A place.
I regularly return to in the National Gallery, to think. I make my way to this bench opposite Ucello’s, Battle of San Romano, in Room 54. Here I jot geometric drawings in my small notebook.
I regularly return to in the National Gallery, to think. I make my way to this bench opposite Ucello’s, Battle of San Romano, in Room 54. Here I jot geometric drawings in my small notebook.
Sitting here I am far enough away from the paintings so as not to see them well and this lack of focus helps me.Visitors and viewers enter and exit the space. My thoughts crisscross the room. As in the paintings, they are of a private and public nature, large and small in scale.
A multiplex of issues. I am still thinking about this room as I pace along Charing Cross Road and cut across Leicester Square on the way to meet up with my artist friend at a show. Language, composition, and colour pass by me on every side as I think about the immense history of painting that is catalogued behind me. About the narrative threads in that room: life and death, grief and triumph, battle and imprisonment, saints, sinners; a wolf and a dragon.*
In the square, a triangle of freshly raked soil is cordoned by a blue nylon rope. I see ahead, a building façade held in place by an imposing steel grid work, hollowed out; ready for repurpose.
A meeting and a viewing. The drawings of Linda Karshan quietly draw me in. At first they appear as something they are not.
Lines and grids are made with graphite. Repetition, no rulers. They are soft and light and open. They quiver.
This work is unknown to me, the artist is present and introduces herself to us. She reveals her approach, her movement; her self-portraits. She has listened to what her drawing practice has revealed. she is both artist and tool.
Lines and grids are made with graphite. Repetition, no rulers. They are soft and light and open. They quiver.
This work is unknown to me, the artist is present and introduces herself to us. She reveals her approach, her movement; her self-portraits. She has listened to what her drawing practice has revealed. she is both artist and tool.
A walk, via the circus, during that early evening change over in the city, when the sky light goes down and street stage lights come up. We stand amongst a show of white reliefs and graphite drawings of form, rhythm, structure and equilibrium**. A memorial event show, full of artists and collectors who have seen much, lived much and know much. This artist is not present, his work is.
‘It is about the pacing; nine steps one way, nine steps the other.The fall of feet. The sound of feet… the words are less important, but they are essential.’
Conversations with and about Beckett, as quoted in the catalogue to Linda Karshan, Signs of Men and Footfalls exhibition at The Redfern Gallery, Jan 2015.
Conversations with and about Beckett, as quoted in the catalogue to Linda Karshan, Signs of Men and Footfalls exhibition at The Redfern Gallery, Jan 2015.
*http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/floorplans/level-2/room-54
http://www.redfern-gallery.com/exhibitions.asp
**http://www.annelyjudafineart.co.uk/artists/alan-reynolds
http://www.redfern-gallery.com/exhibitions.asp
**http://www.annelyjudafineart.co.uk/artists/alan-reynolds
If you are interested in applying for the next residency please read here http://resideresidency.weebly.com/apply.html
Deadline for applications is 6pm on 24th January 2015
Deadline for applications is 6pm on 24th January 2015