Tuesday 13 November 2012

The pregnant nude in contemporary Art

Jonathan Yeo's recent photo-realistic painting of a heavily pregnant Sienna Miller has attracted much media comment as much for the subject matter as her obvious celebrity. With a few notable exceptions the representation of the pregnant nude in Art is still relatively uncommon. Personally, I think this a great shame but I have been lucky enough to produce one work so far which celebrates this special life moment.

"La Serenissima"
chalk pastel
10.5 x 7.5 in. / 27 x 19 cm.

I had the great good fortune to draw my model Kate, with whom I have worked on a number of my sculptures, when she too was pregnant. And from these drawings I developed this pastel painting. The arch format, the treatment of shimmering light and the dark interior owed much, at the time, to a visit I had made to Venice. So I imagined Kate sheltering from the hot summer sun, seated by an open window in her palazzo in Venice, overlooking the Lagoon. In celebration of that transient but joyful state, I gave the painting the title of "La Serenissima", which means the most serene and is the name by which the City of Venice is known. Just seemed appropriate.

A pregnant torso will also feature as the third sculpture of four in a series carved in stone I am working on. Each season of the year in my Quattro Stagioni (Four Seasons) series is represented by a female torso morphing into a plant form. In the case of the now finished Primavera (Spring) the figure is morphing into a Snowdrop. Este (Summer) which I am currently working on takes the form of a reclining torso morphing into  an Arum Lily and Autumno will be a pregnant torso as ripening fruit. 

Wednesday 7 November 2012

8 by 8


I am a big fan of the Courtauld Gallery. It has a wonderful collection of Impressionist and Post Impression painting but on a recent visit I was particularly taken by the Seurat Sketches in Gallery 11b. There are half a dozen oil sketches all about 8 x 6 inches, mostly done as studies for bigger work. I found myself drawn to them, going back again and again, to study them. In these sketches Seurat is experimenting with techniques and working with a limited palette. I found them very fresh and exciting as works in their own right.

And it got me to thinking about setting myself a project; to create my own series of small oil paintings with a restricted palette using no brushes, just a palette knife.Using a palette knife stops me fiddling and allows me to work the paint impasto in an almost sculptural manner. I also opted for a square format, measuring 8 x 8 inches (20 x 20 cm.). The square format presents its own compositional challenges but opportunities too. So far I have got two paintings which cut the mustard, at least in my own terms, "Le Jazz" and "The Show Must Go On!". With Le Jazz there is a lot of scumbled and glazed colour. The physicality of the paint is more apparent with heavier impasto in The Show Must Go On! There are others, works-in-progress, and I am enjoying experimenting, very invigorating. Another six to go for my little "8 x 8" series. Watch this space!

Tuesday 6 November 2012

"Bronze" at the Royal Academy

As a sculptor who works in bronze I must start by complimenting the Royal Academy.  The audio visual displays in Gallery 2 helpfully and successfully explains what is the complex process of bronze casting, using models of each stage and short but informative videos. However I have to say I found that the video of the Indian foundry where they were pouring molten bronze in bare feet, made me wince!

The exhibition includes some of the finest examples of bronze sculpture from the past 3,500 years and is organised thematically rather chronologically with separate galleries for Figures, Animals, Objects, Gods, Heads and Reliefs. In scale they range from tiny objects of adornment to over-life size figures some 2.5m tall. Both aesthetically and technically there are some major tour de force works on display but the highlights for me were the pieces which spoke to me, some of the oldest and arguably simplest.

First of all there was the elongated Etruscan Votive Figure, Evening Shadow (Cat 32) which apparently was a work which influenced Giacometti. You can see how and why straight away. The notion of the cast shadow has intrigued human beings from time immemorial and in this case from the second century BC. Then there were two wheeled pieces, the 7th century BC Cult Chariot of Strettweg (Cat 22) and the Chariot of the Sun (Cat 7) from the 14th century BC, which combine amazing craftsmanship with powerful symbolism. Another Etruscan piece caught my eye, the Christophe Cista from 350BC (Cat 27) with impressive engraving and a charming grouping of two figures carrying a female figure on top.

In the Reliefs Gallery the inlaid bronze of the first century BC, Mensa Isiaca altar table top (Cat 39), stood out. And the almost primitive series of four 6' tall bronze panels, an exercise in progressive reduction over 20 years, by Matisse in Backs I-IV (Cat 142) were fascinating. There is also an interesting comparison in approach to Portraits between the simplicity of Medardo Rosso's Ecce Puer and the ornate extravagances of materials in Charles Henri-Joseph-Cordier's Jewess from Algeria (Cat 133).

The "Bronze" exhibition is testament to Man's skill, imagination and ambition in creating lasting objects of wonder for thousands of years in this material which still has the power to enchant us today. The exhibition runs until 9th December 2012.


And if, having seen the exhibition, it gives you the taste for owning some bronze sculpture you can always visit my web-site to see the pieces I currently have for sale by clicking here. As well as being, I hope, visually attractive most of my work is also highly tactile, the sensation of touch being an important aspect of my sculptures in bronze, and in stone for that matter.


Thursday 1 November 2012

Down came the rain


"The Show Must Go On!"
oil on canvas
8 x 8 in. / 20 x 20 cm.

Open air jazz festivals are always going to be somewhat problematic in this country given our wayward weather. I remember trying to sketch a group of jazz aficionados huddling under umbrellas during a July thunderstorm, while I was holding an umbrella and my sketch book in one hand and drawing with the other. Not ideal! That moment is commemorated in this painting with the audience watching on under their umbrellas while the girl in the yellow dress tries to shelter the trumpeter and sax player under her umbrella.


A couple of the original moleskine sketches