Art in Theory and Writing 

                The Universal Language

Some of my personal favorites:

Image 1 The  Conversation by Matisse 

Image 2 (photo) Sean Scully

Image 3 (photo) Sean Scully

Image 4. Wall of Light, A watercolour by Sean Scully

Image 5 Wall of light Cloud by Sean Scully

Image 6. Landline Green by Sean Scully

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

I visited the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art on Saturday 2nd January  2016

Above the entrance to this Gallery is the neon sign by Martin Creed which tells us in large letters that "Everything is Going to be Alright" which I had to photograph!

The lawn to the front of the gallery has a very dramatic piece of landscaping which comprises a stepped, serpentine mound reflected in three crescent -shaped pools of water.

In the extensive gardens are famous sculpture works by Henry Moore, Richard Long, Rachel Whiteread and Ian Hamilton Finlay.

The gallery has an outstanding collection of modern and contemporary art I was able to see "in the flesh" paintings by many famous artists, a few of which I photographed for my collection:

One of my favourites by Morandi:

Another favourite one by Mondrian:

And of course three by Picasso:

A self portrait by John Bellany:

And some works by Martin Creed:

Mead Gallery Study Day 19th November 2015

Having already been to see the Making It: Sculpture in Britain 1977-1986 exhibition on 17th October the study day on 19th November which gave us the opportunity to learn a bit more about this period in the history of art and to meet some of the artists themselves. Overall this was a very worthwhile experience.

The title of the conference was "Now that's what I call Sculpture" and the speakers included Mel Gooding, art critic and lecturer at the Slade, Lewis Biggs, Professor of Contemporary Art at Liverpool, Brandon Taylor from the Ruskin School of Art, Ian Hunt from Goldsmiths and Fran Lloyd, Professor of Art History at Kingston.

The artists taking part were Bill Woodrow and Margaret Organ.

The session was very interesting and  informative as it centered around the seventies and eighties, a period when many changes seemed to be taking place in the art world, but the most interesting aspect was listening to the artist's themselves talking about their work and what motivated them to make it in the first place.

Both of these artists were showing their work in the gallery. Bill Woodrow's pieces were titled Bean Can with Spectacles  and Tattoo. He has used everyday materials and consumer objects to signify various geographical locations, for instance the yellow door cab in Tattoo is symbolic of New York City.
In contrast Margaret Organ's work has a distinctly feminine touch and she has used lightweight materials like wire, string and paper to make this piece which she has formed into a large distorted circle  and is titled Loop. 

The Open Eye Gallery, 34 Abercromby Place, Edinburgh 

At  the Open Eye Gallery on 8th January 2016 I attended a private view of paintings, drawings and prints by Jonathan Gibbs. The exhibition runs until 25th January 2016 and is called:

JONATHAN GIBBS - LIFE IS BUT A DREAM

My wife and I had driven up to Scotland from Leamington Spa to stay with some very good friends for New Year in a place called Ormiston about 15 miles from Edinburgh. On the Sunday after New Year we went to a Scottish ceilidh dance in a nearby village   I had not heard of Jonathan Gibbs but he was also attending this 
ceilidh and we were introduced to him by our friends. He then gave us an invitation to his private view which 
was on the following Friday  

 Jonathan is Head of Illustration at Edinburgh College of Art. He is a renowned wood engraver and illustrator and the work in the exhibition showed a selection of his very fine wood engraving and prints, some large and some minute. 

A piece of very old pitch pine wood which might have once been a diving board was used by Jonathan to make a huge wood block which he titled "Life is but a dream". This plank is 14 foot long by 20 inches wide and tapers from 3 inches thick at one end to 2 inches at the other.The engraving on the flat surface of the wood was carried out by hand using wood chisels. This block was then used to print on to a 16 foot long piece of Japanese paper. This is a most impressive piece of work. 

 Below are a couple of images of Jonathan's work:

   

The Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh

I paid a visit to The Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh on 8th January 2016. My particular interest was in seeing some paintings by Sean Scully but I discovered that this exhibition had a number of  paintings by many more of my favorite artists and included works by Giorgio Morandi, Agnes Martin, Rachel Whiteread and Richard Long. Also included were works by Cy Twombly, Edmund de Waal, Francesca Woodman, James Hugonin, Jane Bustin, Richard Forster, Richard Serra and Roger Ackling.

The exhibition was called  Resistance and Persistence and this title was taken from Sean Scully's essay on Giorgio Morandi. Scully was greatly influenced by seeing one of Morandi's paintings which he described as "Exciting in its resistance and subversiveness."

On the ground floor was one of Sean Scully's paintings, Untitled (Doric), which measures 71.1 x 81.3cm (See image below)

The second Sean Scully painting Barcelona Yellow-Yellow, which measures 213 x 182 was on the first floor. I stood next to this painting for my wife to take the photograph, (See images below).

This was my first experience of seeing some of Sean Scully's paintings "in the flesh" and I was certainly not disappointed.

On the floor in the bottom image is Richard Long's work titled Cairngorm, 2015 in slate measuring 5m x 2m overall.

I was thrilled also to see six of Morandi's  paintings and apparently two of these haven't been seen in public for over 50 years. (See images below)

On the ground floor also was a piece of work by Rachel Whiteread titled Garage. (See image below).