I visited the exhibition Three Generations of Japanese printmaking at the Dulwich Picture Gallery to get a better understanding of the woodblock printing tradition, and its development and to learn the story of this remarkable family, the Yoshidas. The influence of Japanese prints on great western artists from the Edo period, by masters like Hokusai and Hiroshige and their contemporaries, …
Expressionists at Tate Modern
The exhibition at Tate Modern, Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider, is wonderful. I enjoy many exhibitions and take pleasure in looking at many works of art, but I am in awe of der Blaue Reiter, the group of young men and women who pushed art in new and exciting directions in the three years immediately preceding the First …
My Visits to Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970: Whitechapel Gallery
I have visited twice the exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, “Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70”. This ambitious exhibition aims to celebrate abstract women artists of the mid-20th century and their role in shaping the art of their time. It is an overwhelming exhibition. Around a core of better-known American women painters and some western European artists swirl lesser-known names …
Reflections on the National Pavilions in the 2022 Biennale
This is a short musing on the pavilions I viewed in the Giardini, one of the two principal Biennale sites. Unlike the flexible spaces for national displays in the Arsenale, the pavilions are historically established dedicated buildings, period pieces in their own right. Their distinctive architecture reflects the times in which they were built, ranging from the early years of …
“Surrealism” today the new reality
One of the rooms in the heart of the Milk of Dreams exhibition in the Giardini venue is entitled The Witch’s Cradle. The Peggy Guggenheim Museum is showing an exhibition, Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity. These venues celebrate the twentieth century surrealists, in the Giardini space the work of the women especially. In this second of my blogs on the …
Venice Biennale- Overview
This is the first of three short blogs on the Venice Biennale 2022. How in short blogs to reflect my experience of this event? I was combining my Biennale visits with the Congress of Byzantine Studies where I attended papers on church frescoes iconography. But outside the university walls the shimmering city, an artwork in itself, afforded rich artistic events …
Visit to the Eileen Agar Exhibition
Here I give my impressions of the Eileen Agar exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/eileen-agar/ At last, I was back in London catching up with a changed city. Once the required quarantine was over, I booked for several exhibitions. Going back to my academic routes, I relished the impressive exhibition on Nero at the British Museum, https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/nero-man-behind-myth . I …
Approach to my painting
In my blog, I want to share my thinking on art related topics, starting with extracts of a talk I gave in my September 2017 exhibition on my own work. My approach has evolved into a process of construction of images, then deconstructing them, destroying and concealing them in the final composition. Texture and colour are important. Although I take ...