A fragment, shared..

"I'm up and down the Westway, in an' out the lights/What a great traffic system - it's so bright/I can't think of a better way to spend the night/Than speeding around underneath the yellow lights"
– London’s Burning by The Clash (written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones)


One of the earliest memories I have is of my parents navigating the Westway on to one of the sliproads into Harlesden coming back from a holiday. The night time car rides with them were the best, either sitting propped up securely in the car seat or lying down in the back of the car covered by a musty old terracotta red and black squared blanket watching the world and all of its yellow motorway lights pass by the car passenger window unchallenged. The different sounds the car would make on various road surfaces, the sounds of the transistor radio and my parents conversation provided the soundtrack.

From the back of the car I would also watch the shadows of my parents seated in the front as the lights from outside of the car made shadows move about the car interior whilst my parents remained static. That fascinated me. Light and shadow. Viewpoints and why things moved along with us, either slower or faster than us or remained where they were.

Those first experiences of learning to understand the world as it played through the car windows and filtering through my camera eyes remains just as vivid and evocative years later. My hungry and inquisitive brain was storing these visuals as memories to be played time and time again much in the same way a medium such as celluloid film, videotape or DVD does.

When I started going to the cinema there was a certain familiarity to be found sitting amongst the audience, which was perhaps to do with those times spent in my parents car seated behind them but able to watch the windscreen along with them, seeing the same thing, feeling I was sharing an experience and that I wasn’t alone.

In the car we were a captive audience to the exciting world outside.

Marcus Coates - Dawn Chorus

Frieze Magazine focus article on Marcus Coates: http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/focus_marcus_coates/

Mirror Image

Lisson Gallery - Carmen Herrera

Carmen Herrera is a female Cuban born Abstract painter who until recently has been painting in relative obscurity although she has been active as a painter since the late 1930's. She sold her first piece at the grand age of 89 in 2004. Today I visited her show at the Lisson Gallery. Click on the link to see the work being shown there, its really worth a visit if you're in the area. http://www.lissongallery.com/#/artists/carmen-herrera/

One of my favourite periods of art history is the Abstract Expressionist movement. My favourite artists from this period are Barnett Newman, Franz Kline, Morris Louis, Clyfford Still, Mark Tobey, and Jackson Pollock. I think from todays viewing Carmen Herrera's work definitely shows an influence from some of these painters who, when you read more about her history, you find out were really her contemporaries. Although her work has only been recently discovered her work seems an important part of this movement, especially as she is one of the few female abstract painters around in this particular period. You can also see a reference to Josef Albers colour studies with her choice of colours used and how they play off each other. Those who look at any Abstract piece and who think its just a random process with no thought attached can definitely learn something from the effect some of Herrera's pieces have on the eye. The work on show at the Lisson range from the 1950's to more current pieces; large canvases, small canvases, square, rectangle, and circular canvases. Her earlier work is reminiscent of tribal shapes and abstract patterns and her more current work is very abstract, basic and have a graphic design quality to them. Colour and how each colour plays of the other is a very important factor in all of them it goes without saying.

More about Carmen Herrera here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Herrera

And more about the Abstract Expressionist movement here: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/abex/hd_abex.htm

A really good book to buy on the subject of colour interaction is this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Interaction-Color-Josef-Albers/dp/0300115954/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330734710&sr=8-1

Josiah McElheny's Bloomberg Commission: The Past Was A Mirage I Had Left Far Behind (Whitechapel Gallery)

Went along today to the Whitechapel Gallery to see this amazing interactive artwork. Seven large structures created with mirrors, wood, and canvas have projected on to them various abstract films chosen by people the artist has asked to participate and of which the content and running order change weekly. Amazing experience, not to be missed. There is also a small room just off the main room which has glass cabinets with various books and materials that have informed the artists work and the choices of abstract film.

More about it:

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/the-bloomberg-commission-josiah-mcelheny-the-past-was-a-mirage-i-had-left-far-behind

http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/sculpture%20%26%20installation/art368923