Posts By: Rachel Clark

The Witches and Old Women Album At the start of the exhibition is a self portrait of Goya. At first glance he looks like a man who, unafraid of dark corners, could handle a street fight and relish it. But then again, the left eye looks down from the shadows as if into less friendly… Read more »

Food for the soul at the RA Sackler Galleries. Younger generation American Abstract Expressionist Richard Diebenkorn’s work celebrates the pursuit of painting, and it is fabulous. Even in his figurative period when he explored the human form and still life the architecture of his final Ocean Park series of abstract paintings is already alive within… Read more »

This is a small exhibition, just 38 works on paper. No surprises, it’s Schiele, the work is explicit and unsparing. Female bodies are often composed to show the vulva highlighted and centre stage. These subjects don’t take prisoners, their look is frequently challenging and distant and where it’s vulnerable the discomfort is considerable. Perhaps in… Read more »

Responses to a few images in this rich (and varied) exhibition. I’m not a major fan of the Euston School but loved Passmore’s ‘The Red Tablecloth’. Sumptuous deep cadmium red cloth and brown-red space beyond, Vuillard-like – mystery and intimacy conjured in a spare and simple composition – nothing happening but much anticipated. Nature is… Read more »

Sean Scully’s painting Kind of Red is a five panel piece. Loosely painted blocks of cool blue-blacks, brown-blacks and earthy reds floating on a field of nebulous silver. The pattern and rhythms loosely define the journey, allow the eye to hover and wait in a section, live for a moment in a rich and slippery… Read more »

Taking one example of flawless composition – “Iseppo da Porto and his son Leonida” (1552) is a timeless portrayal of the relationship between father and son at the point at which perfection reigns. Colour, which beats a powerful rhythm in Veronese’s paintings, is pared down in a portrait of umbers and blacks.

An interesting exhibition which mostly engages the mind rather than the senses. There’s humour (some scatological), politics made more powerful by the absence of emotion – a sharp commentary on the late 20th/early 21st Century. The map of the growing/diminishing territory of Israel/Palestine a direct and effective statement. And then, his painting ‘Lobby’ is a… Read more »

There is still time to see ‘Making Painting: Helen Frankenthaler and JMW Turner’ at Margate’s Turner Contemporary. An unexpected and rewarding combination of works from 20th century Abstract Expressionism and 19th century Romanticism. Worth seeing alone for Frankenthaler’s painting ‘For E.M’ – her re-working of Manet’s painting ‘Fish (Still life)’ 1864, but for other gems… Read more »