Eastern Suburbs Art Group

A few days after seeing this show in Roppongi I went to a suburban shopping centre where these was a Paul Smith store. Actually at that time I did not go inside the store. The Picasso show mainly interesting for the great paintings but also for the wall decoration, as you will see. Smith using striking colours to offset works that are mostly usually seen on white walls. These colours are quite amazing when seen along with works of such force and sophistication. Smith is taking those qualities and sort of spreading them all over the room, like some sort of magic. Not everyone is going to accept this sort of decor, it has to be admitted. Purists will have 1000 reasons it does not work. But in fact I enjoyed it. However this kind of setting does serve to emphasise how original and enduring Picasso's works are. Not everyone will like the man he was. That is their right. But he really did great things with paint.

 The site was where my old office building was located. The two buildings are torn down now, and they are preparing to put up a different structure. But the safety hoarding has some nice images on them. Actually these are not representative of Tokyoites, they are quite lively and sometimes even bizarre, more than fashionable. Most people there dress in plan clothes, go to work, and sit at a desk all day. As for women, who are expected to quit their jobs in many cases, once they marry, they go shopping and look after the kids and household. They do not play basketball. But anyway these photos are colourful and bright. Note the image size. In Australia the images in these cases are larger because otherwise people put up graffiti. In Japan graffiti is considered disrespectful. So in Tokyo the safety hoarding photos are like images you wd find in a commerical gallery. They are not plastered all over the surface of the wood.

 I went along to this show in July with a friend and we had some lunch while there. Jannides is an interesting lyrical figurative painter whose style sort of seems to reference early 20th C symbolism. I don't like to box artists in but I do like to try to respond meaningfully to what I see. The other reference might be Whiteley. These relaxed and skillful animals are easy on the eye. Jannides has said she draws inspiration from literature but she does not really seem to title her works accordingly, which is a bit odd.  Definitely there is something old fashioned about Jannides' work, and this is unusual in itself particularly as it is not performed ironically. Jannides is not using the past to position herself or to attract buyers used to flashier effects. These works are really nice and the space comes alive with them.

 I went to see this show of painterly works in July with a friend. It is a public gallery near Sutherland. Inchbold uses lots of paint and basically just areas of colour to achieve his effects. The titles are strange and unsettling, like 'Mango Flesh Identikit' which is the show name and is some sort of critique of consumer culture possibly. I wuite liked some of his works, such as the following painting, which features signature brown and a sort of rich abandon. It's not always brown, as the following painting shows.  He also showed some drawings, but where the colour is missing thre is a kind of structural element absent if you know what I mean. I mean colour is Inchbold's main resource. There is something like Philip Guston in these black and white drawings, but that may not be an analogy that sits well with everyone. I think there is also something 80s about Inchbold, partiocularly the works of Peter Booth, whose oeuvre has pretty much disappeared nowadays. Perhaps ...

 This is the third installment in a post on modernist works displayed in Adelaide in July. The works on loan from Toledo Ohio. The following is a picture by Robert Delaunay, 'The City of Paris'. The following collage is Matisse's 'The nightmare of the white elephant'. Then there is Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's 'Am2'. Then Giorgio Morandi's 'Still Life with A Bottle'. And George Braque's 'Still Life with Fish'. Finally Richard Diebenkorn's 'Ocean Park No. 32'.

 These two paintings tell a story. The first is 1959 and looks like Cezanne. The boxy objects. The muted colours. A slight claustrophobia caused by proximity. The painter is standing beside the stream, he is near the trees, he is close to the arms of the forest. The second image (below) is 1971. No longer close. The air feels like it is moving, but it is still a landscape. Even though the trees have been reduced practically to smears and daubs of thick impast paint. The air is free and the vision is complete. This is the painter's mature style.

 Other paintings in this show from Toledo Ohio were more conventional Impressionist works including landscapes. Of course landscapes. Like this Pissarro from 1886 (below). The Jules Breton work below is more a mannerist work, but like a lot  of Impressionist works it uses as subject someone not traditionally associated with the Salon, in this case a poor farm worker. Notice the bare feet. It is touching and the pathos is extravagant. Below an amazing Berthe Morrisot work showing two children sitting on grass. The work below a Paul Signac painting of Venice from 1905. Below a Pierre Bonnard painting or a coastline. The yellow rock and pink sky are incredible inventions.

This was the second modern masters show I saw last month. There are more modern masters works in Toledo Ohio than in all of Australia. It was great to see so many here. In addition to many of the usual representatives however there were some North American proactitioners liks Maurice Prendergast (see below). Another (below) this one by Robert Henri. The painting below by William Merritt Chase. Yes there were the usual practititioners but the North Americans also worth seeing and appreciating. It is hard to characterise the difference, but perhaps a certain mannered approach aplies in their case. Less impressionist and more realist. A similar thing happened in Australia, the so called Australian Impressionists were really just 19th C relists after the fact, not using impressionist techniques much at all. And I wonder why it is that settler societies have trouble adopting avant garde style.

 These large kinetic abstract paintings have a concentratged effect. Obviously the large size makes the works hard to find a place for, but many people have large houses and lots of walls. I was impressed by the scale of the works, as well as by their ability to hold space. They are sort of liking organic entities, things of blood/paint and air/brush. Putting an arrray of such works together is obviously the domain of a public gallery, you wouldn't probably find a private dwelling with this sort of display. Obviously some of the works have brighter colours than others, but they were all easy to relate to.

 Upstairs in the gallery there are several rooms with interesting items from about 100 years back. Actually I went there not to see these works, but rather to see a show from New Zealand (see last post). But what I found was good, like this 1910 Ethel Carrick Fox painting of the Luxembourg Gardens (see below). The scene has an immediacy that is refreshing and lively. The painting below is a work showing a Victorian landscape. It is by E Philips Fox. The following landscape by Grace Cossington Smith is surprising for the dominant pink colour. It is from 1932. The painting above is another EC Fox work, it is from 1910 and is a Sydney beach scene. This painting reflects roots in the Barbizon Schol of norther France from the previous century. The gallery is located next to a large parking lot and it is on the border of town. There are a lot of nice paintings, both regular works like what appearsa above as well as scheduled shows.

This collection has been donated to a New Zealand gallery and is on loan in Victoria. The donors are an American couple Julian and Josie Robertson. This is a diverse and amazing collection. The above painting is by Albert Dubois-Pillet, a painter I have never heard of. The painting below is a Gauguin. It shows a cow in a field. The painting below is a lovely colourful work by Derain. The painting below is by Braque. The sculpture below is a torse of the Rock Drill by Jacob Epstein, a famous work of the period. This is dated 1913-15. The painting below is by George Marcoussis, 'Shell Fish, Zither and Ace of Hearts'. So you see there are known and unusual names in the collection. The following painting by Henri Hayden is also  an unknown for me. I mean obviously it is Cubist, but it is not as technically competent as some other Subist works. I still enjoyed seeing it. Often seeing works by second tier artists within the scope of a particular movement is valuable. The following Ha...

This is a fabulous space tucked away near the train station. You go in through the library entrance then double back and cross a bridge inside, to find yourself in a study area with facilities. A frirned had curated this show so I wanted to see what was happening. Some surprising finds (see above) like a work by Loraine Simiana that combines a kind of deliberate abstraction with surreal components to create a frozen landscape. The title is reflective of this fact, actually I used the expression before checking the title. But there were other types of work (see below) like this naturalistic almost scientific portrayal of a n orchid by Tony White. And then there were Neville Dawson's determinedly figurative but nevertheless expressive studies of tree roots (see below). This one in black and white, another one in colour. Jennifer Shames' floral study was also expressive, almost embarassingly so (see below). The range of styles on display was compelling. I also liked Jennifer Mulle...

I had a nice invitation to contribute to this show and put in some collages, one of which I sold. The woman who bought the item also had something in the show. Trinity Myers' piece (see below) is a fridge covered in some sort of growth, something green that stands out against the hard lines of the kitchen appliance. Trinity has made a kind of domestic collage. The fridge contains food but it doesn't chill, everything is at room temperature so you'd probably not want to eat it. We chatted for a while and I took this snapshot. I was reminded of a work I made last year, one of my Fridge! series (see below). I make a similar comparison in a brochure produced for Ryde Library collage classes. A household fridge is a kind of collage, except instead of glue you use magnets. In my series I try to show this alongside the remnants of a life - a life I lived - illustrated with the sort of snapshots people put on their fridges. I mean everyoine has a fridge right?  In the digital colla...