The Bowes Museum

The Bowes Museum is a nationally renowned, purpose-build public art gallery in the town of Barnard Castle containing collections of fine art, ceramics, textiles, clocks and costumes. During the Christmas break I went to visit this beautiful building on a really foggy day and by the time I was ready to leave the dark winter nights were closing in creating a really atmospheric view of the facade of the building.

One of the main attractions at the Bowes Museum is the Silver Swan Automaton; a clockwork driven device that includes a music-box in which a swan sits in a stream and appears to preen itself before catching a fish. The swan is ran by clockwork and is an extremely impressive piece of 18th century technology and in order to help preserve the delicate mechanism, the Silver Swan;s 32 second performance is played only once a day at 2pm.

The museum also housed a fantastic textile exhibition from quilt-maker, Pauline Burbidge. Her Quiltscapes explore the subject of nature and place through carefully considered layers of artworks that are spontaneous and free. I loved looking at Pauline Burbidge's work because of the fantastic use of different materials and processes; something we have been trying to do more of at university. She combines cyanotypes, freehand embroidery, monoprints and charcoal drawings to create multi-layered textile wall-hangings that are fantastic to study up close and personal.

York Art Gallery

 

While home for Christmas Amy and I managed to fit in a trip to visit the newly refurbished Art Gallery in York which was a lovely treat. Even though I live so close to York I have only been a handful of times and since it has been redeveloped I thought it was probably time I dropped in to see what is on show. York Art Gallery now has 7 exhibition spaces across two floors as well as an additional entrance at the rear of the building leading out into a newly-opened section of the Museum Gardens. 

Claire Curneen - Irene tending St. Sebastian's Wounds (2006).

Claire Curneen - Irene tending St. Sebastian's Wounds (2006) (Detail).

Philip Eglin.

The downstairs gallery contained some fantastic ceramic work by artists Claire Curneen and Philip Eglin as well as some paintings from the Italian Renaissance. The curation of this room was amazing as everything was thoughtfully linked together through the themes and mediums used within the work. Each piece reference another whether it be through the use of gold, the use of materials or the imagery chosen. I loved Claire Curneen's subtle use of gold lustre and blue cobalt glazing against the cream colour of the porcelain on 'Irene tending St. Sebastian's Wounds'.

The Lumber Room: Unimagined Treasures - Mark Hearld.

The Lumber Room: Unimagined Treasures - Mark Hearld.

One of the four rooms on the first floor contained an excellent exhibition curated by Mark Hearld titled 'The Lumber Room: Unimagined Treasures' which displayed a range of wonderful miscellaneous pictures and objects selected from the York Art gallery, Museum and  Castle stores. Mark Hearld's works respond to the collection of objects which include things like Staffordshire jugs, abandoned carousel horses, and preserved flower arrangements. I loved the exhibition because it was full of things to look at. It was like walking into a cabinet of curiosities.

The Antony Shaw Collection - Kerry Jameson - Chair Form

The Antony Shaw Collection - Kerry Jameson - Critical Friend (1-11)

The next room contained The Antony Shaw Collection, an important holding of contemporary sculpture, ceramics, two dimensional works and other objects attained by Antony Shaw. These two sculptures and three ceramic jars were my favourite items in the collection and were all made by Kerry Jameson. I love the gruesome images of violent killings glazed onto the side of the three jars as they are quite funny, in a strange sort of way.

Manifest - 10,000 hours - Clare Twomey Instillation

Manifest - 10,000 hours - Clare Twomey Instillation

In the main room of the first floor, Manifest - 10,000 hours by Clare Twomey, stands tall in a response to the galleries Collection of Ceramic Art (COCA). Each of the 10,000 ceramic bowls, made by Twomey and local community helpers, represents the 10,000 hours it is said to become a master of something. I really liked this instillation as its impressive scale creates an impact on the viewer reminding us of the amount of time we spend becoming the master of a particular craft, whether it be playing a musical instrument, writing a poem or painting a picture.

I really enjoyed my visit to York Art Gallery because of the attention to the detail of curation. Each room referenced another and everything was perfectly installed. There was also a great variety of work to see. I really liked how Italian renaissance paintings were displayed with modern ceramics and collections of old museum objects were displayed alongside more contemporary collage. Now that I have a members card I will be sure to go more often!

Another Splash

Another Splash | Acrylic on Canvas

So Christmas has finally been and gone and I am super excited to be home, put my feet up and visit family back here in the Yorkshire countryside! Before breaking up for the holidays I managed to get another painting finished (pictured above), 'Another Splash', inspired by David Hockney. 

Hockney and his paintings of California from the 70's have popped up within my research a few times, particularly because of his use of soft pastel colours and focus on the luxury of living there. I also came across an artist, Guy Yanai, who recreated David Hockney's 'A Bigger Splash' in his own style (Image of the painting here) which gave me an idea. As I have recently made a series of works based from one composition, I thought it might be an interesting idea to do the same here and paint my own 'A Bigger Splash', forming a collaborative series using one of Hockney's, Yanai's and mine. I was also imagining homes in California all looking the same; modern architecture, outdoor swimming pool, freshly mown lawn and exotic plant life surrounded by a flat blue sky. I like the idea that the houses are made from one standard mould, but once someone lives within it they take on a different personality and I think this represents that idea.

Through this process I learned a lot in terms of colour and composition which I have found to be a valuable lesson when it comes to painting. Paying attention to colour is something I have struggled with in the past as I find it difficult to get the exact colour I want before giving up. While recreating Hockney's work I was forced to focus more on colour as his soft pastels are a signature aspect of his 70's paintings. I have come to realise that I love his palette and want to try using similar colours within my own work.

Overall I'm extremely happy with how this painting turned out. I believe I've managed to capture my personality through the techniques I used to create it and through this project of doing an artist study rather than creating my own work from scratch, I've learned a valuable lesson in the use of colour and composition.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and I wish you a Happy New Year!

Light and Shadow

Just a small photo blog post of some awesome light formations I've come across in the last month or so. I think they are really interesting so I thought I'd share them with you!

A Week Of Completion

Repose With Collage | Acrylic, Wood Veneer and Collaged Photos on Calico.

Repose Inverted | Acrylic on Calico.

Transparent Repose | Acrylic on Calico.

It's been a pretty busy week for me as it's coming to the close of the first semester which means I'm scrambling to get all my work together for hand in. Having said that, this week has been super productive as I have finally finished my 2,500 word essay and completed three paintings.

I had so many ideas which emerged from past group critiques that I really wanted to test out so I decided to make a series of paintings based on 'Repose'; a still life acrylic painting I did earlier in the module. I bought myself three canvas' and started to reconstruct a different version of Repose on each one. For the first painting I collaged wood veneer and photographs of leaves onto the surface to produce a contrast between the more fabricated areas of paint and the realistic pieces of collage. With the second painting I reversed the sections of flat colour with the areas of gestural brush strokes. In doing this the background became much more expressive in tone whilst the subject maintained flat simplistic shapes. The third painting was an experiment with thickness of paint where I used a thinner mix of acrylic to build up transparent layers so that the bottom grounds became more visible. 

All three have their positives and their negatives. I love the wood veneer and the gestural background as it creates a sense of depth but I am not so keen on the transparent paint or the subject being flat shapes of colour because it becomes simplified and too dull for my taste. My favourite from the whole series is the original Repose painting because I love the colours, composition and balance of the flat blocks of colour in contrast to the expressive areas of the subjects. However, from doing these paintings I really want to concentrate on bringing more collage back into my work especially the wood veneer as I found it exciting to work with. 

In addition to the first three experiments I also painted a few abstract close ups of Repose to see what an enlarged version of the sections would look like. I used a view finder to select a small square of the painting which I then recreated on a larger scale and these are the results of this process. It gave me the chance to play around with scale and how increasing it can affect the visual result of the painting, however I didn't enjoy doing this as much as my full scale still life as I prefer to paint the whole picture where I can focus more on depth within a composition. I rely on the negative space surrounding a still life to balance out the different shapes; the close ups are overly busy and like my painting from summer (Untitled) there is too much going on to portray the harmonious atmosphere I am wanting.