London lights

Tuesday 19. 11. 19 Just back from a week in London where I met up with Carole and Julia. Saw a number of exhibitions. Highlights were William Blake at Tate Britain, Peter Doig at Michael Werner and Anthony Gormley at the RA. Met two new people: Julian Huxley, photographer https://julianhuxley.wixsite.com/photography, outside Burberries and Oswald De Sybel at Tate Britain. Julian was taking a self portrait in the reflections of the display in the store and Julian was sketching me. I had interesting chats with both. Carole, Julia and I visited Maureen in Sandhurst, had a tasty dinner with Polly in Covent Garden and also saw the lights in Regent and Carnaby streets. A busy trip comme toujours!

Drawing Room

 

 

Monday 29. 07. 19 I have just spent an exciting, stimulating and fun week at the Summer School at the Elephant & Castle. What a week! Met up with some people from last year’s class and also met new friends. Lots of new experiences, new thoughts and new directions. Looking forward to seeing how all this will affect my new work.

London

Wednesday 22. 05. 19 Just got back this morning from a busy 5 days in London. Met Carol on Saturday and spent the whole day at the Crypt catching up. Sunday was Van Gogh at Tate Britain and Franz West and Dorothy Tanning at Tate Modern. Monday I took the train to Whitton and took a lot of photos of places from my childhood. Met Ed Harris for lunch at the Nelson and reminisced  about post-war Whitton. Tuesday saw an excellent Kubrick exhibition at the Design Museum and then visited my old school in Chiswick before heading back to Luton for the night. Took the 6.30am flight back home this morning.

London

Wednesday 20. 03. 19 Just got back from a busy 4 days in London. Besides seeing the Bonnard show at the Tate, I also saw the excellent Sorolla show at the National Gallery and a Rembrandt show at the British Museum. The highlight was probably the Doreen Fletcher show at the Nunnery gallery in Bow. Her paintings of the vanishing architecture of the East End of London in the 60s were wonderful altho the Sorolla paintings of children playing on the beach were also pretty great too! 

The Drawing Room

 

 

Saturday 08. 09. 18 I have just got back home after a week in London doing a workshop at the Drawing Room. What an amazing week! I can’t remember the last time I have been so excited. The teachers and the students were all wonderful and the atmosphere was really stimulating. Above are some works from the course. The top one was a project with Amalie Pica, drawing a familiar object, the next one with Lisa Brice and was of my feeling of vulnerabliity when I first entered the class full of women and the bottom was an exercise in tinting with Paul Noble using an 8H pencil.

London

Wednesday 02. 05. 18 Just back from 5 days in a damp, cold London. Saw some interesting expos, the highlights of which were the Degas show at the National Portrait Gallery and the David Mine at the Dulwich. Also did both Tates and the Saatchi. The Tate needs to get its act together as all the shows there were so overcrowded – they need to get timed attendances organised. The James Cook Voyages at the British Library was also very good. Besides that enjoyed some bitter, sausages & mash and fish & chips.

The photo is a sculpture on the platform at Brixton.

Snow

 

Thursday 01. 03. 18 We had 30 cm of snow yesterday! This resulted in my flight to London being cancelled and because I couldn’t find an alternative I had to cancel my trip. Tant pis!

York and London

Saturday 18.11. 17 Just got back in from a week in London and York with Julia and Daisy. I have always wanted to visit York and I wasn’t disappointed. A very accessible and fascinating place with its Roman and Viking history. Besides wandering around the town we visited two very modern museums – the York Castle Museum and the Jorvick Museum. The first covers all of York’s history and the second focusses on the Vikings. Both use very modern technology to get their message across. We also went to the excellent Railway Museum and Daisy and I went on a Ghost Walk.  After York we came back down to London and I went to various expos. Excellent Jasper Johns at the RA and Cézanne at the National Portrait Gallery. Also saw two good shows at Somerset house – one on the North and one on Sebald’s Melancholia. A stimulating week!

London, Bordeaux

herve

kiefer

lights

kentridge

 

Sunday 27. 11. 16 Just back from a trip to Bordeaux where I saw Marie-Pierre and Olivier, the Dordogne where I stayed with Marie-Annick and Hervé and London where I met Carole, Julia and Daisy and saw Carol. Highlights were seeing M-A & H’s new house, the Kentridge show at the Whitechapel and the Kiefer show at the White Cube Bermondsey and of course the Christmas lights.