Chris Orr, but really Sheila Fell

Attended an artist talk at the Royal Academy, by printmaker Chris Orr.

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/the-tennant-gallery/lithorrgraphy,411,RAL.html

http://www.chrisorr-ra.com/index.php?content=home.htm

Chris Orr RA, Full Steam Ahead!', 2011Lithograph copyright the artist.

It is always interesting to see how artists present their work - it's an extension of practice, and the talk was edifying and quite entertaining. Some of his drawings are wonderfully detailed and have more to discover - they keep you looking.

He likes series of disguises and layers of false surfaces within drawings and prints.

I didn't see some of the rhythm he was talking about within his drawing, in the lines or gestures, and  in fact I found his sense of composition a little imbalanced for no particular reason.

Even more amazing for me was the collection of the paintings in the lecture room. They were an intriguing mix which I looked around after.

They have a painting by Sheila Fell.  

Sheila Fell

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tzmkf (accessed 10/3/2012)

wikipedia / Sheila Fell

I hadn't seen one of her paintings before, but I knew of her, as I had known her daughter, the extraordinary Anna Fell, some years ago when I was at music college. Anna was a few years older than me, and, looking back, I wasn't really ready for her at 19. However, she had an impact on me at the time. She used to talk of her mother sometimes, anecdotes about her life and the way she spoke. Anna said she had many of her paintings in storage that she couldn't afford to redeem at the time.

Allonby, Sheila Fell, 1955

http://www.jmlondon.com/pages/thumbnails/15770.html (accessed 10/3/2012)

I can't find an image of the painting I saw, even on the RA site, but I have since looked up several.

She died at around my age now. If she had lived, if she had painted more, she would have secured her position as one of the major painters of her time. She was regarded as such when she was alive.

Cumberland Village Under Snow, Sheila Fell, 1959

http://www.askart.com/askart/f/sheila_fell/sheila_fell.aspx (accessed 10/3/2012)

Her painting is really incredible - generous creamy paint, and heavy, almost concave skies, vertiginous hills, and cottages which are at once homely and unattainable. Cattle, walls, roads, everything in the landscape reflects, but in such an expert way, showing the depth that is already there, the shadows and colours like the opposite of surface.

And for me, an unexpected journey into a past I had not thought about for many years, a vanished part of my life, and a reverie about the people who are important chapters in life.

10th March 2012