In 2022, the year Russia rolled into Ukraine, I attended the Venice Biennale. I was filled with all things Venice: the golden interior of St. Mark’s, the lapping of the canals, the picaresque bridges, the bells, the periodic flooding. I was also filled with Anselm Kiefer, whose work had been […]
Light, daylight, shadow; the richness of the hues, the softness of the shades. What, I often wonder, are we missing when we switch on an electric light, a screen? The microtones, the half-lights, what DaVinci called ‘earth light,’ the mysterious quality of sunlight falling upon a living thing, animating it, […]
As the Samhain banners unfurl, and as winter approaches, thoughts of painting crunch with the leaves and unseen snow. One becomes thoughtful before the fire, burrows inwards, carves out an imaginative hinterland where the cold and the rain cannot enter. Paintings and prints hover as marvellous worlds upon the walls; […]
Her mouth is a fish, her cheek a stingray. One octopus nets her fish-and-otter-hair, another comprises her shoulder, whilst an eel forms her neck and a pearl earring dangles from her ear-shell. Who is she? A painting by a surrealist, you might think, someone modern or contemporary? Perhaps Dali or […]
A living line, trembling with energy. The feeling which charges the hand: a poignant burst, guiding the etching needle, twisting, erupting, flicking and flowing, etching death into a copper plate. Francisco Goya’s series of etchings, ‘The Disasters of War’ (1810-1820), is an arguably unequaled record of cruelty, in the medium of […]