Night Paintings by Paul Benney at Somerset House

Somerset House is an important arts and cultural centre based in central London in the strand overlooking the river Thames. In the winter it contains the ice ring in the summer they have acclaimed concerts exhibitions. They run regularly exhibitions of contemporary art, design and  family events workshops.

                                                                                     Into The Morning, 2008. Oil on Canvas.

Currently in the Underground Burial Chambers of Somerset House also known as the 'Dead House'  which is made out of a series of underground corridors containing in his alcoves the gravestone of seventeen-century nobility (no bodies) and usually not open to the public it runs underneath Somerset House J. Safra Fountain Court.  I saw the  exhibition: Night Paintings by British artist in residence Paul Benney. 

                                                           

The Burning, 2012.Oil on Wood.

 While exploring the alcoves containing the paintings I did notice two main themes going across his work. Half of his paintings represent nature at night or at sunrise where human figures are absent or playing a minor role in comparison to nature in the painting  giving a sense of feeling of isolation of man as the man is represented as small figure on the right hand side of the painting.While the other half have male figures positioned in the middle of the canvas apparently criminals represented as apostles giving a sense of allegorical meaning to the canvas.. So there is the theme of light versus darkness, most of the paintings the bottom side are in darkness while the light is shined from above on the top half of the canvas. For example we can see this in the painting 'Into the Morning' or in 'View from the Landing' or 'I Came unto Myself. In several of his paintings Also storytelling and the intangible is important and it's given by the titles of the paintings such Levitation, Snow in Jerusalem, I came unto Myself in a Dark Wood etc  but they do describe to the viewer the painting instead of making the viewer guess figure out what is not there. 

All the paintings have been made using oils on wood or canvas or on board some also include resin or encoustic which makes one think that the artist Tome Benney  appreciates, has an interest in traditional methods of making  paintings one can see this in reference to paintings such as 'Burning Moors' which remind me of the vast landscapes of Turner while other paintings made me think of Goya haunted black paintings such as The Colossus and The Incantation, see below. He enjoys working with elements or representing the elements such as water, fire and most of his paintings have been made using muted colours to give a sense of things not defined to give an atmospheric dream like state as one can see from the Painting: Snow in Jerusalem, 2012. Oil on Wood.

Goya, Colossus.

Another of Goya's Haunted paintings; The Incantation.

Pyramids

Lately I have been studying researching ancient Pyramids in Egypt, like many others I have been fascinated with their impressive scale, their hidden meanings the geometry behing them but I am also also looking at how the image of the pyramid is  been used now days in a completly different context by varied artists. I am doing this as in the future I would like to work on a conceptual piece based on the  image of the pyramid but I am also interested in the social meaning more to do with Capitalism that has come up in some Contemporary American artists to challenge the notion of Capitalism as it stands at the moment & their version of producing something alternative to Capitalism: a more equal social structure.

Officially Ancient Pyramids where tombs of the Pharaos and their Queens. But the variety of symbols, their positions made people study & discover other meanings. Some people say they are symbolic of a mountain, that the square base actually rappresents the four corners of the world and four directions and that the peak connects the sky to the earth basically it is a path between the wordly and the heavenly so they where houses of eternity but it also rappresented social class. The social structure was based on power. The Paraoh was at the top with officials then priests then scribes last where the peasants. If One compares this with the contemporary artwork, performance by occupy LA with Robby Herbst where they mirror contemporary class dynamics inspired by a 1911 diagram by industrial workers of the World called Pyramid of the Capitalism system.Robby Herbst & Occupy LA work seems to be about how we act or how we move our bodies to shape the pyramid or reshape and doing so how we shape and reshape our society, our place in the pyramid or how he said it: how we construct and enact the pyramidal form. Or by his other work stacked chairs which I find really freeing, from the obsolate strict hierachy structure of Capitalism which is based on money and power, as anybody can sit on the chairs at any given time

 I am also interested in the Maslow hiererchy of needs, by the American Psychologist Abraham Maslow, which is potrayed in the shape of the pyramid where he says phychological needs have priority over other needs and they should be met first  where self actualization is most important and especially by the fact that he says that without a balance between physical, financial, health, wellbeing, safety maybe  due to war, family violence, abuse people or economic crisis as we are experiencing at the moment a lot of people are at a disadvantage and experience post traumatic stress. So what interest me is not only the physical rappresentation of the pyramid but also the psycholgical, emotional side which in a capitalistic society is taken aside behind producing and consuming. 

There is also the work of David Huffman: Basketball Pyramid  at SF Arts Commission Gallery where he looks at race trought the use of the basketballs, a popular object known to almost any American. Then there is the work of Beau Blinky which is completly different it's more sculputural in a more traditional way on the right hand side he is interested in outdoor sculptures more then indoor conceptual work so another different function of the pyramid.

and then there the minimalist Isometric paintings Pyramid of Sol Let Witt which are directly painted onto a wall as other minimalist artists he was interested in the idea not to show that the artist had created the painting so he left just instructions on how to paint it for others to do it.

 Sample of other art works rappresenting pyramids made from scraps or Lego

Or the human body as the pyramid through it's chakra centres as it's known in new age circles. I have been looking at the different forms and meanings of the pyramid for my own conceptual work I am interested in the actual physical structure, the geometry but also by the different concepts that have been used by contemporary artists that have used the image of the pyramid combined with concepts to open a discussion about Capitalism and our role in society.  

                                

Alan Cristea Gallery: Edmund de Waal

I was crisscrossing around Bond Street when I pass by the Alan Cristea Gallery a commercial art gallery in
Cork Street  when the exhibition inside got my attention.The artist on show is Edmund de Wall.

The title of the exhibition is a Thousand Hours an installation of black and white cases open and closed of a rectangular size in one room and in the other room another closed case of a large scale that one can walk  move around giving it more of an architectural feel. Inside of the cases one can see long  tubular ceramics or flat ceramics of a similar shape and of similar colour positioned closely together in the case of the tubular ceramics or one on top of the other in the case of the flat ceramics both are made out of porcelain. The colours of the pots work together with the outside colours of the cases, they give out to the viewer a sense of harmony combined with the rectangular precision of the shape of the cases which make one think more of carefully designed objects of an architectural nature viewed in public spaces then pottery based in a house. Also  the pots are individually made by the artist and have a natural imprecise feel to them which  are counteracted by the precision of the shape of the cases which give out the idea that the artist wants to hold the vessels somehow in space not to frame them but to be wanting them to hold them in their movement this is allowed by the fact that the viewer can walk around or through the cases and feels surrounded by the vitrine pots from below and above . Some are easy to see while other are hidden behind the opaque glass of the cases, so they are out of reach. Edumund de Wall said that he liked 'to record the thousand hours of tiredness, exhilaration (spent while making the work): my sense of the fleeting moment and its afterlife'.

The works I have seen at the Gallery where: Weights & Measures,2011:small stacked ceramic dishes apparently it was inspired by the work of Richard Serra Weight and Measure which was exhibited in the Halls of Tate Britain in 1992.

Poetry also features in Edmund de Wall work in pieces such as a Lament 2012, Three Poems of Return 2012 and in The Pleidaes Hide Away,2012

The first one is based on Giotto's 'Lamentation' this can be seen by the fact that the work is been installed up high to give a feeling of release similar to the Angels in Giotto's Lamentation where they are seen above the scene of mourning of the Christ.

 

 In the second one the ideas is based on Sappho's Fragment 44 written in response to the Iliad. I also did  notice that he doesn't use the whole text of a poem but just fragments of it. The third art work is based on the ancient Greek poet Hesiod (c.750-650BC)and his work the Atronomy where he wrote about constellations, stars  and on the Pleiades the  mythological daughters on Atlas which where considered by Greek astronomers as distinct constellations. All of this is represented using 'stopped' shelves to signify the fragments of Hesiod's text of the constellations combined with the black glazes of the actual pieces to evoke the essence of the galaxies at night.

One other important reference to the specific piece of In Praise of Shadows, 2012 is the essay by Ju'ichiro Tanizaki on Japanese aesthetics where it's discussed the importance of light and dark and how some things should be left in the shadows and others should be brought to light. All of this made me think that Japanese aesthetics as had a strong influence on his work and the way he works and displays his art work. Over all he is been able to successfully join traditional methods of work with contemporary more conceptual  so to join east and west.With this exhibition is been able to bring into a contemporary conceptual setting pottery so to reach a wider and different audience is been able to combined traditional methods with modern methods the fine artists with the potter.

This exhibition made me rethink at the way I display my own ceramics generally I have shown my ceramics on pillars but with my current sculptural work that I have been recently making I want to experiment and place them on shelves on a wall to see what effect this has on the viewer. My ceramics are very different from Edmund de Wall works as his work the vessels seem to be mainly pottery done on a wheel. My ceramics are not done using a pottery wheel. As I see the wheel as a barrier between myself and the actual piece I am working on but I think I should definitely experiment more with different types of clays and work with porcelain and  experiment with new glazes.

 I have noticed that anyhow I do use a wider range of glazes then the once used by Edmund de Wall he seems to focus on a uniform layout he looks at the overall and how it works together while at the moment I am more interested in exploring on how the individual piece works within itself in a self sufficient way.

My ceramic sculptures have both abstract and figurative elements and I mix the two sometimes depending on what I am working on. Below is an example of my latest ceramic piece. The process of choosing the correct glazes combined with the correct temperature to fire the ceramic pieces is enjoyable exciting but also time consuming and at times frustrating as not always the ceramics come out as you think they would due to the machine not working properly or the glazes been to thin down or to thick. Still I do enjoy working in clay because it's a non rigid form of making sculptural work  and I see a lot of potential in it for conceptual work.                                                  

                                                         Mirta Imperatori copyright 2012

White Cube Mason's Yard: Magnus Plessen

Went and had a snoop around White Cube in Mason's Yard which is located in the centre of London near Jermyn street not far from the Royal Academy in between Piccadilly Circus and Green Park and near Fortnum and Mason so again we are talking about an expensive area. It's really accessible based in a courtyard. Mason's Yard used to be the home to the Indica Gallery where John Lennon and Yoko Ono met, not far in 13 Mason Yard was the Scotch  a major hang out for music events. Jimi Hendrix played there when he first came to London, they have now changed the name of the venue. It's very different to how it used to be in the 1960's in the times where there was buzz in the air and a lot of things where happening. I mean the White Cube in Mason's Yard looks again sleek and stylish and it adds more contemporary art to the area but lacks in the 1960's party experimental element. Sadly it's all about business this days with many galleries. Anyway I saw the exhibition of the German artist Magnus Plessen. All the paintings are made on canvas using bright colours he used the same colour range and style in all the paintings. The bright colours added a playfulness to the work a theatrical element to the fragmented figures. The paintings look like collages: he turns the canvas 90 or 180 degrees as a way of getting away from an individual view point to create multiple and simultaneous viewpoints of flat surface. I felt that the paintings worked better in the downstairs room as the room was wider  to accommodate his large paintings then the upstairs one where they felt a bit cramped.

Fractal Geometry & My Digital Art.

According to this post from Sacred Geometry Mandala Art, Phytagoras described geometry as visual music. Music is created by applying laws of frequency and sound in certain ways. States of harmonic resonance are produced when frequencies are combined in ways that are in unison with universal law.

So sacred geometry is used in Tibetan Buddhist Mandalas & in building religious Cathedrals or temples.

These same laws can be applied to produce visual harmony. Instead of frequency and sound it is angle and shape that are combined to produce visual symphonies that show the harmonic unification of diversity. The same spiral is found across the universe, with spiralling galaxies using the same ratios.

What is the golden Ratio, in short the Golden Ratio is 1.61803399, this numerical value finds itself in many places in nature and the universe, if you have seen Leonardo' Vitruvian man it's the dissection of the human body using the Golden ratio. So Leonardo da Vinci can be said to be the 'Godfather' in the use of fractal mathematics in the arts as you can see from his work below.

Recently I have also been looking at fractal geometry and it's usages in computer graphics. As Computer Graphics artist use fractal forms to create textured landscapes that give more of a 3D look, mountain views but one can also use the more basic form of the Sierpinski Triangle above as part of one owns deign or the Koch Snowflake construction or like Paul Cezanne wrote to Emile Bernard in 1904: Everything in Nature is modelled according to the sphere, the cone and the cylinder you have to paint with reference to the simple shapes: than you can do anything. By contrast in Fractal Geometry of Nature Benoit Mandelbrot the Mathematician responsible for coning the name fractal had different view on this saying that: clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles and bark is not smooth nor does lightning travel in a straight line and he also said that to appreciate the nature of fractals recall Galileo's splendid manifesto that's said: 'Philosophy is written in the language of mathematics and it's characters are triangles,circles and other geometric figures without which one wanders about in a dark labyrinth.'

Some great fractals are also the Julia sets, devised by the French mathematician Gaston Julia (1893-1978). The Julia Sets are generated by applying an iterative non-linear process based on a very simple square-law function.

I am also interested in the space filling-curve: is a curve whose range contains the entire 2-dimensional unit square or n-dimensional hypercube Giuseppe Peano was the first one to discover one so they are usually called the Peano curves here is an example.

There are fractals in nature such as broccoli with their molecular structure and I have been  thinking to incorporate this different elements in my digital art work. At the moment my digital art work is not inspired from nature but I would like to introduce more natural elements to see if it gave my digital art work a more realistic or natural look and to experiment with patterns, or maybe incorporate photographs of objects into my digital art work

The challenge with digital art  is that it looks good on the computer screen but sometimes when one prints out the work it doesn't look as good or takes on a fantasy, fantastic style look like the examples below and it all turns into the same sleek 'fantasy kind of theme'. So I have been questioning by looking at other digital work, fractals, Op art on how to make my digital art work stand out original different from the general fantasy landscapes I see around but also printable that could be shown in an actual Gallery Space by using geometry as a way of depicting spacial depth this is still work in progress as in digital art the better the equipment one has the better the digital art work. There is also the challenge that digital art is still seen in a separate section from main stream art it would really be great  to break this boundary and that digital art become more main stream and accepted in main stream art as it is just another medium to make art and being creative.

                                          Mirta Imperatori Copyright 2012

                                         Mirta Imperatori Copyright 2012

                                         Mirta Imperatori Copyright 2012

This is my current digital art work that I have been recently working on. I have been experimenting with geometrical shapes and non to create spatial landscapes. I hope in the future to learn new programmes as this I am the moment is limiting the type of digital art work I am producing. For the current artwork I just used one computer programme I am familiar with.