painting – and so she thinks

Paint Jam London

admin — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 10:09:06 +0000

As adults we don’t often get the chance to be creative. Playing for the sake of it is for kids. We want to do something productive, or achieve something. But that’s not always the most fun. Paint Jam gives people the opportunity to paint and create with music and drinks in a friendly and enjoyable setting. There’s no need for talent or skill – it’s about enthusiasm and energy. I went along to their recent Neon Paint Rave and had a blast making shapes on the walls and channelling my creativity into a collective mural.

I caught up with Alex from Paint Jam to find out more.

Why did you set Paint Jam up?

We want to give people who might not be ‘artists’ or work in a creative field the opportunity to discover their creativity in a relaxed, party-like atmosphere. We believe that everyone can be an artist, but many people are almost scared of being creative and we want to change that.

How successful has it been?

It’s lovely to see the transformation in people, sometimes they can be a bit shy at the beginning of the workshop but usually after a few minutes they become more and more confident and walk out with an amazing painting. To see someone who usually doesn’t paint become more confident and relaxed, and maybe helping them to discover a new hobby, is incredibly rewarding.

Why is it good for people who aren’t ordinarily creative?

We believe that art is for everyone, not just trained artists. There are so many health benefits of being creative, but often people lack the confidence. We want to give everyone the opportunity to be creative in a relaxed, fun environment.

Soundscapes at The National Gallery

admin — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 09:11:00 +0000

When I was a child I used to put on my headphones, press play on my Walkman, and draw the song I was listening to. I have always been fascinated by the blurring of the senses and how clues from each build up our perception of events. The entire world is synesthetic in this sense.
Soundscapes is an incredible exhibition. It is small in sizebut vast in emotion. Six music artists have composed soundtracks to paintings from the The National Gallery, interpreting the image, process and experience in powerful and diverse ways.
Chris Watson is a wildlife sound recordist, and his soundscape in response to Lake Keitele by Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1905) is an atmospheric immersion into the scene. The breeze of the water, the rush of the shores and the quivering trees absorb the listener, and the unstructured approach means that sounds cannot be pre-empted. Just like in the wild, the call of a bird or bark of a dog cannot be scheduled in. The highest praise of all is to say that ‘it’s as if you are there.’

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s piece Conversation with Antonello, based on Antonello da Messina’s 1475 painting of Saint Jerome in his Study, takes a similar approach in that the sounds are those you may hear if you were to inhabit the painting. What is striking is the lengths they went through and demonstrate to come to this place. Installation artists, they have recreated the architecture and outdoor space in the painting as a large 3D model, and encourage visitors to imagine walking through the painting, the installation, the setting, and the sounds of people working, footsteps running, horses passing, thundery skies and chanting monks evoke a very real setting, animating the image that lies before us. In the introductory video to the exhibition they explain that their approach was one of exploration, seeking to answer the question as to what you would see if you walked through Jerome’s study, through the monastery, and out into the hills. They succeed.

Nico Muhly’s grand string response to The Wilton Diptych is more classical in approach, elegant and structured. He describes it as a ‘slow look at all four panels’ and there certainly is a graceful deliberateness to the music. Whilst Muhly’s piece is specific, Gabriel Yared’s string and piano response to Paul Cezanne’s Bathers (1900-1906) is more fluid, the looping and shifting music being fluid and changing. Each speaker plinth in the room represents a different instrument – cello, clarinet, piano and vocals – as the viewer moves between them the intensity changes and the experience of the sound alters. There is a link between the figures in the painting, but they are all individuals, and the same can be said of the solo instruments that combined make a liquescent whole.
In Air on a Broken String, Susan Philipsz evokes the straining tension in The Ambassadors, Hans Holbein’s 1533 painting of Henry VIII and the Bishop of Lavour. By removing one string from the violin a sense of subtle discord is created. Standing in front of the painting even the cloth becomes visceral, the globe rich, and the air thick with emotion. The sense of tension is not defined, but is certainly substantial.
Unlike the other pieces in the exhibition which imagine the sound of the events in the painting, Jamie xx has depicted the process. Entering the room labelled Ultramarine, the name of the sound installation that he produced inspired by Theo van Rysselberghe’s Coastal Scene (1982) the viewer is greeted with a whole. An image of a lake side and a piece of music evocative of that. Moving closer towards the painting, this whole becomes fractured, individual beats and sounds becoming distinct – just like the dots which make up this pointillist image. Directional speakers mean that the experience changes as individuals move around the room, encouraging a different perspective. Multiple sources make up the one whole, and this creation of cohesion from disparate pieces is something that Jamie xx is celebrated for.
The exhibition has received praise from the critics, and I’m surprised. It was a vibrant, emotional and profound experience that raises questions of perspective, interpretation and experience.

Pop up painting with The Beatles

admin — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 19:40:36 +0000

I’m painting my room in the colourful way
And when my mind is wandering
There I will go
Ooh ooh ooh ah ah
Hey, hey, hey, hey

Yellow submarines splashing onto the page. Skies of canvas filled with painted diamonds. Strawberry fields scribbled down. One of London’s favourite gastro-bars, The Jam Tree Clapham, has been offering Londoners the chance to express their creative sides in a social environment with a glass of wine during immersive painting pop-ups. Previous events have been a great success, with guests imitating famous paintings from artists such as Salvador Dali and Van Gogh, and this final event on Tuesday 14th April will give guests a chance to paint one of their favourite and iconic Beatles album covers. All materials are provided, and attendees will get to take their canvas home to take pride of place in the lounge, show off to friends, or be left behind the wardobe. No previous painting experience is needed, as there will be experts guiding you through the process in this buzzing and quirky environment. Of course it does not matter on the final piece, as it’s all about the process, making friends and unleashing your creativity. And what better way than with the Fab Four.

Beatles Paint Night!
The Jam Tree, Clapham,
Tues 14 April
8:00 pm – 10:30 pm
£25

Exploring Berwick-upon-Tweed with LS Lowry

admin — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 09:29:58 +0000

I don’t pretend to be anything like as talented, great or utterly brilliant as LS Lowry, but on a recent trip to the delightful northern country of Northumberland, I discover we have a little in common. We both find respite in the sea- Lowry was sent to the North East in 1936 to take a break from his stressful home life and fell in love with the North Sea – and I can certainly understand his statement that ‘It’s all there. It’s all in the sea. The Battle of Life is there.’ Lowry was one who sketched on the go for his own amusement, forming these scraps later into something final, and I too scribble on patches of paper and torn envelopes whenever something catches my inspiration, in the hope it may one day be useful. We both love the bustle, cities, and social situations, whether as people watchers or nosey citizens.
And finally, we both became enamored by Berwick-upon-Tweed, Britain’s most northerly town, where the LS Lowry in Berwick & Northumberland exhibition takes place at the Granary Gallery until September 21^st.
Staying a few miles down the road at Lindisfarne Inn, it was actually just the necessity of heading to a supermarket for some fruit (the shame), which brought us to Berwick-upon-Tweed, but as we dipped down into the Elizabethan walled town, Robert Stephenson’s Royal Border Bridge standing grand ahead of us, it became clear that there was more here than just shops for sustenance.

With no local guide at hand, it seemed sensible to enlist the help of another great to help us, and that was where the Lowry Trail came in. Eighteen different information points are dotted around the city, giving details on the work they inspired or their personal connection to Lowry. The narrow streets and lanes and Georgian buildings of Berwick were included in his first one man exhibition in London in 1939, and he continued his explorations of the region, from Middlesbrough, Stockton, Barnard and Blyth, right through his life.

A wander to the Pier allows you to stand in the spot where Lowry sketched the comings and goings of fishing bars, and the 1936 pencil drawing of Dewar’s Lane (where the Granary Gallery is situated) was inspired by the street’s tall enclosing buildings which reach up to twelve metres high.

Spittal Sands inspired one of the more colourful, verging on impressionist, works that will be in display this summer, and the Promenade was the setting of a departure from matchstick men to cartoonish oil painting of a young girl in 1966. Lowry loved his football, and it was spotting a game at The Stanks (a Scottish term for ditch) that he captured the game taking place in this former moat, in a nod to his iconic work Going To The Match.
It’s surprising to see how little has changed in many ways. Over six miles, the Lowry trail takes you through Lowry’s own story, a creative journey, and facilitates an exploration of a town filled with historic and personal activity. Lowry’s depictions of Berwick are infused with a spirit and fracture that capture the turbulent urban lifestyle, the artist’s own personal, fractured, outlook, and this region’s distinct magic. We’re glad he was our guide.