Renaissance altarpieces were normally the grand centrepiece of chapels with no connection to the outside world, apart from light flowing gently from high level windows. In contrast, Monique Frydman’s “Polyptyque Sassetta”, a delicately-coloured homage to the work of Renaissance artist Stefano di Giovanni is set against windows which give views out to the peaceful reflective […]
Is there something in the character of female artists that they are more able to examine their feelings, experience and concerns and represent them in their art than male artists. If this is true, then they bring something new and refreshing, which is being increasingly explored by galleries and curators, following on from the success of […]
From a distance, the large powerful images look like skulls, sinister faces, or flowing landscapes, all in black and white, with sweeping brushstrokes and curving forms flowing through the paintings along with refracted shapes and images. Approach closer and you see that the overall picture is composed of many other things including fragmented hands and […]
I have to admit that the Bernard Jacobson Gallery opposite Fortnum & Masons remains one of my favourite new galleries in London. While the building itself is quietly modernist, with ground floor rents in London at a premium, the gallery has just enough fully glazed double height frontage to provide a taster for its exhibitions providing […]
It’s the sort of area where streetart or graffiti might be expected, but this is not Brick Lane and, while the area is a little run down, there is little streetart apart from underneath the flyover leading to the M40. But wait, on a white-painted wall, the bold letters “Build Up On”, have been perfectly […]
Old Street in London is slowly improving with new property developments and the imaginative new pop-up outlets adding to the established shops within the underground station, but the environment is still pretty rough. While the Red Gallery, on a site that is ripe for redevelopment, seems now to be inactive as an arts venue apart […]
Towering above the room, the ballerinas appear to have the delicacy of glass Christmas baubles which break all too easily, yet are solid and made of hard steel. Like glass baubles, their curves create reflections everywhere, of visitors as they move around them, of the lights which project onto them and of the paintings on the […]
Smooth, shiny and sensuous, while distorting and disrupting. Reflecting the visitor moving around, changing shape and size and colour, creating new images on the mirror-polished surfaces. Solid surfaces become fluid and appear to bend light, blending into and reflecting their surroundings, whether the canals of Venice or a white-walled gallery in London. In other works, steel sheets join together […]
A large late 20th century concrete brutalist building opposite Baker Street Station in London announces the University of Westminster Marylebone Campus. Here, at the start of term, the campus is heaving with new students looking to transform their lives through the next few years of study. As with many universities, they are a complex contradiction […]
Fletcher Priest Architect’s scheme for Sedley Place in London, completed in 2006, replaced the existing buildings with a mixed-use 10,000 sq m development of three buildings which successfully increased the floor area, created a new public”pocket-square” and improved the pedestrian connection from the buzz of Oxford Street to the relative calm of Woodstock Street. Different […]
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