It is art show season here in Oxfordshire. I will be going to much of it and for last bank holiday weekend was Henley Arts Trail. I have exhibited in this in the past but this time I decided not to, so I could attend as a visitor and take it all it. This is a brief summary of some of my stars. Not pictured but worth a mention is Si Sapsford who displayed a number of excellent and very intriguing paintings and ceramics. She was exhibiting on her own, out of her studio and I do like seeing an artists studio. So that was good. Then next was the Henley Arts and Craft Guild (of which I used to be a member) displaying at the Old Fire Station Gallery where I recently exhibited. It was very well curated this year. It is always challenging hanging such a large group show and having a crowded wall is unavoidable. Within this restrictions it had been hung very well and there were a number of things I really liked. Sarah Pye, who I know a bit, is an established and successful artist who paints mainly large colourful rural scenes in Acrylic. It was therefore a very pleasant surprise to see this striking, slightly grungy and threatening painting of Henley Bridge. I hope she does more like this. Very intriguing indeed was the work by Janet Watson (above left). who does these skin graft like pieces made of ceramics, embroidery and silk. They have a slightly disturbing organic quality but the colour choice and general composition makes it strong, I think. Next up is Katy Garrod (above top right) who paints in acrylic but breaks up and elevates (I think in any event) the composition with collage. Below this is Jenny Lee's "Element". Sometimes, if they are done well I love these scratchy, brown and black abstract compositions. And I like this one. Lastly at the Old Fire Station Gallery, at least of my selections is Barry Wall's Green Dish (above). I love ceramics, particularly ceramics with this internal lustre and the two town glowing gem like blue really appeals to me and is set off by the green very nicely. I do have a fondness for ceramics and so I was sorely tempted by these salt bowls (above left) on display in the Jacobini gallery and produced by Rhian Winsalde. They have a lovely lustrous interior with a salty looking roundel at the bottom which contrasts nicely with the white ceramic itself. Each one is matched with an individual spoon which I appreciate. Onto sculpture. The Oxford Sculpture group always produces a good show. Previously they were at Greys Court but this year they were at the Leander Club which displayed them to good effect. There was a large selection varying to small and affordable to large and not. Daren Greenhow produces some of the affordable end. I have seen his stuff before and I greatly enjoy them. These two owls (above left) show perfectly his skill and his appeal. They are charming and interesting and I like the steam punk aesthetic. Lilly Henry similarly and in this case produced this delightful Puffin sculpture (above right). She is a talented sculptor as she also produced some of the larger works on display which were very striking. My favourite venue was Oaken Grove Vineyard, although I will admit to bias as it is run by an old school friend of mine. Having these sculpture scattered around the vines was very effective and encouraged you to wonder around to discover them. I have said this before but wine and art work very well together. They, and the rural venue all fed of each other so you had a large number of visitors with the wine encouraging purchase of the art and vice versa. Bronwen Coussens is someone I know and whose work I admire. She produces very fine ceramics and these blue and white ceramics pieces are a good example of her work (above left). I was also taken with these spiky and knobbly pieces produced by Anne Marie Chiasson (above left). I like the shape, the way the colour deepens as the piece descends and the golden metal.
I shall leave it there. I was a good trail. I might take part next year.
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This time one of the hooks for the show was that they had displayed some of the paintings with the outfits (or parts of the outfit) next to it. In some cases, like the above sumptuous dresses, or in other cases fans, or hats or similar. Sargent, as well as being very good at people is a master of displaying fabric or clothing and part of how he painted people was choosing what they were wearing, and how they were posed. Staging it, if you will. So as you enter the show you are greeted with a black dress next to the portrait of the woman who wore it and you get to admire just how accurately he painted them. While I admired the clothing and the skill in which they were made I much preferred the paintings and the clothes look better in the painting. As with the portraits in general they glow. One of the issues with portrait shows and reacting to the paintings is that there is quality and skill of the painting but also the sitter. If for some reason I don’t like or are not drawn to the sitter then I don’t really like the painting. I often wonder to what extent this is because the painter did not like them either. So there were a number of paintings of vaguely military men, or the Sassoon family which I did not like because I took against the subject. In the second room there was a very striking woman in a simple, but elegant black dress. It seems no coincidence that many of the sitters are good looking women. There are some exceptions of course. The way in which Sargent renders the folds and lines of the dress, set off by her alabaster skin. It does look like something out of fashion magazine. What I did like seeing though was a version of the painting that was unfinished and so it would seem that Sargent does the figures before the background. On his background, they are never just one colour, but mottled. The paintings I was most drawn too were that of women with their children. They were intimate but also seemed to show some kind of maternal strength which I liked seeing. The one of the woman of the right particularly seems to be saying if you come near my children I’ll swear I’ll do time. The children are all depicted as sweet and vulnerable and again in these sumptuous outfits. These pictures also show how Sargeant is adept are depicting interiors and furniture, deep reds of wood and the shine of gilt. These paintings again show Sargeant’s ability to depict pleats and folds of clothing. But what particularly impressed me is how he depicted organza, translucent type material, with whatever is underneath, and arm or other clothing is underneath showing through. I studied these for a while to try and think how he did it. With difficulty was my only conclusion. There were some men in appearance. The painting on the left, the Duke of Ponzi (possibly not Ponzi, I can’t read my own notes) at home, is one I have seen before. I very handsome and striking fellow in an amazing outfit, particularly his slippers and I would love to have the fashion sense and self confidence to wear something and present myself like that. The contrasting red gives a sumptuous devil like feeling. How I actually feel though is like the gentleman on the right with his disheveled appearance. I think it is interesting that he was painted by Sargeant. The disdain for his appearance and the holding of the piece of paper also shows an intellectualism that I aspire too, in a difference way. As with all good portrait painters there is a definite feeling of the character in there. You feel that you are in their presence. Not all the paintings are of society people, although most are. One of my favourites is this golden number of a Spanish dancer. You can tell that’s what she is from across the room by her stance, and her attitude. You can picture her hammering out a flamenco number and indeed that is what she was famous for. They have her dress on display too, a sumptuous affair with very fine needle work. Not all the paintings are of society people, although most are. One of my favourites is this golden number of a Spanish dancer. You can tell that’s what she is from across the room by her stance, and her attitude. You can picture her hammering out a flamenco number and indeed that is what she was famous for. They have her dress on display too, a sumptuous affair with very fine needle work. We return to glamorous women now and again we see Sargeant’s mastery of painting fabrics. The painting on the left is the sexiest painting in the display. She is the only subject who I read as having what might be determined an alluring look. Most, if not all of the other sitters are either upright or leaning forward. She is the only one learning back. And again we see another of Sergeant’s trick with, like the Duke with his reds, we see blues and purples, similar colours but different shades playing off each other. Then on the right we have this standing woman. I like her smile like she has heard a joke or seen something that has amused her. And then after a while of looking you see what it is. Can you see it? It is the small dog on the bottom left pulling at her dress. I love this. Including it is very funny and makes the picture a masterpiece, and one of my favourites. Before you leave you see, what is I think Sargeant’s less successful type of painting which is people outside. They are riots of colour but he is much better at interiors. Don’t get me wrong these are still good paintings but they lack of depth somehow. Everything sits on the surface with the figures blurring with the background a bit too much.
The show is on until 7th July 2024 My exhibition, River and Stone, has finished so I thought I would write up what happened, what went well, what could have gone better and what I do differently next time. The show ran from Thursday 28th March to 2nd April a the Old Fire Station Gallery in Henley on Thames. You can hire the gallery in weekly blocks (Wednesday to Tuesday). I had booked I way back in February 2023 and gone for Easter 2024 (2023 was already booked). I chose Easter because I last did a show at the Old Fire Station Gallery in Easter 2019 and attendance had been good. One of the errors I made was that Easter is a moveable feast and East in 2019 was later in the year, was not during half term and the weather was better. I had failed to take this into account. Statistics. Attendance 97 people (plus 6 poets – so 103). Some of the people attendance twice on more than one day. Sales: £56 in cards, £350 in paintings. I am not sure the paintings count because they were bought by the same family member. This leads me to my main thing I would do differently next time. I think to sell the paintings themselves I priced them about £50 or £100 too high. For a pop-up show, unless you are an established name, if you actually want to sale the paintings then you need to have the paintings at such a price that they can be an impulse purchase (my paintings in 2019 were much cheaper and I sold 18 of them 18 of them). One thing that had been a problem is that I was very ill in the run up to the show. I had a severe chest infection for a number of weeks and had some doubt as to weather I would be well enough to do the show at all. This doubt (and the fact I wasn’t well enough to do anything) meant I did not do things like preparing prints, or advertising the show as vigorously as I would have done otherwise. It wasn’t until the week before the show that I had finally recovered that I started to publicise it in earnest, and arguably it was too later. As to publicity , I of course publicized it on social media (and got a fair amount of traction and some people did attend because of this. I also produced fliers. On fliering, the fliers did server well to tell people who knew me, or about my art, about the show and prompt them to come. I think only 2 people who I didn’t already know came because of fliers. If I were to do it again, I would flier more targeted but also get fliers and posters up in shops and around town. I would try to get some shops involved in some fashion, by sponsorship say so that they had a reason to tell people to go to the show. The Old Fire Station Gallery is a bit off the main drag, hidden from the main part of town from the Town Hall and so passing trade and foot fall is limited for that reason. The plus side of it as a venue is that it is cheap (particularly if you are a Henley resident, you get a discount) and it has a small or dedicated number of fans who basically come to every show. I think I had about 8 of these appear and had a number of really nice discussions with people about art etc. What I did attempt to get more interest in the show was to get another organization involved. In this case the lovely people from Two Rivers Press who came along on Thursday afternoon to read poetry. They generated I think 6 extra attendees (not including the poets themselves). Attendance was disappointing in part because the weather was truly dire on Thursday, with hammering rain. Also people were avoiding travelling if they didn’t have to because of the pre-Easter rush and because I didn’t advertise it as well as I could have done. Still it was worth ago and I’m glad I did it because I made some connections and got to know some lovely people who I will probably collaborate with again. This, for me was the main benefit of the show. I met some really nice people and in some cases re-met some people I hadn’t seen for a long time. On attendance. On Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday only 1 person attended before 12:00 and attendance dropped over every day after 15:00. In one sense you might as well open for as long as you can because you can only hire the venue in weekly blocks but it is slightly dispiriting to sit in a gallery for a couple of hours while no one comes in. This brings me on to what else I would do differently . I would organize activities like an improtu still-life drawing class. Or have an activity people could get involved in (like adding drawings to a growing wall or something). Because of illness I did not organize a private view and I think this was a mistake. A private view in an evening is more likely to drive people in, particularly if you are offering booze and perhaps music. I also think I won’t do a show like this on my own again (unless it is organized and put on by a gallery or something similar). I think I would want to collaborate with someone else. What did go well though was the hang of the show. I was vey proud of how I hung the show, incoproating some of the lessons from Newlyn School of Art, such as disrupting the sky line. So I had works you could only see from outside, one of which referred to works inside. I had works at different heights. I had works hung on plinths rather than on the wall. You couldn’t see all the works from all points in the room so you had to go round and explore. I had sections which were themed and sections which were mixed. Some of the paintings were still life of rocks so I got the rocks in question and put them round the room. I think it looked good and I enjoyed seeing my works up in a well lit space. It was interesting too seeing what people reacted too, with different people liking different thing. Probably the most praised painting was Marsh Lock, but the other one , to my surprise was dancers around the Tomb of the Grey She Wolf (both below). So I have come away with a number of ideas. But it has been exhausting so I am spending today in bed recovering.
This week I talk to Scotland based poet Caroline Johnstone about her poetry practice and related themes, like how much of what people interpet in an artists work is actually intended.
Caroline can be found on Instagram: @carolinejohnstonewrites Twitter: @carolinejohnstonewrites Facebook: @daretobehappier The book she mentions will be published at Hedgehog Poetry @HedgehogPoetry Caroline is also the resident poet at Dundonald Castle - https://dundonaldcastle.org.uk/ and on the board of The Federation of Writers (Scotland) - https://www.federationofwriters.scot/board As for me I have an exhibition coming up in March in Henley-on-Thames. Details will follow soon. I am putting on an Exhibition at the Old Fire Station Gallery in Henley. It is called Rivers and Stone and will run from 28th March to 2nd April 2024. The Old Fire Station is precisely that and is now a gallery space operated by the council that anyone can hire. The space is fairly large and it is well lit with both natural and artificial lighting. It is also well set up for art exhibitions with movable screens, hanging wires with clips, and plinths of various sizes. The only down side being that it is a bit out of the way, behind the town hall so you can’t see it from the high street but it is central enough and well enough known that you get good foot traffic. The gallery itself is popular and havs its own fans that basically go and see every show (there is usually something different there every week). I have shown there before, both with a solo show in 2019 and also with the Henley Arts and Craft Guild in both their summer and winter shows.
This is the first solo show I have done for a while and partly inspired by the course I am doing at the Newlyn School of Art I am wondering what I can do differently both to drive traffic (and sales) but also to make it a more interesting artistic experience. Firstly there is the theme. I have done themes before but not a show at this scale. The Old Fire Station can accommodate about 30 pictures (depending on the size and the hang). Last time I did a solo show of this size it was basically a selection of my paintings. This time I do want to do something more themed. I have quite a few paintings that fit the theme so content is not going to be a problem. Because I do oil painting basically anything I start now is unlikely to be a) finished or b) dry enough by March to show. So there are paintings of rivers (the Thames, and the Lee) various Lochs in Scotland, Standing Stones and other similar structures and I will probably put in a few still life paintings that are either directly, or indirectly linked to the theme, but what else to do? Nelwyn Art School encourages to form links with the local community in part by getting business sponsorship. I know I should do this and I have several organisations and businesses in mind I could approach but this is breaking new ground and it is raising up the courage to be perfectly honest. Over and above that there are several other options. Should I get other artists involved, if so who? There are a number of people in the local area I admire and whose work might fit, but I kind of want to do this on my own (at least in the art stakes). Is this foolishness? What else? Music, poetry, some kind of school based event? The last one appeals but I suspect I may have left it too late. While the venue is quite large, it is effectively one large room so the opportunity for different areas with video, or talks etc is quite limited. There are many possibilities that present themselves. I think step one is get some sponsorship. If I have money that opens a number of other different possibilities. What do you think I should do? Pitch me some ideas?
This week talking to Mark Hatwood, former drummer of the band Mud and owner of the Harbour Gallery: https://www.theharbourgallery.co.uk/about/
British Contemporary : https://www.britishcontemporary.art/ American Contemporary: https://www.americancontemporary.art/ The Artist's Handbook: https://tinyurl.com/2vpp5hwe At the beginning of June I was in Penzance for the end of Studio Practice group show at the Tremenheer Gallery, part of the Tremenheer sculpture gardens. I have written more about the gardens themselves here, and I would say again what I said there, it is highly worth visiting in its own right. There were I think about 30 exhibitors. I had been for the duration of the course in group B and we finally got to meet group A, see their art, see their reaction to our art. It is always an inspiring experience doing this. The gallery itself is an odd structure. Wooden and churchlike, it would not be out of place at the head of a Norwegian fjord. It has two floors. The ground floor is large but intersected with wooden beams that break up the space and make for ready made individual nooks and segments. The upstairs is long and thing, rising into the triangular roof, and has a large window at one end with a spectacular view of the bay and St Michaels Mount. There is a lot of natural light in the gallery. Our work was hung by the course leaders Dan Pyne and Jesse Leroy. I quite like doing this, leaving my work with other people and seeing what they do with it. Many artists are possessive of their work at this stage, and in some contexts I definitely can be in some contexts, but not here with people I trust. Also in a show like this, where you are exhibiting with other people, it is not just about you. The primary focus is to hang a good show. While it may not have your favourite pieces in it, having a good show overall will show you in a better light I think. I had taken down 8 pieces. 4 still life, 1 abstract and 3 landscapes. This is the other thing that is interesting about show like this, other people’s perception of which of your work is good, is often different from yours. My favourite pieces of the 8 were the two weir paintings. I could of just taken them and forced my hand but I deliberately didn’t because I wanted to see which they chose. They chose the still life paintings. This echoes a theme I have spoken about before in my podcast what are you making, in that my work seems to have two audiences; the art community which prefers my more out there still life work and the general public which prefers my landscapes and more straightforward paintings. What was interesting, was not just seeing the paintings they chose, but how they hung them. To break up the view as you entered and to divert people left or right, an interesting tent structure was put in the entrance way. Paintings were then grouped sort of thematically in that those with a similar energy were put together, with the work running round the room from the more vibrant, to the calmer and back again. The eye line was also diverted. Not just a consistent museum hang (with everything at the same level), but different sized works at different points. Consideration was also given to sight lines so that paintings that could be seen from different parts of the room complimented or played of each other. This was a very interesting idea to be exposed to. The purpose of it was to arrest people’s attention, to not just have them quickly scan round the room and look at all the paintings. So eyeline was broken up by sculptures, against the wall as well as in the room, paintings of different size and different media, and hung at different levels. All designed to make people pause and look again. It was very effective and made me thing in more detail about how to hang a show. My paintings were spread out, others had all their paintings in the same section. One of mine greeted you as you entered which made me happy. While people were looking around the show we did a group crit and again the feedback I received echoed what I said above, that and my paintings should be framed, the next thing to tackle.
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William John MackenzieI am an artist with a specialism in landscapes and still life. My contact details are here. Archives
April 2024
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