2 galleries, 3 exhibitions

Went to see 2 art exhibitions in a gallery.

1) A Museum of Art
2) A Certain Kind of Light

That gallery mostly exhibit modern art works,
but this time, is a much waited change:
mostly old style artworks
from previous centuries & decades.

Credit: this photo by Rohan Van-Twest of some exhibits

 
There are pen & ink drawings, charcoal drawings, pencil drawings, oil paintings, watercolour paintings, prints, wood engraving,  bronze sculpture, marble sculpture, alabaster sculpture, lead sculpture.

A portions of the paintings are in golden colour sculptured wooden frames.

Some frames look like art themselve...
and so old they have cracks.

There are two exhibitions both are free (donation,please).
  
The first one I went do not allow photography.

By chance, there is a young assistant curator Tom Laver doing a short guided talk.
( Hope he can try recording his talking and listen to it... and improve the tone)
 
For me, things that do make me want to talk are...


   Giovanni Battista Lombardi, The Veiled Lady (1869)

(credit:  this photo from Towner Gallery website)
- a marble sculpture of the bust of a lady veiled in thin lacey cloth without bra.
Kept locally.
Any more marble portraits in 21st century when people have all kinds of toys of different materials and even VR ...?  But then, what materials can last longer?

- a few pieces of drawings & copper plate etchings/prints of elephant skull
  by Henry Moore.
  Still look forward to see his sculpture. 
  As with all other great artists, good to see their prepartion studies/drawings.

- a 16th century triptych painting(s) , Christian theme
  by Henri Met de Bles. 
  Not my cup of tea but it is one of the few of this genre.

- big "map" paying tribute to the 14th century Hereford Mappa Mundi.
(Greyson Perry, Map of Nowhere, 2008)
 Not my cup of tea but I do appreciate all his effort into making a big piece.

- a Japanese scenery by Japanese artist Tokitaro Hiroshige
(Ando Tokitaro Hiroshige, Swamps around Mount Fuji at Yoshiwara and view of the bay, 1855)

- tiny water colours by Robert Morris of Sussex landscape & seascape.

- fine art can not do without nudes, right?
  A wall with different nude paintings, drawings, prints of different decades.


Mixed media:

 IMHO, there look like some modern eye shadow make-up materials in the oil painting by Elizabeth Magill (2002)


For the 2nd exhibitions, A Certain Kind of Light...

Modern materials give rise to new experiments / expression of art.
(To me, modern art or philosophy or psychological games have thin lines between.)


Anish Kapoor's  flat reflective stainless steel with special effects is interesting as visual experiment which could be put in a science museum.

Raphael Heft's Lycopodium photograph is a chemical experiment.

Peter Sedgley's PVA pigment of concentric circles
with some yellow, orangey red, green & purple, titled Corona (1970) only caught my eyes because I like circular things. Maybe back then flourocent colours were used but now not much interesting.


Ceal Floyer - Light(1994).
4 projectors focus on a non-lit lightbulb to make it as if it light up itself.


Katie Paterson Totality (2016) Mixed media. Installation...
nature... cosmology...




The ball full of thousands of tiny photos of the phases of moon!!!
When it rotates, the reflections around visitors are lovely.
IF the light of other room can be dimmer that would be eve more lovely.

Garry Fabian Miller... forcing enclosure 2011, Dye destruction print.... light, water...
(science? art? )

Cube of man. Shirazeh Houshiary (1992)
A tall column of stacked 6-sided wood pieces with some gold leaf and lead.(!)

And in the FuseBox room,
special installations for visitors young and old to have fun with light, reflections, mirrors...

(This piece hanging there changes colour gradually.)



Venue: Towner Gallery
2017 Feb.
Free entry but the gallery really appreciate donations.

It is good that the gallery has this free-to-visit policy to many of the exhibitions
for the public, so that art is not just for those who can afford expensive tickets.
  

Before that, on another day,
I also briefly visited the a small personal gallery at the back of a Grand Hotel.
Nigel Greaves is a graphic designer turned artist. He sells his work and make no reproductions in cards or other merchandise. Generally visually pleasing & interesting colours. "Graphic" based. His works will remind me if I were to venture into fine art, I must not stick with the graphic design way of thinking/presentation.