Secret of the black canvas

I was in Prague a couple of years ago and came upon the Galerie Jakubska that showed the work of the Ukranian artist Alexndr Onishenko who has now settled in the Czech Republic.
Onishenko's style is palette knife work applied to a black canvas and the "Secret of the Black Canvas" is the title of the book about his life and work.
My recent night paintings of coastal scenes have all been produced on a black canvas, here are a couple of samples.

    

Small paintings

In a number of recent exhibitions I've noticed how there seems to be an increase in small paintings. This was especially true of the International Art Fair held at the Royal College of Art in London a couple of months back and it was interesting to see just how much a small painting ,7"x 5"or so,captured the imagination as much as a large 3 or 4 foot canvas. Maybe it's the restricted size that focuses the artist to "tell everything" on a smaller scale, I've just started a series of small acrylics and found this to be the case. Let me know what you think.


Lavender fields - Acrylic on canvas 7"x 5"



New York

Our apartment in Midtown Manhattan

I'm just back from a few days in New York. We stayed in a "brownstone" apartment on West 47th Street. The city is just as manic as ever and with 35degrees heat, air -conditioning is essential.
Sampling the delights of Central Park, the Staten Island ferry and Washington Square, I made notes and sketches along with photographs to produce some "Manhattan" images.


Cruising in the yellow cab.......



Skyscraper reflections



Leaving Manhattan for Staten Island





Sketches and notes

 I made a visit to the Guggenheim. When I was in New York previously it was closed for renovation, so only having seen the Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice I was keen to see the iconic building.
The current exhibition is "Art of Another Kind"abstract art from 1949- 1960 featuring all the big names in both American and European art - highly recommended!

Last chance to see.....

There's just a few days left to catch this exhibition at the Grant Bradley gallery in Bristol.


Vyv Hope - Scott at the preview evening for his exhibition

 Hope- Scott is a local musician /composer / artist and has this exhibition running until the end of June.

"Out of the Life Room" Preview evening

A few pictures from the preview evening at the Grant Bradley gallery, a well attended event with two other exhibitions running at the same time.My work consisted of pencil and wash framed drawings seen here at the top of the picture.



Fellow artist Brian Fowler



Out of the Life Room

The joint exhibition "Out of the Life Room", that I'm participating in, is currently on at the Grant Bradley gallery in Bristol. This is an exhibition of work produced by the life drawing group and will continue until the end of June. I'll post some pictures of my work and of the private view as soon as I can.
Meanwhile I'm off to New York for a few days - more later. 

Lawrence Durrell

I've been reading/researching the life and work of the novelist,essayist and poet, Lawrence Durrell who lived , in the 1930's on the Greek island of Corfu.As I'll be visiting Corfu later in the year it was interesting to read Durrell's account of his simple way of life brought vividly to life in his book "Prospero's Cell".
Durrell writes in a beautiful descriptive way about the island and it's inhabitants and the life enjoyed by himself and his then wife Nancy.

"And now the stars are shining down frostblown and taut upon this pure Euclidian surface.It is so still that we have dinner under the cypress tree to the light of a candle.And after it,while we are drinking coffee and eating grapes on the edge of the mirror a wind comes:and the whole of heaven stirs and trembles- a great branch of blossoms melting and swaying. Then as the candle draws breath and steadies everything hardens slowly back into the image of a world in water, so that Theodore can point into the water at our feet and show us the Pleiades burning."