Saturday afternoon
Monday morning
View from Studio & Greenwich Park
December 7th, 2010My Drawings in Marylebone
December 4th, 2010Six of my framed charcoal drawings are on show at the West End boutique hairdressing salon, Billi Currie, at 47 Chiltern Street, London W1U 6LX. Billi is happy for you to visit the salon to view the work. Billi is an excellent, experienced stylist not only owning a very popular salon but also managing a busy schedule in the international Magazine and Fashion world.
Four of the six drawings
Diversion of Angels Nacht
Heart Political Mother
Etching: Bird Girl
All the drawings and etching are for sale can be gift wrapped and delivered free of charge in the London area before Christmas. See my website to view more drawings, etchings, paintings and sculpture as present ideas.
Wayne McGregor/Random Dance: Far
December 2nd, 2010Random Dance was founded by Wayne McGregor in 1992. The work is experimental, embracing new technology, science and visual art. The ten dancer ensemble are not afraid to push their bodies to explore physical extremes in movement; rapid, sometimes intensely angular moves are demanded of them in the choreography. McGregor says “I’ve always been interested in the body slightly misbehaving”.
The title of the dance, Far, is an abbreviation of Roy Porter’s Flesh in the Age of Reason, a history of 18th Century explorations into body and soul.
The music is composed by Australian electronic composer, Ben Frost.
A large panel of lights sits low down at the back of the stage, designed by lighting designer, Lucy Carter. Throughout the dance the lights seem to act kinetically as if affected by the dancers movement.
When I’ve watched and drawn something that totally engages me, all I want is to see and draw again, but the company are now on tour not returning to the UK until March 2011, to Laban and Snape Maltings – both venues that I have exhibited at. The performance I watched was at Sadler’s Wells.
Simon Mulligan Quartet at the 606 Club
November 30th, 2010
Last night I watched the Simon Mulligan Quartet at the 606 Club in Chelsea, it was the most beautiful jazz piano I have ever heard.
Thank you and Happy Birthday Simon Mulligan.
Culture Shock: Roman Greenwich
November 29th, 2010On Saturday 13th November Greenwich Dance‘s 13 – 18 year old dance group, NrgDANCE, danced hip-hop, with choreography inspired by Roman artefacts seen at the Museum of London by the students. My 13 year old son dances with NrgDANCE.
Fashion students from Greenwich Community College put on a cat walk show modeling their designs based on Roman costumes and Greenwich Theatre‘s Young People’s Theatre acted a short play, together they put on a fantastic evening.
The venue was Greenwich Heritage Centre and the project is Culture Shock: Roman Greenwich, part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad project, Stories of the World: London.
Rotor at Siobhan Davies Dance
November 26th, 2010Four dancers move at varying speeds following a circular path. The central figure walks, the outer performer is running, changing direction they make comments to each other as they run again, increasing the speed until you in the audience start to feel caught up in it and dizzy. This new dance, A Series of Appointments choreographed by Siobhan Davies, was performed in the beautiful Roof Studio of Siobhan Davies Dance Studios. Later a film is shown of the dance shot from above and projected onto the studio floor, highlighting the patterns created by the dancers movement.
The dancers stop, seeming to take time out, sit on two benches facing each other, continuing with comments, the words are from playwright E.V. Crowe, they are performing Live Feed.
The dancers, directed by composer Matteo Fargion, stand in a line in front of music stands and perform Songbook, creating a song out of simple gestures and (often comical) noise.
Gill Clarke, known to many for her strong dance technique classes (she taught and inspired me years ago) performed in ceramicist Claire Twomey’s installation. The room was filled with unfired ceramic pots, on tables and on the floor. Ceremoniously water was poured into one pot at a time. The water collapsed the unfired pot and water flowed out on to the floor.
On the ground floor Sam Collins‘s The Conversation Revolved showing the dinner party scene from the Hitchcock film, The Suspicion fractured by mirrors and repeated in a circular formation. Really clever.
I went on the last day, I wish I’d gone on the first so I could have returned, the whole afternoon was fascinating and inspirational. I have drawn the company during rehearsals for In Plain Clothes in 2006 and Two Quartets in 2007 and The Collection during performance at Victoria Miro Gallery in 2009.
Whitehall Student Protest
November 25th, 2010
My 16 year old son and friends were there, exercising their right to democratically protest against education cuts and higher tuition fees. They set out to march peacefully.
Many were ‘kettled’, (blocked in) by police in riot gear, in Whitehall for hours in the freezing cold and dark, not knowing when they’d be allowed to go home.
Can this be justified?
Rethink Parliament
November 25th, 2010My great friend and fellow artist Rachel Gadsden has been the artist at the centre of the national project Rethink Parliament run by Parliamentary Outreach in partnership with Rethink and Disability Arts Online. The programme engaged people with severe mental illness with the work and relevance of Parliament. Launched in November 2009 by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Rt Hon John Bercow MP, 16 art workshops around the country followed, led by Rachel.
The participants created self-portraits in an enjoyable non-judgmental environment. At the closing ceremony on 8 November, held in the House of Lords, Rt Hon John Bercow MP highlighted how crucial it is that politicians make themselves more accessible and relevant to people with experience of mental illness. One of the participants gave a very moving account about how much the project and Rachel had touched his life.
As the other guests filtered out under the shadow of Big Ben, I took a left turn into a corridor and went in search of the House of Commons, to watch and draw a debate. Above is the resulting sketch.
First Night of Open Studio
November 20th, 2010Last night over 100 of us at Second Floor Studios opened our studios to the public. I had a constant stream of visitors in my studio, many commented on the wealth of creativity and talent they had encountered. Mine is Studio 17, Unit 0, by the river. We open again on the weekend from 11 – 6 on Saturday and 11 – 6 on Sunday. Click on Second Floor Studios for travel directions and more information. Here are some shots of the work I’m showing, the majority of the work shown is for sale.
Framed drawings, plus many more unframed in the browser
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plus 8 framed etchings and many more in the browser
Emanuel Gat Dance, Winter Variations
November 16th, 2010Two men in plain clothes dance for an hour on a big empty stage, sometimes shadowing each other, sometimes alone, sometimes in perfect unison.
It’s as if they are reading each others minds and responding without the need of sight. They rarely touch, rarely acknowledge one another with even a glance, but their muscular bodies seem to hold an empathy with each other.
Winter Variations grew from a shorter dance, Winter Voyage, also created and danced by Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat and Roy Assaf. Performed at Sadler’s Wells and on tour as part of Emanuel Gat Dance‘s current programme.
A year ago I drew Emanuel Gat with Candoco Dance Company rehearsing In Translation. This lyrical, beautiful dance was recently performed at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank as part of Candoco’s touring show Rendition’s. He works the dancers hard, creating an energizing supportive space, with clear intentions.
Winter Variations is meticulous in detail, the dancers never falter. Throughout the dance the relationship and mood shifts between playful, mournful, sensual ending with isolation. Music ranges from Schubert, to The Beetles urban “Day in the Life” moving on their knees; a song by Egyptian Riad al Sunbati to Gustav Mahler’s Song of the Earth, to which the men dance in tactile sensual unison, only to agonizingly separate.
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