karen joyce
  • Home
  • Prints
  • Book arts
  • Exhibiting history
  • Blog
  • Contact

Sunny south

16/4/2014

0 Comments

 
A little unfair, I realise.  I know it was sunny in the south because that's where I was last week, but I'm sure it was (nearly) as sunny in the north.  I was on one of my periodic trips, this time to include picking up the rejected prints from Bath and seeing the exhibition.   
Picture
What can I say?  The standard was high, of course it was, it always is.  Comparing to last year, I would say that for me there were fewer knock-out works, less range of work, but also fewer 'why on earth?' pieces.  The prizes seemed (to me) to make more sense this year too - I didn't always agree (why would I, necessarily?  My judging standards mostly come down to how much I like a piece, I don't know enough to say whether something is 'good' in other ways), but I never found myself gawping in disbelief either.  Equally, while I certainly don't have strong feelings that I should have got into the show with one of my prints (it'll be back to my comfort zone for me from now on, I suspect), neither do I feel that either of them would have looked particularly sub-standard on the wall.  Which is faintly comforting.   

Somehow the notes I took this year aren't proving terribly evocative, but maybe that reflects my less intense reaction to the show. Unfair - there was some wonderful work.  I stuck with the unwieldy foldy catalogue this year and scribbled on that, and some of the things I've written aren't helping.  Next to one piece, for instance, I have put 'Nearly really nice'.  Fair enough, I'm entitled to my opinion - if only I had the foggiest idea what exactly the opinion was formed around, what the picture was, what on earth I meant.  Another note for a different pic says 'Like enough'.  Well that's alright? 

So h
ow to do this?  In random and scattershot fashion seems a good idea, but I could start with a couple of the prizes.   
One of the works that won a prize (that prize being to be shown later on at the Rostra Gallery) was definitely one of my favourites.  Called Angel Place (by Andrew Lansley), it's fairly large, shows a reasonably typical Bath house and is set off beautifully by a dusty blue-grey background that emphasises the cool evening shades of the image and really makes the difference (another of his pieces, while also beautifully executed, had nothing like the same heft).  It has an almost other-worldly feel to it and I just can't quite put my finger on what makes it so special - which is great; why on earth should I know how the magic works?  The sky is painted in the most amazingly delicate strands - perhaps that adds to the somehow pure ambience.  It can't all be in the name. 
Picture
Angel Place by Andrew Lansley
The drawing prize was won by Paul Newman's Langdonhill 3, soft and misty, delicate and evocative, altogether lovely.  His other, even mistier, work - Bellever Tor (Sudden Mist) - was just as lovely.  To have such skill with a pencil - I'm envious, but I know it also must require oodles of time and patience and attention to detail.  Not my particular quality set, so I guess the lack of drawing ability on my part matters less than it might. 
Picture
Langdonhill 3 by Paul Newman
Other winners included Bob Rudd's Llangrannog (watercolour prize) - a worthy winner (how can I dare to sound so pompous?) but I preferred Tim Wilmot's Road to Mount Uludag, Turkey, simply for the heat and light that poured out of it - and Leslie Glenn Damhus' Lady Playing with Cat's Cradle (portrait prize), which is delightful (loved his work last year too) and is, I know, a portrait in its way, but in a more mainstream portrait vein I very much liked Miche Watkins' Betrayed.  Good grief, my tenses are all over the place.  Was, is, I'm tying myself in knots, but I'm not going to try to get them all to match, so never mind.   

Picture
Here's a picture of  Dog.  Well, no, of course it isn't.  It's my half-a-second sketch next to the catalogue entry to remind me of what the image was like (ignore the first scrawl - that, believe it or not, is a star to mark a work I like).  No use to anyone else, of course, but it works for me.  However, Sally Muir has a site containing many dogs, all eagerly waiting to leap off the page - have a look.

There were plenty more favourites, but I'll just pick out the ones I seem to have made comments about.  I love the brightness and the blues and yellows of Susan Kirkman's Landscape; the way the wooden substrate lends all its texture to Rosie Mack's Black House (I have a suspicion I've been starring her work in the catalogues for years) ; Chitra Merchant's Lumen (I should save up for one of her larger screenprints); Fay Stevens' Trace: Element (I think it was on felt?); Joanna Wright's Two Hellebores (my comment simply say 'teacup' - there was a teacup); and the small, intense, beautiful Memories by Lyn Harradine. 

Writing about an exhibition - especially an open exhibition, where the work is so enormously varied - cannot do it any justice at all.  Visit, that's my advice.  I'll certainly be going back for another extended browse before the show finishes at the end of May.  
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Hi there

    I make prints and book arts, though nowhere near as often as I'd like - no good reason, just an inability to get on with things.  I occasionally go on about landscape (with which I am mildly obsessed) and various of its elements, and I like to pass comment on exhibitions I visit.

    Archives

    April 2022
    September 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    October 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    July 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Bath
    Book Arts
    Books
    Ceramics
    Doodles/sketching
    Exhibitions
    Handmade Books
    Hot Bed Press
    Landscape Etc
    Other People's Blogs
    Print And Printmaking
    Stories
    Stuff And Things
    Theatre

    RSS Feed