I did something I haven't done for a while. I wondered about the Mayfair area in London, going into the sort of commercial galleries where you have to get buzzed in. Now, I am a grown up woman, moreover an artist, an MA student, well used to going to all sorts of galleries, including in a professional capacity for the Arts Council as Artistic Assessor in Visual Arts. I know what to expect, how to behave and what to say, but hey, even I was intimidated. There are so many thresholds to overcome, so many levels to pass through, in order to gain admission to these hallowed grounds.
Firstly the doorway can be a real barrier. Sometimes a doorman in there to grant entry, and once inside, you are not left alone. Usually there is a woman there who briskly greets you. You look at the art on the walls. The works are numbered, but not labelled with the artist. Perhaps you ask the woman if there is a list available, but she will say that although there is not, she is happy to supply you with any information you may require. You realise this is a confidence game.
You look again at the works. There are artists there you definitely recognise, a Damien Hirst, a couple of David Hockneys, wow, Howard Hodgkin, even Lucien Freud, all available, and all for a couple of grand. You ask about some interesting looking paintings which are of food - cakes, iced with generous layers of emulsion paint. She pounces, you retreat, backing off until you are out the door and up the street, not even pausing to note the name of the gallery.
I went to the Halycon gallery on Bruton Street. I can hardly tell you how absolutely gorgeous this Georgian town house is, with spacious open galleries, original features, marble fireplaces, cornicing, perfectly polished floors. It's an ideal situation to show art. I'd love to show my work there. I'd love to live there.
The art is over three floors, and I think it's an ideal example of this type of gallery, including its pretensions.
There is currently a landscape exhibition featuring artist David Wightman and H.Claude Pissarro, grandson of the famous painter Camille Pissarro.
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| Behemoth. David Wightman |
accessed 1st April 2011
He paints large-scale abstracted landscapes on wallpaper texture. The sky and water colours are true, in that the particular hue would be accurate, but chosen for the whole block. The balance of colours really keep the paintings live, and create a monumental twilight atmosphere, especially in this ideal setting.
The HC Pissarro paintings are of small views - a bit of a house with a hedge, a landscape that does not fade into infinity but into the next field. They look French and influenced by his grandfather. One of the pleasures of such galleries is that you can often get up really close to surfaces, and here, the paint was as sumptuous and textured as a palette (sometimes the best bit of the painting). They are so intelligently painted with real depth of colour, and have a photographic reality from a distance.
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| H.Claude Pissarro. Landscape No 29. |
accessed 1st April 2011
The feel of paint also got me to thinking about painting, and how I had once thought I may be a painter. At the start of my foundation, like many people, I had drawn, painted, taken photographs, and done other arts and crafts. I have always found it amazing how students at that stage split off and are drawn into different disciplines. Sometimes people try a media new to them that turns out to become their practice - often printmaking. Other decisions about work to make comes from practical considerations - it certainly did in my case as a part-time foundation student travelling to the course by train, managing life with two children. Painting was just never a really practical option. Likewise sculpture. Perhaps one equates painterly qualities into other work. I'm very happy in my chosen medium, and feel it suits me and my sensibilities, and yet it would be wonderful to carve out some time for painting once again.
1st April 2011
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