Meet the Collectors: Kathleen Garman and Sally Ryan

 04/09/20

Meet the Collectors: Kathleen Garman and Sally Ryan

Published in the Autumn 2020 issue of Art Quarterly

Reviews of Pablo Bronstein and the Treasures of Chatsworth at Nottingham Contemporary and Reality at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

06/09/15
Pablo Bronstein and the Treasures of Chatsworth
Nottingham Contemporary
4 July - 20 September 2015

and

Reality: Modern and Contemporary British Painting
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
10 July - 29 November 2015

Published in The Mail on Sunday, 06/09/15

Review of Reflections on the Self: From Dürer to Struth at Christie’s Mayfair

10/06/15

Reflections on the Self: From Dürer to Struth

Christie’s Mayfair, London

2 June – 5 September 2015

Artists since time immemorial have painted self-portraits: at times because models’ fees were beyond their meagre means; at times because they found themselves in isolation; at times simply because no one knows anyone as well as he knows himself and such intimate knowledge permits exploration and honesty, the freedom to experiment, and fulfils the desire to express.

For its sixth exhibition, Christie’s Mayfair, the auction house’s dedicated exhibition space, brings together more than 50 artists and 70 works showing the diversity of media, formats and styles used by artists to reflect their selves, from Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) to Thomas Struth (b1954). A rare 15th-century woodcut by the former, The Bathhouse (c1496-97), depicts the artist leaning on a wooden support, a tap comically positioned where his genitals should be, wistfully watching the other men as they bathe. A photograph by Struth, Alte Pinakothek, Self-Portrait Munich (2000), from his Museum Portraits series, looks over the artist’s shoulder at the well-known later self-portrait by Dürer (1500). The exhibition as a whole is framed by this one work.

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/reflections-on-the-self-from-duerer-to-struth-christies-london

Review of Jasper Johns: Regrets at the Courtauld Gallery

01/10/14

Jasper Johns: Regrets

Courtauld Gallery, London
12 September – 14 December 2014

This small but hugely powerful exhibition of work by Jasper Johns (b1930) is the second in the Courtauld’s new series of shows by contemporary artists who speak to a longer history of art. The 10 works selected might be seen not only to summarise the oeuvre of Johns himself, demonstrating many of his known methods and stylistic marks, but also to tell a wider story of art and artists, their processes and interactions, and, more broadly, a prescient – and Old Masterly – tale of life and death.

In the early summer of 2012, Johns was sent a Christie’s auction catalogue for the sale of Francis Bacon’s Study for Self-Portrait (1964). In it was a full-page reproduction of a photograph by John Deakin, showing Lucian Freud posing on a cheap bedstead in Bacon’s studio. Bacon had, unusually, used this photograph as the starting point for his self-portrait. Johns became entranced by the image, which, in its reproduced form, had heavy black areas where Bacon had folded and torn the original, and where the copiers had placed the damaged original on a backing sheet, and thick, wiggly lines, where he had creased it. For the next 18 months, Johns worked solely with this image, creating and recreating numerous versions in pencil, pastel, watercolour, charcoal, ink on mylar, oil on canvas and etchings with numerous state proofs. All but the etchings are on display here.

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/jasper-johns-regrets-courtauld-gallery-francis-bacon-lucian-freud

Portfolio: Flora Malpas

15/08/14

Portfolio: Flora Malpas

“It was the themes of fragility, vulnerability and social exclusion that interested me, perhaps because of my own sense of being on the fringe because of my sexuality,” explains Greenwich-based artist Flora Malpas of her early oil paintings of residents of a care home for adults with learning and physical disabilities, often shown at a game of Scrabble.

Influenced by Lucian Freud and Graham Sutherland, Malpas likes artists who use expressive brushstrokes to communicate the sitter’s personality. “I’m interested in the individuality within each sitter and the potential to investigate your relationship with the subject through the painting process,” she says. This includes her relationships with her family members, as well as with her girlfriend Rose, a regular feature in her work.

Wanting to spend more time on her art, despite a day job, Malpas can regularly be found drawing as she travels on the underground. From her many sketchbooks, she recently began to make prints. “I’d like to do an exhibition of just prints of commuters – ‘67 faces on the tube’ or something along those lines. I make the sketches on the tube, then transfer them onto lino at home, then carve them on the tube, so there’s a strong theme of journeys there.” Malpas’s artistic journey is just beginning, so watch this space!

http://www.floramalpas.com

https://www.artfinder.com/floramalpas

http://www.saatchiart.com/floramalpas

To see this full portfolio, please buy the September issue of DIVA magazine