The Path of Culture

Enough has been muttered about how chagrined I was about missing Morgan Doyle's workshop but you can't do everything and perhaps I have shown that what happened in London will have long-term benefits; so, back on track with a summary of what has been happening with Façade Edge.

Here are some pictures:

 

Theses are three plates derived from photos of Thurles and Newbridge Shopping centres. The pictures were exposed on a silkscreen and from this they were transferred to aquatinted plates  with bitumen through the screen  -hence the negative images - later I plan to do two of these with sugar-lift thus producing positive images of the same scenes.

 

These show one of the plate with bitumen still in place and then inked for print:

 

 

 

 

Here are some of the prints:

 

 

This overprinting is not successful - it worked far better with the actual screenprinting which I will show at next post.

 

These were the first  prints  - better versions followed :

 

 

On Friday I decided to put in a serious mornings' work with the plates and as I had to leave at two for a meeting I felt I shouldn't stop for coffee or food - mistake!! By the time I got up to LCGA for lunch I was on my knees - serves me right  - I'll show the results next week : some quite good.

 

The other strand of work has been the production of digital images and to my amazement I feel I have passed a watershed with Photoshop and I am keen to get back at it again to work on images from Achill (St Patrick's weekend)

 

Here are some of the images being submitted for their digital element:

 

 

The first three show an element of the boredom, ennui, and 'scripted disorientation' that occurs in shopping centres.

 

This is a rather glamourised view of the dereliction that backs many glossy temples of materialism  -  thus Façade and equally Edge

 

 

 

 

End of the Museum Path

This was the last visit I made in London but what a visit; it resulted in this:

 

.... a three year readers ticket for the National Art Library in the Victoria & Albert Museum - I am now order books three days in advance and they will be waiting for me when I arrive.

 

Let me show you some of the things I managed to see in a very limited time...

 

 

 

...a wonderful book of Daumier's Lithographs

 

 

In these two books were photgraphs and descriptions of all the artists books held by the V & A, and here are some of them:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and the pièce - de - resistance...

 

 

 

Really, I was astounded to see this here having used photos of it in my contextual studies before Christmas - unbelievable!!!

 

I plan to return to London where I have "lodgings" and stay a couple of days spending much more planned visits in the V & A and the British Museum, looking at things I have selected before going.

 

 

Back to school.......

 

 

 

 

The path winds into spring

Ok That's St Patrick's weekend dealt with - another trip to Achill to watch Ireland playing a crucial match  - which, due to our unwavering support they won.......just : cardiac country.
That said our record in Achill is good  -last time Ireland were in a similar position we saw ROG kicking the winning drop goal so perhaps if Munster got to the Heinekin Cup Final we should go to Achill to watch it???

Alright, I said I wasn't finished with the British Museum and indeed I wasn't.
 I got to go into the study room where I was seated at a desk and asked what I would like to see........... a bit dumbstruck and the extremely polite attendant explained that when one mentioned  Goya or Durer one needed to be quite specific as their holdings of prints were rather large.
I decided then on Stanley William Hayter who has been mentioned before in these posts, but now I was presented with two large boxes of his original prints - etches, aquatints, mezzotints; unfortunately I was not allowed to photograph but if I wanted I could have drawn as much as I wanted   -I would even have been given an easel -  but no wet materials.
One thing did occur to me looking at his work from the 40s and 50s  - I wonder how much he knew of Pollock??

Later in the afternoon, I went back to the west end and the Cork Street area and visited a number of commercial galleries:

The first was Alan Cristea who was showing Richard Hamilton prints and I am indebted to Michael Canning  for pointing me to this as I did not know about it; I will show a selection of what was there but the word eclectic really doesn't cover it:

Five Tyres Remoulded 1971 - casts and screenprints

 

What made yesterdays........1991 - colour laser  print

 

What makes todays......... 1994 - colour lser print

Aquatint

 

Picasso's Meninas 1973 - Hard-, soft ground and stipple open-bite and lift ground aquatint engraving, drypoint and burnishing on Rives paper

 

 

Flower-piece -1975 -litho in 3 colours and white -6 stones and 4 plates -Arches paper: Ed 75

 

Leopold Bloom 1983 - Aquatint

 

Screenprint in 30 colours from 30  stencils on Somerset paper

 

 

 

I then visited Stephen Friedman who was showing Manuel Espinosa of whom I just show two:

 

 

 

These were paintings and inkworks from the 1970s and I really liked them for there uncompromising stance - the type of work I thought I would do but now know I am headed in a rather different direction.

 

At Waddington Custon it was a rather more eclectic display of work from established artists -I didn't ask the prices:

 

 

 

 

Albers

 

Indiana

 

Moore

 

Oldenberg

 

Rauschenberg -1967

 

Rauschenberg - 1997

 

The last visit I payed was to the Gallery of African Art which was showing work by Malangatana  from Mozambique  -It was a pity I couldn't get some pictures here as the work was amazing and  displayed an art whose influences are far from what we are used to and we really need to be getting away from the usual bases.

 

 

I have one more call in London to mention but I also have to be getting back to the studio as there have been some interesting developments.