is your area of expertise?

I advise museums and collectors on the care and display of their collections of art and antiques, train house staff, and design and install exhibitions.

What is your background?

I grew up in Dublin. I was a very lucky child, as at one stage we lived on the grounds of an ice-cream factory where my father was the refrigeration engineer and then he worked for Rowntree Macintosh; it’s no wonder I had quite a few fillings as a child.

Where do you live?

I’m about to move into a Victorian house near the seafront in Bray, Co Wicklow, and am enjoying using my full repertoire of conservation skills to decorate it with plasterwork, murals and gilding. The house had been subdivided into flats, so we undertook a complete restoration. Lots of original Victorian features were revealed, including an Arts & Craft cast-iron chimney piece that needed to be stripped of layers of paint. We also recast some of the original ceiling plastercast roses.

I’m putting in stained-glass windows with a Victorian palette of deep, luscious colours but with a modern design, made by Enda Hannon, a stained-glass maker in Francis Street. We have an exceptionally good German-trained Polish joiner, Richard Koziol, who is making bookshelves.

I have bought some Dutch embossed copper wall-mounted sconces (candle-holders), which reflect the glow of the light throughout the room.

How did you get into the business?

I studied ancient history and archaeology with Russian at Trinity College Dublin and then decided to train in historic object conservation at Durham University in the north of England. After qualifying, I worked for the National Trust in the UK, then the National Museum of Ireland, and managed Arch Con archaeological conservation laboratories, before going freelance.

Career highlights?

Memorable projects include preparing the jewelled Star of the Order of St Patrick for display at the banquet for Queen Elizabeth in Dublin Castle during her state visit to Ireland in 2011. Among other highlights were laying out the permanent exhibition at the Waterford Museum of Treasures and working on the Sam Maguire Cup for the GAA. Dressing the recently opened bedrooms at Malahide Castle was a particularly creative challenge.

However, I think, perhaps, driving around the beautiful counties of the west of England advising the National Trust property managers on the care of their collections was an unforgettable time.

What advice would you give collectors/investors?

Have a conservator visit you to advise on the safe display and care of your collection. Everything has to be cleaned, dusted or handled at some point and a well intentioned but a misinformed housekeeper can do untold damage, both aesthetic and financial. One tip is to avoid using boardroom style picture lights over paintings, as they deliver a high dose of light and heat. This creates a convection of air that deposits dust on the painting surface and causes cyclical swelling and contraction of the canvas, thereby weakening and potentially cracking the paint layer. Their corporate/war office look is also very unappealing.

What do you personally collect and why?

I collect Japanese lacquerware. Lacquer is a type of resin – a plastic-like substance obtained from trees – which Japanese craftsmen use to coat metal, bamboo, leather and other material to make them waterproof, hard and lustrous. The effect enhances the aesthetic appeal of the objects. The lacquer can be carved and decorated with, for example, gold powder or sea-shells. The huge commitment of labour required in its creation, the glossy perfection of its surface and the exquisite beauty achieved with such brevity of artistic expression is wondrous.

I also like 20th-century Irish travel posters, especially those featuring Paul Henry’s west of Ireland.

What would you buy if money were no object?

An 18th-century Chippendale Chinoiserie gilt mirror. The depth , sparkle and ultimately the romance of the tin mercury mirror glass is unequalled by modern silvered mirrors.

What’s your favourite work of art, and why?

The 18cm (seven-inch) long, gold “Broighter Boat” (above) in the National Museum of Ireland. The boat was part of a hoard of gold objects from the first century BC that was discovered in the townland of Broighter, near Limavady – close to Lough Foyle, Co Derry – in 1896. Its immense antiquity and striking modernity of design confounds me each time I see it. And what transports it into the realm of the sublime is the fact that it is made of a noble metal that does not corrode – it is effectively immortal, if one can say that about an object.

Resource: http://www.irishtimes.com

Strokes of tradition

Known for their elegance and intricacy, Mysore paintings are in dire need of some revival strokes, writes Bindu Gopal Rao.

Characterised by fine lines, attention to detail and focus on soft expressions, Mysore paintings have their roots in the Vijayanagara empire. Post the disintegration of the empire in the 16th century, it is believed that one set of artists from the kingdom headed to Tamil Nadu and one set to Srirangapatna, where the Wodeyar king gave shelter to them. However, the art really took wings under the patronage of the then Maharaja of Mysore — Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar. In a way, many artists credit him for what is called the “golden period of Mysore paintings”. He commissioned a lot of art for his books, thereby encouraging artists. These paintings have a royal feel as they flourished in the palaces. Thus, the life of royal family, their body language, dressing style and ornaments have been depicted on canvas. 

The subject of these paintings is normally inspired by Hindu mythology and includes representations of various aspects of Hindu gods and goddesses. The painting procedure comprises the basic gesso work and use of traditional colours and thin strips of real gold foil (24 carat) for embellishments.

“The most popular themes are the traditional deities of the Hindu pantheon. The paintings are executed according to strict details of the scriptures. Mysore style of painting is characterised by the intricate use of colours and fine relief work, to be preserved as a prized possession forever,” says M Girija, a senior artist, who has been working on Mysore paintings for the last 24 years. For someone who has actually been part of the restoration work at the Mysore Palace, she explains that Mysore paintings use thin lines and it takes a minimum of three months to learn the basics of the art. Incidentally, pearl work is also very important in this art form as the embellishments are done using zinc oxide and the pearl work can be of two or three strands. Raghu Dharmendra, designer, Ramsons Kala Pratishtana, Mysuru, avers, “Learning this art form requires a lot of effort. Like how children are taught to write alphabets, artists need to practise each and every part of the painting, whether it is the face or hand, first by drawing it many times. Only then can they graduate to the larger canvas.”

Changing canvas

To understand the art itself, I got chatting with a fourth generation Mysore painting artist K S Shreehari. He is the son of K V Seetaraman and grandson of K Venkataraman and this art has been passed down to the family from Tirupalli Raju, a master artist who decorated the temple of Nanjangud with murals during the 19th century. “It was in the earlier part of the 20th century, and European influences on the art were evident. Subsequently, the availability of coloured prints at lower prices led to a loss of identity and many artists actually moved out of the profession. In fact, now there are only a few families that have taken up Mysore paintings as a hereditary profession.” 

B P Ramakrishna, an artist with 35 years of experience, says, “Mysore paintings focus on anatomy and we have over 200 subjects in our repertoire. Learning this art form requires time, patience and practice. Unfortunately, this is lacking in today’s generation.”

The Mysore style of painting is much older than the Tanjore style. While an untrained eye often cannot see the difference between the two styles, there is a world of difference in reality. Usually in Tanjore paintings, the base is a cloth mounted on wood, while the base for Mysore painting is paper mounted on canvas or wood. Also in Mysore paintings, clothes and ornaments resemble that of Mysore kings and the architectural designs are similar to the art found in the palace and old-Mysore homes.

Most Tanjore paintings depict scenes from Hindu mythologies. The focus in Mysore paintings is on fine lines, aesthetic colours, detail textures and pure gold leaves. On the other hand, Tanjore paintings make use of embellishments like pearls and glass. The paintings are bright and the lines are not very fine. It is said that gold-coated silver foil is used in Tanjore paintings. Basically, a Mysore painting is more intricate, while a Tanjore one is ornate.

Towards revival

As an art form steeped in history and tradition, naturally there is a huge opportunity that can be used to revive the art. Shalini Kailash, an art enthusiast and promoter, suggests, “It would be a good idea to interpret the art with a contemporary twist. I advise my artisans to do this all the time and also make the paintings in smaller sizes for the sake of making it accessible to all.”

Likewise, there is a lot of interest from the overseas market for these paintings. Documenting the nuances of art work and explaining the finer elements of painting in the form of a note that accompanies the art work is being done by some artists as well. Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat has also been organising several activities to revive the art, but more focus from the government is what the artists are hoping for. 

“Creating an art village and encouraging the artists will certainly help,” opines Shreehari who has incidentally applied to the Guinness World Records for his 8x12 inch painting. A Google search for Mysore painting throws up about 6,24,000 results in 0.54 seconds. And here is hoping that this art gets what it deserves in the offline world too!

Resource: http://www.deccanherald.com