Callum Innes

CalIum Inne's 'Exposed Paintings' first captured my attention about 8 years ago whilst completing my degree, and I still now feel a connection to these beautiful paintings. They  are created through a process of layers of paint being first applied, then removed with turpentine , with  traces of colour remaining on the surface. The paintings therefore contain evidence of their own making, embedding them with a sense of their own history. For me the  images evoke landscape and light, horizons and seas and emotions.

Ian Davenport

A little article about a fave painter of mine- Ian Davenport, on how he paints http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/20/guide-to-painting-ian-davenport

Felim Egan

When I was at university my tutor mentioned Felim Egan to me, as he felt the artist's work would resonate with me, and he was so right. I just love Egan's restrained, elegant paintings. Monochromatic expanses of colour are built up slowly with layers of acylic, and a distinct vocabulary of motifs are sparingly placed across the surfaces. Although abstract, his paintings evoke the landscapes of his home, of horizons, sand and sea which the poet Seamus Heaney, has described as “a balance of shifting brilliances”.

Gustav Klimt

Robert Rauschenberg

Artists and systems of measurement

A 'think-about' artists who famously used systems of measurement in their work.

Albrecht Durer: (1471-1528)

This German painter, theorist and printmaker is noted for his theories involving principles of mathematics, perspective and proportions. Invented the 'Durer grid'.

Euan Euglow: (Late 20th Century)
Famed for his figurative paintings incorporating distinctive measuring marks, Euglow is the best known student of William  Coldstream.

Chuck Close:
Often uses visual gridden formats in his large scale photoreal portraits. His pieces are labour intensive incorporating processes of painting, woodblock, reduction block, scribble and etching.

Sol le Witt:
'Conceptualist' - Famed for his wall drawings- and deceptively simple geometric sculptures and drawings. Plans for drawings submitted that cannot always be carried out!

Let there be Light

Taking a bit of time here to think about the different ways artists have used light in their work- focusing on  Christian Boltanski, Julie Mehretu,  Dan Flavin, James Turrell, J.M.W Turner, Francisco Goya and Rembrandt.


Christian Bollanski

'Theatre'

In 1986 Christian Bollanski began making assemblages of objects with light effects He chose items that were embedded with huge emotional power and staged them in books, collections, archives and exhibitions. These items were relics of the past. that explored memory, the artist's personal memories and beyond that to the history of humanity itself.



Julie Mehretu
Mehretu uses all types of imagery including comic books, graffitti, baroque engravings, japanese calligraphy. layered up to create a  kind of language of her own. The pieces are often on an enormous scale, yet with miniature details. These minute marks implying an  individual  story in an infinate universe. Her paintings and drawings reference mapping and respond to  to elements of space and light. 

Dan Flavin
Flavin utilises flourescent lights of varied lengths and colours to create unique light scultpures that  inhabit the space  in which they are installed. They wash walls with colour and although  abstract, they encompass an endless  range of emotion.

Francisco Goya
"I see only forms that are lit up and forms that are not. There is only light and shadow."

The innovative spanish 'Romantisim' painter used his areas  of light and dark to  encourage  the  viewer to respond to his imagery in  the way he wants us to.  Those who Goya believed were 'good'  were shown in  the light and them 'bad guys' were in the shade!


Michelangelo
Mikey famously mixed his colours with both black and white, to maximise the contrasts, achieving a vivid depth of  shading.


Rembrandt
The artist attracted  his  viewer's attention to key areas of composition with a strongly focused light source. He famously used  'chiarascuro'  to   add a certain depth, harmony and drama to his paintings.

James Turnell
Turnell is primarily concerned with light and space as a tool to explore man's place in the universe!
He descibes the response to viewing his light pieces as  "like the thoughts that come when looking into a fire"

J.M.W.Turner
We can't think about artists use of light without thinking about our Turner can we. He was obsessed  the science of light and colour, and  'wasn't known as 'The painter of light'  for nothing! Turner generally used a central light source in each of his paintings that enriched  the most beautiful, contemplative and acomplished landscape paintings of all time.

Making a mark

I made these little pictures and I think they work well as a series- but also I may develop them into larger paintings in the future.

'Typography' book covers

A few ideas for book covers I created using mixed media, papers, paints, ink and use of the photocopier.

Paper collages

Here's a little series of small square collages I produced that explore space,  use of scale, shape colour and media within the composition.

De Kooning: A Retrospective (Yes Please!)

Pink Lady, 1945

Here's a review of De-Kooning's work, in response to his up-coming blockbuster show soon to open at New York's MoMA.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/28/willem-de-kooning-retrospective-at-moma-review.html

Ok, maybe I  won't make it to the  De-Kooning Retrospective, but, this book might be a fair compromise-

http://www.momastore.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10451&productId=117582&promoCode=8H104&categoryId=11486&parent_category_rn=26683&cid=cm_mmc=MoMA-_-Other-_-Exhibitions-_-NA

Cyprus: The Land of Aphrodite

Homeric Hymn  to Aphrodite
Of august gold-wreathed and beautiful Aphrodite
I shall sing, to whose domain belong the battlements
of all sea-laved Cyprus where, blown by the moist breath of Zephyros,
she was carried over the waves of the resounding sea
in soft foam.

Paphos, with it's  mediterranean climate, medieval fort, lively tavernas,  banana plantations,  extensive water sports and charming fishing harbour  is  well  loved by the plethera of tourist that descend upon its welcome shores each summer. However, Paphos' unrivalled pulling power  is  its's universally acknowledged claim to being  the   birthplace of the Greek Goddess of Love and Beauty, Aphrodite.

This summer, I swam along the  shoreline where she was born out of the foam of the sea. Looking across the harbour of Paphos, the beauty associated with the Goddess remains ever present.

'The Birth of Venus'  Botticelli

Aphrodite is a timeless, divine beauty that has captured the imagination of artists throughout history, from classical times to the present day.  Most famously in the marble sculpture 'Aphrodite of Melos' or the 'Venus de Milo', as it is better known. The sculpture was found in 1820 on the Greek island of Melo and is thought to have been created between 130 and 100 bc. It remains the most famous work of ancient Greek sculpture and now stands in the Louvre, in Paris....And it is most definitely on my 'One day' list!

Venus de Milo