A visit to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

 *

The Gallery

This lovely gallery was always, and remains, characterised by a quality of precision, with crisp modernist works on pale grey walls.

I enjoyed visiting the collection and seeing the permanent collection, temporary shows of Joan Eardley, contemporary painting and a Barbara Hepworth retrospective.

Eardley

The exhibition of Eardley related to her time in Catterline is accompanied by cases with photographs and letters.

The work on display are major work. In  these she incorporates some of the rough textural effects seen in American Abstract Expressionism. My feeling is that the variety of surface effects masks an underlying sentimentality- that there is a glossiness given to the scenes which is a projection from Eardley. 

But it`s hard to define exactly what this sentimentality really consists of, unlike in her street urchin paintings where it is in plain sight.  All I can say is that I feel it is there.

Hepworth

Hepworth, Torso , African blackwood, 1932

This is major survey. By 1935 Hepworth`s work as settles into an exposition of the idea of  significant form, and from then on her work consists of repetitions of these ideas on a larger and larger scale. The sculptures continue with consequently decreased intimacy, and take on the characteristics of typical corporate or institutional art- i.e. coldness of temperament, bigness, inoffensiveness, suitabililty as a means to offset or complement architecture without outshining it. 

Sculpture thus becomes the opposite of what it should be- it becomes a meaningless thing, a spacefiller, a thing you pass without realising it`s there.

 Appropriately, the show ends with a screening of Hepworth`s address to the United nations. As earlier work by Hepworth has a curious and emotionally rich quality, especially in such torsos as that in my photo.

This is sad. I fear that the ideas she pursued in her art, these formalist ideas, especially taken to a institutional environment, rapidly lead to a creative cul-de-sac. I remember feeling the same pfff on seeing a giant, insipid Miro in a Chicago plaza.

Carol Rhodes

Carol Rhodes, Industrial Complex, 2006, oil on board

There is a little show of contemporary British painting, an from it the two Carol Rhodes works are the most interesting, tackling as they do contemporary built landscapes. 

 I do, alas, feel that Rhodes` work is better in photo than in the flesh, where they appear rather like academic exercises, the paint handling having a mechanical quality.

I have done a little work on similar themes- I intend to do more. But they are not enjoyable places to visit. They`re inhuman, unkind, and making work in them requires definite fortitude.

Some paintings in the permanent collection

Peploe, Veules les Roses, 1910-11, c. A3

 

Peploe, Boats at Royan, 1910, oil on coard, c. A3

Deleunay, The Cardiff Team, 1922-3

oil and tempera on canvas, c. 100 x 120 cm

There is a joyful quality in these three above that I find very pleasing, and necessary. I love the golden colours. The Peploes are such tempting sweets that I`ve included too.

Margaret Mellis, Relief construction in wood, 1941

William Geissler, The Hill Farm, 1934, 60 x 80 cm

I sense that all my choices are all essays on geometric rightness, though the abstract construction obviously much more so. The ruggedness of technique in The Hill Farm is very satisfying.

*

Gallery 5595, Portobello, Edinburgh, Exhibition with Jane Rutherford

 *

The Forest Edge at Gallery 5595, Portobello, Edinburgh

 5595 Gallery A-board

Paintings were taken from frames and passepartouts and fixed directly onto the walls.  This was a considerable improvement on showing work framed as it allows the pictures to "breathe". Of course this is a way of showing work which is impractical in most situations as the painting isn't protected. 

Two paintings were shown in their carriers. The paintings were both sold with the carriers. The carriers arouse considerable curiosity and admiration.

 Five Latin American paintings

 Three Scottish pochades (left) with two of Jane Rutherford`s works

Trees, River Kelvin, Glasgow, in carrier SOLD

Warehouses, Glasgow, with a painting by Jane Rutherford

Paintings from Peru (left and Brazil) both SOLD

Two Peruvian pochades.

That on the right, of the gorge in Chivay is sold  SOLD

A seascape from Oban SOLD

A grove, SOLD

A small pochade from Puno, Peru (lady in a red skirt) SOLD

Write-up- this text was presented on this site in Auguse.

Sales were good and the exhibition was popular, visited by over 800 people over two weekends. 

I received considerable feedback, all positive.

*

Thanks to Mark Haddon and Jane Rutherford of Gallery 5595.

 Thanks to Paul Kier for help with hanging this show.

*

The Forest Edge- New paintings from Latin America and Scotland by Tadeusz Deręgowski and Jane Rutherford

*

I am showing twelve paintings with Jane Rutherford in Portobello at 5595 Gallery,in September, in Edinburgh. It`s part of Porty Art Walk event. 

7th, 8th 13th, 14th and 15th of September.

 Between 11am and 5pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. 

 5595 Gallery is located just off Portobello promenade in

 the lane called John Street Lane West that runs between

 (and parallel to) Pittville Street and John Street. 

It has a blue door.

Gallery 5595, John Street Lane West,

Edinburgh, EH15 2EG

 This is a link to this Exhibition and gallery here-

http://gallery5595.com/project/the-forest-edge

*

A trip to Scotland and Canterbury

*

Argyll and Bute

My pictures sold well at the last Society of Scottish artists exhibition and I want to produce more Scottish works. These will all be larger- about 30 x 25 cm.

Hence Oban in August, a small, touristic town on the West Coast that should provide, within easy reach, a good variety of views. I`ll also visit Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen, and in the south, Canterbury and London.

I`ll be showing work with Jane Rutherford at the Porty Art Walk festival, in Portobello near Edinburgh, where Jane and her husband Mark Haddon have a gallery (6-15 September).

*

Scotland

*

Southern Scotland

 I have decided to include the charming town of Melrose on my British trip: 

London- Berwick - Melrose -Alloa -Edinburgh- London

There is something mysterious about the Borders to me.

*

British Trip. late September

*

Both maps taken from the Cavellini School Room map of the British Isles

I'm pleased to say that I shall be going to the UK in September for just over two weeks- a trip which will include London. Berwick, Edinburgh and Alloa, near Stirling. I shell go painting in Greenwich, or opposite. It's  one of the few places in London that offers good views for painting.

Lothian, Fife, Berwick and around

I am especially pleased to get to know Berwick better as I have so often passed on the train and swooned at its wonderful location. And I shall enjoy visiting nearby Lindisfarne too.

*

April in Britain and France: Part One: London

*

 Hampstead Heath, oil on card, 18 x 16 cm   SOLD

 Berkeley Square, North side, oil on card, 17.5 x 17 cm   AVAILABLE

The colours here are gaudier than is truly the case

 Here are my first offerings from April's painting trip, which took me from Brazil to London, then to Paris, to Scotland, Somerset and back to Brazil via London.

London is not a good painting city. It lacks dramatic landscapes. The weather is both bland and unpredictable and the season changes lack force. The architecture is often good, but is also often fussy or indecisive, as is the street plan which rarely accommodates grandeur. And the city is uncontained,  rolling lazily in from endless suburbs and shires, undefined.

At the same time it lacks the sort of street life that makes Morocco, say, fascinating. In London, the private is utterly hidden. It cannot be intimate with you. It's true that you can sometimes get interesting views into the backs of people's gardens from railway lines but its hard ever to be able to find a place to paint them. And they aren't that fascinating anyway.

I never really "got" London, though I lived there for ten years, I seldom found it mysterious or enchanting except in old books or through the eyes of others such as writers like Ian Sinclair or painters such as Auerbach, though I came to love the more obscure stretches of Kensington and Bayswater. But most of it makes me shrug my shoulders.

Princes Square, Bayswater, oil on card, 14.5 x 16 cm  - available

*

Many thanks to Lise and Felix for their generous hospitality in Westbourne Grove.

*

April in London, Paris, Scotland and Somerset.

I'm pleased to say that I'll be travelling in April: London- Paris- Edinburgh- Glasgow- Somerset and back to London.

I am most concerned about Paris, which I fear might have totally transformed into a museum city.

There is also the fact that my notions of Paris are so heavily informed by black and white photos of the 1930' and 40's, and by paintings by Utrillo. This is a problem as part of me is inclined tops seek to interpret and represent Paris through the pictorial devices used in a previous epoch by artists to communicate to another generation.

What can one do about this? Not much, except to be conscious of inauthentic responses. I had thought in the past of developing a self-consciousness about this by very deliberately painting touristic, postcard pictures, but I am not sure how successful this was: a steroptypical view remains one, regardless with what spirit it is seen or represented.

*

Do join me for a drink in any of these places if you feel like it. 

Edinburgh: pochades; some conclusions; travel; thanks

*

Edinburgh winter (Smith´s Place), oil on card, 11 / 13 cm  - available

Warehouses on Jane Street, Leith, oil on card, 9/ 12.5 cm  SOLD

Winter, Edinburgh  (Smith´s Place), oil on card, 11 / 13 cm  AVAILABLE

#

I went up to Edinburgh and delivered paintings to the Union Gallery: they have a fair selection now from Brazil, Tunisia and the UK.

I stayed down in Leith- thanks to Anna and Kenneth for putting me up.

Very cold, of course, but splendid and Edinburgh is splendidly schizophrenic too: that mixture of elevated architecture and ground level squalor that characterises Georgian British cities. In Leith on the ground: endless pubs, cut-price barbers shops, Polish delicatessents, advice centres and pound stores:  magnificent, sometimes battered, soiled sandstone neo-classical  above.

While I was in Scotland, a painting sold at the Royal Scottish Academy :

Small Pines, oil on card, 10 / 12 cm   SOLD

Conclusions

The best paintings of the trip are those which refect some subjective intimacy with the place: ergo those from the UK are, I feel, in some way richer. The Tunisian ones tend, at their most slight, towards a sort of orientalist tourist painting,. This is because I felt some obligation to paint the things that most obviously define somewhere,  not unforgivably as those are the reasons for visiting in the first place. But all places have a skin and the skin is not necessarily as interesting as the other organs within.

But, of course, one develops subjective relations with a place over time, and as I plan more visits to the Islamic world  this will surely develop.

The better pictures were mostly not the larger size (5/ 13 cm or so) but smaller say (10/ 11 cm). This has something to do with concentration, and to do with the changes in light (this is much less of an issue in Brasil where the sun rises and sets rapidly and more or less stays put in between).

The boxes I  use to transport pictures are popular and I have to develop these: not necessarily to make them fancier, but perhaps to make more consistent in terms of quality. The buyers do not like polystyrene: a pity as it is very easy to use to for packing: they prefer cardboard which has more charm. Also, the boxes need better labelling. I need to make a simple label I can write on and sign to identify the pictures after painting.

I am annoyed with the photos I took of some of the pictures, which is not the fault of the camera but my own carelessness. So I must endeavor to improve that.

Travel

Travel is often detestable. Of course seeing new places new places and trying new food and so on is wonderful. I mean lugging things about, waiting in check-in queues, feeling very tired, being ripped off and worriying about something or other; misunderstanding something pitifully simple because your school French is rusty. Unpacking is a bore too, as is packing and wearing grubby clothes. If I were wealthy these travails would lessen considerably: sadly the likelihood of that in the near future is not high. The poorer traveller must rely on wit, good planning, stamina and  the friendship of strangers.

The Tunisia trip was reasonably good in this respect: I had the sensible notion that staying anywhere for less than two nights would mean all the above challenges would be increased. And the Rough Guide is really very good (though I arrived in El Jem to find that the only hotel had been demolished).

If one is visiting a new country there is the tendency to want to see everything. But really good painting, is not a product so much of the subject as the mindset of the maker. Good pictures are constructed on a balance of knowledge and its opposite: ignorance and surprise. So a short-ish  trip allows both, and fleeting fleeting visits are usually hopeless (digital photography, which has become almost cost free, is aften a false friend to the traveller as it encourages an erroneous notion that experience can effortlessly be "captured").

Thanks

Many thanks to those who helped me over this trip : Lise, Chris, my parents, Anna and Kenneth, Matthew Cushen, Chris Anderson, Bilel,  and Chokri.

And thanks to the many anonymous souls who helped out in the innumerable small ways that make life more than tolerable.

*

Tunisia, London, Edinburgh

*

Well, the bags are packed and I'm off painting for a month. Maybe there will be a little show in London.

I'm glad to get away from internet-land with its strange fictions for a while, so I'll probably just check my emails occasionally.

In March, assuming the trip is successful, I'll post the paintings I've done: which is likely to be an odd and contrasting crop. I felt that the work from the recent Santa Catarina journey suffered from "sameyness"- the natural landscapes too alike to provide a varied crop- or my eye and skills too slight to emphasise sufficiently the differences between scenes.

Back to base

 Paintings from the Spey Valley leg of my trip: there are also som pictures from London, Brasil, and two still lives painted in Aberdeen.

Back.

Many pictures later, a good run of experiences and good news.

The trip had three stages: Taubate, Brasil,  London, The Spey Valley, Scotland and then London again.

I shall be posting the best of these in three postings. I also painted some little still lives.

I had some good news: the Union Gallery in Broughton Street, Edinburgh has taken my work, and will be dealing with it. This is excellent as it is a good Gallery with an interesting profile. I have raised the prices of paintings to 100 pounds sterling each. This is necessary to cover travel costs, which can be very high.

*

Many thanks to those who hosted me: Larry, Chris, my parents, my sister Anna and her husband Kenneth, and Lise and her son Felix. I simply could not do such a long trip without your help and support.

Rua Presidente Gama Rosa, Trindade; British trip 2011

*

Rua Presidente Gama Rosa, Trindade, oil on card, 12.9 x 10 cm - - available

Another of the paintings of streets in Itacorubi and Trindade.

*

I shall be in the UK in July. I will be in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and London. I hope to spend some time in London, probably exploring the suburbs of South London which for me often have a romantic appeal. But that depends on where I might stay.

I also want to go to Glasgow again, because I like the atmosphere there, the wonderful buildings of Alexander "Greek" Thomson , the red sandstone splendour of it all.

I'm pretty happy going where the wind blows me though, because I just like changing places.

The Garden City- more work

Here is some more recently completed work-

The Garden City

The first prints of the new series have dried, and I'm showing them on Flickr.

They're called "The Garden City", as a sort of homage to the planners of the nineteenth century.

I've structured the pieces with an underlying grid, with circles and other shapes overlain.

Edinburgh

Back in 2001 I did a series of monotypes based on city plans, called The Ideal City.
These were quite successful, and were featured in the Urban Planning journal, Planum.

They were also exhibited in The Polish Cultural Centre, in London, and a couple of prints sold to the accountancy firm Ernst and Young.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28509471@N05/sets/72157607392792398/

It's time for me to revisit these themes. I'm most interested in 18th and 19th cnetury planning- as seen in Edinburgh and London, especially the use of the "circus" used as a visual contrast to the more frequent rectilinear shapes.

My working methods here will be subjective- responding to the shapes and colours as I procedd, usually from a simple schematic base. I'm not going to copy the plans. I want to work from felt memory. I'm confident that I've internalised the ground plans of these cities.

And in the end, it is the emotional effect of the finished image that counts, not its veracity.