The Animal Side of Humans

This new selection of paintings from Emma Rubens shows the animal in us, the fun, playful and sexy side. The side we far too often overlook because of work and too many things to do.

View the collection at her etsy shop here

The Scream

I have always thought one of the most powerful elements of this painting is the silence. It has been  called The Cry and with this painting, Edvard Munch, visually expressed a cry of anguish. Who has not had a dream when you try to scream and no sound comes out?

The figure in the foreground has no definable features, no definable characteristics, no definable culture. The lines and brushstrokes swirl around and merge into an undefinable landscape, just a bridge over water. But with hands raised to its head and mouth and eyes rounded in horror this painting has captured the imagination around the world. Who has not experienced a cry of anguish and unable to release the sound?

Musicians and songwriters have written many pieces where we hear the cry, but Munch gave it a visual expression without the sound and it is that which makes it universal, what soul has not felt that pain.

The first time I saw this painting, it was this version, in a retrospective of Munch's work in London. I was slightly disappointed by the size. I imagined it much larger having seen it projected onto screens in art history class. But looking into it, it did not disappoint, I was moved by the silent cry.

Munch has left a few words in a journal describing the situation that inspired this iconic image:

"I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."

These words were later hand painted on the frame of the 1895 version of the painting.

This version of the painting was sold yesterday at Sotheby's in New York for nearly $120 million dollars. I hope the new custodian will care for it and maintain it for all generations to come.

Since we now have a value on universal anguish I wonder if psychotherapists will be able to raise their fees and will lawyers demand more for "pain and suffering"in settlements.

Martyn Brewster

 

The Waterhouse and Dodd Gallery on Cork Street in London has a beautiful exhibition on right now, till the 16th March, Coastal Light, paintings by Martyn Brewster. The paintings are oil on canvas, colors are cobalt, ultramarine and vermillion from the tube, they have that saturation of light and color that only comes from oil paint.

The composition of the paintings are abstract shapes of rectangles and squares that stretch and drift across the canvas like a remembered landscape. When I spoke with Martyn on the evening the show opened, he spoke of the light and space of a coastal town, the immense sense of light you have when you live near water. We chatted of favorite painters and of making art from the traditional ways: drawing, painting and observing one's environment, of paint and charcoal, paper, pen and ink.

His paintings fall into the wonderful history of modern English painting of landscape, exploring light, color, forms and translating them onto canvas.  I shall direct clients to his work first.

Jackson Pollock

 

A hundred years since his birth, Jackson Pollock still provokes a debate about art. He was considered "Jack the Dripper" and still there is a comment, a 2 year old could do that.... he took the canvas off the stretcher and put it on the floor, he let the paint drip but he still made paintings that were lyrical and had a pattern like a tree in winter. 

Georges Bernede Compositions

Material Gestures is the title of this exhibition of George Bernede at Whitford Fine Art.  I have never seen these paintings before so when I received the catalogue I contacted the gallery right away to go see them and learn more of the artist. But first the paintings, I was taken by the "gestes", the expressionism of this work, reminding me of Motherwell or Kline, but different, very different, but then still in the genre of expressionism. 

I like paint and I like to see brush strokes, color thrills me, when I see them all together composed on a canvas I find it satisfying, beautiful. These are beautiful paintings, lyrical and full of movement. 

One is often tempted to look for something figurative in an expressionist painting, sometimes it is there. However, I find to appreciate them one needs to stand back and see the composition, the arrangement of the space and it is then you see the balance, the forms, the rhythm.

A beautiful use of Prussian blue with white, black and a little of ultra marine.

When I was was in the gallery looking at the paintings, I stepped back to admire the composition and then realized Bernede titles each painting "Composition 91" or "Composition 92", good titles, they are well composed. Another aspect of these paintings are their size, all measure about 2' x 3' or 65 cm x 100 cm. A very workable size for interiors, it also allows you to hang them in series of 2's or 3's so you get the idea of a painters imagination.

I learned from Renata, the gallery director, George Bernede has been living and working as artist in the region of Bordeaux since 1946, this is his first exhibit outside France. We are lucky to see these paintings and I recommend this exhibit, it is on at Whitford Fine Art, on Duke Street St James,  until 14th October.

Lucien Freud

Source: google.co.uk via Kelly on Pinterest

Source: elijahbrubaker.com via Kelly on Pinterest

A painters view is often disturbing to many, some will find it too penetrating. Lucien Freud's work brought many mixed reactions from people and various critics. I thought he had an understanding of form and volume, of proportion and balance and painted with tenderness.

Most saw his angle intrusive. Many of his angles reminded me of the times when I would rush to a crowded life drawing class and get the last place to set up my drawing board, I would than have an awkward, foreshortened view of the model. Those are usually the more difficult positions to draw. Freud could draw from that angle and paint it with an understanding of the body, seated, reclined, folded in relaxed poses.

His palette was natural, earthy pigments, he chose to paint with natural light, to me, sometimes it seemed he painted under a fluorescent light, a cold shadowless light.

He was a very good painter, by that I mean with the skill of putting paint onto a flat surface he could create a complex 3 dimensional form; the body, the head, a tree, drapery and express it with a sense of beauty and humanity. Not many can do that. He will be missed.

Source: google.co.uk via Kelly on Pinterest

Bob Dylan as Painter

A few weeks ago when visiting some galleries, I went to Halcyon Gallery and was shown round the galleries by Camilla, when she took me to a room with some bright and colorful paintings I was surprised to learn these were done by Bob Dylan, a series of graphic prints.

These paintings attracted me for their color, the drawing and composition. They are bright and fresh and the drawing is like Raoul Dufy. But after a few minutes of looking at them I also saw the moments on the road of a musician waiting for a train, at a bar or in a cafe, the times between performing, observing the environment and the customers at a bar.

I found the painting of the train tracks going off into the distant, to a swirling red sky evocative and then looking into it I could hear the lyrics to his songs. Dylan has written some wonderful songs, songs that tell stories. His paintings have that sense of story. You can easily imagine the conversation with a curvy woman at a bar, a Sunday afternoon overlooking a port, with a drink, a coffee, with a friend, a lover, you can hear it in those songs.
 
The paintings were on exhibit at The Halcyon Gallery on New Bond Street, for more information see their website www.halcyongallery.com.

Everyone has a Dylan song they love, which is you favorite Dylan song?