Wednesday 18 May 2016

Barbara Rae in London

Barbara Rae, Camino de la Noche, mixed media on canvas (artist copyright)
A rather dreary Bristol afternoon has just been livened up by news of a forthcoming Barbara Rae exhibition at Portland Gallery (near Green Park). If the catalogue is anything to go by, this show will repel anything the summer can throw at us.

Barbara Rae, Sanctuary, mixed media on canvas (artist copyright)
Rae is one of those fascinating painters whose work hovers between abstraction and representation. Is it a peculiarly British thing, this tendency to create abstract paintings in which a clear sense of place or reality remains? I'm thinking of Joan Eardley, Patrick Heron, Peter Lanyon...

Barbara Rae, Shoreline, mixed media on canvas (artist copyright)

The exhibition starts on 2nd June.

The works shown are part of the exhibition and are reproduced here in the spirit of 'spreading the word'. They of course remain Barbara Rae's copyright.

Monday 16 May 2016

Modernism on Sea


By a typical quirk of scheduling I'll be heading straight from the Great Bardfield Symposium to Bournemouth, where I'm talking about Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden at a weekend art/lit festival, 'Modernism on Sea'.

It sounds like an entertaining weekend is in store, with workshops devoted to esoteric subjects like 1930s millinery, a stall run by Paul Rennie, and an array of speakers: Kate Williams, Lara Feigel, Simon Beeson, Priya Parmar, Catherine Wallace and Suzanne Joinson.

'Modernism on Sea' takes place at Talbot Heath School, Bournemouth, on 2/3 July,