ICAW EXHIBITION - CASORIO CONTEMPORARY ART, NAPOLI, ITALIA

Drawing after Thomas Jones. September 2015. Andrew Smith. Mixed Media on paper 120 x 210cm approx

For this part of the project I would like to make digital video and photographic work of the area around Castel Nuovo and the roofline of the Palazzo Reale. Having focused on the geometry in the painting, the new works would focus on contemporary city aspect with moving image.

My proposal is to present the drawing study in Casoria Contemporary Art Museum with a reproduction of the Jones painting and the new digital work. The new digital work would be recently made on site and unedited. 

This part of the project would need to be completed by April 2016.

But now the project idea has now formed part of the ICAW exhibition and the drawing will be shown in December. Films on location will be made for a later digital film based artwork.

Summary:

One day pop up installation of drawing work, Jones reproduction, digital video and photographic work (tablet or projector) at Casoria Contemporary Art Museum. Photographic recording of the event; reflective commentary and development of digital record and artwork to feature in the exhibition September 2016.

Context response to Jones for the project:

“The painting however, that caught my eye was one that I had seen before but forgotten. Buildings in Naples, with the North-East Side of the Castel Nuovo 1782.
This was an outstanding painting and the colour resonated across its surface with deep greens, greys and blues and ochres all in an orchestration of composition. I was so thrilled to see that it was one of the National Museum Cardiff collection paintings and therefore eligible for the project! It also is of a defined place in Naples. Rather than anonymous buildings and corners or walls this was an identifiable place that I might possibly visit for location work. This would be difficult for many of the Naples works as they were of course (and as is intrinsically part of their understated power) anonymous views of the backstreets, but this might be possible with two distinct spires and the corner of the Castel Nuovo and the roofline of the Palazzo Reale”. Andrew Smith March 2015

Further research and project work at:

AIL-WNEUD / AIL-DDYFEISIO RE-TAKE/RE-INVENT project blog

SHORTLIST FOR BUTETOWN PUBLIC ART COMMISSION

LOUDOUN AND NELSON HOUSE ART WORK

TIGER BAY: REFLECTIONS

 Sketch study for the Public Art Commission Interview November 2015

AR YMYL LLIW - EDGE OF COLOUR II - REVIEW

The exhibition has now closed with 2,400 recorded visitors. The hang was very good and I liked particularly the space around each of these small paintings. Architecturally in the main theatre space the works seemed to resonate with the columns and arches and reminded me of the installation in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico in 2004. This review was by the artist Branwen Lisa:

"I thought it was interesting the way you shaped the pictures so that they played with perspective, there was one in particular I had to do a double-take with as it really looked as if it was curling. I think the geometric shapes work well in general and better than when you used shapes like Stuart Davis as it reminded me too much of his and made it hard to see your own take on things for me (sorry!). I like it when you introduce the different textures too, that scumble of maroon and the purple with the feathered edging, it seems you have such a breadth of scope to work with colour now, it must be very exciting". October 2015

Photos of the Installation


Photos of the Series 17 Paintings

AR YMYL LLIW II - EDGE OF COLOUR II - UCHELDRE HOLYHEAD

Gouaches submitted for 133rd Royal Cambrian Academy Annual

Two gouaches from 2014 are submitted for this year's Royal Cambrian Academy Annual Summer Exhibition. The first 27.04.14 was made at the time of my visit to Palma, Majotca. Here a relative series of small paintings were made whilst at Universitat de les Illes Balears (see previous post 2014).
Both of these works consider the construction of an image through the use of colour. I was interested to see if movement and areas of focus could be possible through an unconscious application of areas of colour over time.

RE take / RE invent diary film 3 02 04 15

In this third film of making the first series of studies after the Thomas Jones, we talk about the painting of the walls and brushwork in Buildings in Naples and how this leads to forming layers in the new paintings.

Editor's Choice: The Conversation 15.05.15

The world’s most expensive painting is too sexually explicit for Fox news

Full pre editorial article:

Picasso At Auction: Is Picasso’s Painting worthy to be the World’s Most Expensive Painting?

 

Pablo Picasso's Women of Algiers (Version O) that has recently sold for a record breaking price at Christie’s auction house, New York is a seminal painting in a number of different ways. Firstly, it is the last and arguably the best in a large series of paintings working from the same subject, made over a short time early in 1955. It is a homage to Matisse, who had recently died, but also importantly referencing Delacroix, one of Picasso’s great Masters to whom he returned again and again throughout his career to reinterpret through what is a called transcription, the reworking of a previous subject or theme. Indeed, the catalogue entries for this series of paintings includes, After Delacroix in the titles. In this final painting, all of the compositional changes and alterations that Picasso has been working through in the series (only made between January and February 1955) had come to a point of culmination. The painting features four femal figures, referencing Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s most recent partner who strikingly resembled the central figure of the Delacroix painting Femmes d'Alger of 1834 (Louvre, Paris) and Francoise Gilot, Picasso’s former lover, who is there in the doorway retreating into background. It is a secluded interior with eroticism; calm and refined with sharpened edges to the limbs, torsos and body parts, accentuated and almost upturned gestures and positioning. Characteristically for Picasso who worked incessantly in series over years and decades, there are in this painting, absorbed forms, dissolved and recomposed motifs as the artist is looking for a new pictorial structure and dynamic. Jacqueline Roque had recently entered Picasso’s life for the final phase of his life, and is represented in sensual erotic form; Francoise exits and drifts back towards the doorway and on the day before this painting was made Picasso’s early wife Olga (mother of Paulo) dies in Cannes. Not only with this grand concoction of life and art being present in this painting but with the additional historical context that Delacroix’s painting was made shortly after the French conquest of Algeria and during the autumn of 1954 Algeria’s uprising for independence began, we have the recipe for a major painting in the history of art.  

 

The auction painting is the last and certainly one of the best of the transcriptions Picasso made. It has been widely shown in major exhibitions including the Picasso Retrospective in New York, 1980 and the great Late Picasso show at Tate Britain in 1988 making it highly visible and desirable for collectors. It does sit as one of the major works of Picasso’s later career partly because it does reference the history of art with regard to Picasso’s awareness of the passing of Matisse and the context that both artists felt they identified with the continuation and tradition of painting. It is probably worthy of the top price for art because aside from the fact that Picasso is the towering figure of twentieth century art this is a well exhibited artwork and is from an important point in the artist’s life and creative output. In fact, it is quite unusual that such a well known work comes to the auction room at all and as such, it was almost bound to break all previous auction records. But the question now remains as to whether or not it will be seen in public again. If not, and as the buyer is anonymous (the painting was in the Victor Ganz collection, New York) this suggests that may be the case and then this would be a loss to the art visiting public as the panting will disappear from public view to be kept exclusively in a private gallery and not available for loan for maybe decades to come. What can we, as the art visiting public, actually do? Well, very little except to ensure that the art we have in national public galleries are maintained and secure for us, the art viewing public to be able to continue to experience works first hand and moreover for governments to ensure that strategies for acquiring works for the nation are in place and used effectively.  Recently, a collection of 40 paintings by Frank Auerbach belonging to his friend the painter Lucien Freud who died in 2011 have been distributed to about 20 galleries including Cardiff, Aberdeen and Belfast in lieu of a 16m inheritance tax bill. The collection includes some important works and it is encouraging that these have not entered the auction rooms and will remain for public gaze. There are ways for governments to act on the public’s behalf and secure, whenever possible, quality artworks to add to our national collections of art. For now, for those of us fortunate to have seen Women of Algiers (Version O) first hand, the painting will remain a residual image in our memory until perhaps sometime in the future it resurfaces via the auction houses once again.

RE take / RE invent diary film 2 - 21.03.15

In this film I reflect on the perceived distance from Jones at this stage and on the usefulness of tracking the work in relation to the process of making.

RE take / RE invent

This is the first film post for the project REtake REinvent that we are working on at Bangor University. The film introduces studies I am working on in relation to my chosen painting by Thomas Jones of Pencerrig.

Film of Paintings in the Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts Łódź Poland

Short film of 4 minutes 40 seconds of the exhibition In and Out of the Citadel at Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts Łódź Poland in December 2014. The film features four paintings from the Seventeen Series (the four also shown at the Royal Cambrian Academy 132nd Summer Exhibition in June 2014). The exhibition features a group of artists from Wales and Europe.

Installation at One Alfred Place for Store Street Gallery London

Three paintings first shown in Oriel Davies Newtown 2007 in the solo exhibition En Route have recently returned from a four month installation at One Alfred Place, London, W1 for the Store Street Gallery:

Paintings in the Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts Łódź Poland

Four paintings from the Seventeen series from 2013 - 14 are on show in the Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts Łódź Poland in a group show In and Out of Citadel  organised by the Academy and ICAW. Film work Synchronicity II 3 by 5 with composer Dimitri Rastoropov is also on exhibition. The paintings are well spaced on the gallery walls in the main area of the two tier gallery space at the Academy. Slightly longer spaces in between each from left to right.

Opening Reception Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts Łódź Poland

Seven Traces Visual Art Festival comes to Caernarfon

The nomadic visual art fair is taking place in Caernarfon at the moment. My work synchronicity banner can be seen at the the Institwt, Penrallt. The work builds on previous projects that have used external banner format and the methodology of combining bars of colour to create a chromatic identity.

For full conceptual details on the festival, artists and workshop information click here to transfer to the website

LLAWN02 – The Presence Of Absence – final post

The final painting went on show in the empty and atmospheric setting of the Tudno Castle Hotel, Llandudno united with the pewter plate along with 9 other artworks and objects.
Culture Colony with curator Marc Rees made a film of all the artists and this can be viewed here:
Culture Colony Llawn02 Nine Artists and their Objects

LLAWN02 – The Presence Of Absence – post eight

 The E shape from Cranbourne is a light green; I like the challenge of having the lighter colours making the exterior shape and having to work with the heavier middle colours – it forces a different kind of space. I am building up the ‘pavement’ areas remembering the idea of the sloping camber on the grey slate slabs around the square. I want to get that idea of shifting uneven space; the dark red arm in the centre reaches in to accentuate this. Now the yellow, fluorescent yellow, is applied below the shadow of the plate. This creates a strong tonal contrast here – the shadow a deep blue-red almost black-like, and this strong contrast emphasis the main form. I am thinking again about the centre of the plate – there is so much opportunity for more compositional elements here; it is good to be thinking of painters like Juan Gris and how they described form in such an original way. Some elements will be left out, I don't want to have all the answers in the painting; what is not there is part of the end experience. There is much sharpening of the colour areas to do. Where one area meets another is crucially important to the authenticity of the painting. The next post will be the final stage. Before this the painting will go to Llawn 02 to find the pewter plate.

LLAWN02 – The Presence Of Absence – post seven

The plate form has developed with a range of greys and dry brush pulled around the imaginary rim of the plate. I have central section of the plate, the inner ellipse-plane as an area for compositional elements rather than a flat surface. The red zig-zig is able to run through it with an illusion of interlocking transparency. This seemed in painting to create another form to the left and an excuse for a further green mark replicating the swerve of the ellipse. I am also building up the colour areas, reinforcing transparent and semi transparent colours like red.

LLAWN02 – The Presence Of Absence – post six

In working with the plate form it has to fit with the support shape on the right and not extend over the edge of the left side; this would compromise the integrity of the idea.

When painting this I am thinking about Patrick Caulfield. It is great to be revisiting an object form that is really quite descriptive. One of the things I like about Caulfield is the austerity of form. On the one hand familiar everyday 70’s and 80’s interiors and still life but they have a real distance about them. I am not sure how this is achieved but the strong flat areas of colour in both the form, shadow and surround will be part of the answer.

LLAWN02 – The Presence Of Absence – post five

In working with the painting I have decided to keep the pewter plate as one form with its complete ellipse. This makes the form more complete somehow and breaking it would seem contrived and really be a fudge – avoiding the complexity of creating a convincing plate form in paint. Of course, the integration of the form with the overall composition is another question. This will be achieved through colour areas emphasising the imagined shadows or tonal effect and by having a transparent dimension to the form to allow interlocking and compositional elements to flow across the painting. The strong diagonal form from top left to centre right will run through the bottom of the plate form – at least to start with.

LLAWN02 – The Presence Of Absence – post four

The support for my painting is medium density fibreboard. I am making a shaped support cut (drawn) with the jigsaw to include imagined elements of the planned painting. The main feature of this work is, of course, the pewter plate and I want this to define its own edge on one side of the painting. To this end, two thirds of the way down the right side, the ellipse-plate-form will define the side. I had to cut with a jigsaw the curved edge of the plate with quite a sharp bend as is seen on a 30 degree angle. The plate is also not to be on a horizontal plane to increase the dynamic.

After acrylic priming the painting is now started. I am not sure whether to include a complete pewter plate on an angle or have it fragmented and in two interlocking halves; this may give it a greater dynamic. The colours are used from the digital research previously described and using a limited range of system 3 acrylic paints.