Frauhaus: Seven Clashnettie paintings

 *

I have put up seven of the Clashnettie pictures in Frauhaus, Chattan Place, Aberdeen.

*

Memento (2000): review: 9/10

 *

Memory loss affects an insurance investigator. 

He attempts to trace his actions, making use of a Polaroid camera

 Unusual film, a sot of Noir, with many provocative ideas about experience, identity and responsibility.

 It is elegantly filmed by Christopher Nolan and beautifully acted by Guy Pierce.

*

Oppenheimer (2023): review: 8/10

 *

J. Robert Oppenheimer works on the Manhattan Project in the desert, seeking to develop an Atomic Bomb.

Is his team infiltrated by Soviet Agents? The Un-American Activities Committee investigates.

Cillian Murphy and the rest of the cast are excellent. The dramatisation of events is very effective. The camerawork is striking, often beautiful.

However, the film is too kind to Soviet Communists sympathisers and is overlong. Concision is a virtue in art.

*

The Odyssey (2026): review: 6/10

 *

The tribulations of Odysseus as he returns by sea with his crew and fellow warriors from the Trojan Wars to reunite with his, anxious wife, Penelope.

There are some striking set pieces, particularly featuring the Cyclops Circe, and the Sirens.

 It can be hard to follow the plot, though the long running time passes without longeurs.

The moronically obvious soundtrack consists largely of loud drums: boom! boom! boom! as if created for the hard of hearing.

The script consists largely of solemn pronouncements, without one scintilla of humour. It can be a little hard to follow the plot. 

Anne Hathaway is disgrace as Penelope, grimacing all the time. The rest of the cast are unmemorable except for creepy, clunky Eliot Page.

In short: competent standard-issue macho cinema, with zero subtlety, which has generated more interest than it merits.

*

Clashnettie: fields, stream

*

Clashnettie,  fields, stream, 37.5 x 29.5 cm

*

My work at Clashnettie Arts Centre

This picture brings to a close my period working in Clashnettie Arts Centre, which is about 10 miles north of Dinnet and the Dee Valley, but feels much more remote, located as it is behind twisting roads and at the end of a unpaved track.

I was fortunate with the weather, with day after day of dependable sunshine, or, at least, rain-free. 

I`m ok about with the work I did - at least, most of it -though perhaps it surprised me less than I expected it to. 

Does it make any sense to expect to be surprised? It sounds self contradictory.

 What I mean is that this place did not give me many views or motifs which I had not encountered before, thus my responses were likely, an accessing of old solutions. And it is not just the motifs, but also the quality of light, the weather and the flora.

*

Clashnettie, hillside

*

Clashnettie, hillside, oil on card, 30.2 x 24.5 cm

*

Clashnettie, hill

*

Clashnettie, hill, oil on card, 26 x 33.6 cm

*