The British Art Fair
A big thanks to everyone who came to say hello on stand 44 last week at the British Art Fair. Lovely venue, nice light, high ceilings, a good variety of work on show – a tad warm inside but a successful week in the capital.The artist Nathan Ford recently remarked on the arc of making a painting, then seeing it on its journey from the personal realm (in his studio), to impersonal (on show at the fair), to personal again (hung in its new owner’s house). It brought to mind these words…
As from the house your mother seesYou playing round the garden trees,So you may see, if you will lookThrough the windows of this book,Another child, far, far away,And in another garden, play.But do not think you can at all,By knocking on the window, callThat child to hear you. He intentIs all on his play-business bent.He does not hear; he will not look,Nor yet be lured out of this book.For, long ago, the truth to say,He has grown up and gone away,And it is but a child of airThat lingers in the garden there. To Any Reader Robert Louis Stevenson. And…
Nathan Ford CAST Test Oil on Birch Panel 122 x 170 cm.
Meanwhile we are getting set for the opening on 14 October of solo exhibitions for Akiko Hirai, Rebecca Campbell and Linda Felcey. Linda and Akiko will be in the gallery from 6-8 on Saturday evening. Rebecca will be there in spirit. The weather has been so lovely these last few days we can all still pretend it is summer…..
Rebecca Campbell
New Paintings – 16 October to 11 November 2023
Opens Saturday 14 October, 6-8 p.m. Works are online now. please click on the image below to view.
On the subject of the viewer ‘completing the arc’ with their looking of an artwork, and whilst searching for R L Stevenson’s poem above I came across this gem. It refers to readers (from a writer), but could apply to all artists’ work, and the connection to their readers, listeners, lookers…
But now you are here with me,composed in the open field of this page,no room or manicured garden to enclose us,no Zeitgeist marching in the background,no heavy ethos thrown over us like a cloak.Instead, our meeting is so brief and accidental,unnoticed by the monocled eye of History,you could be the man I held the door forthis morning at the bank or post officeor the one who wrapped my speckled fish.You could be someone I passed on the streetor the face behind the wheel of an oncoming car.The sunlight flashes off your windshield,and when I look up into the small, posted mirror,I watch you diminish—my echo, my twin—and vanish around a curve in this whipof a road we can’t help traveling together.from Dear Reader by Billy Collins
Akiko Hirai
New Ceramics – 16 October to 11 November 2023
Opens Saturday 14 October. The artist will be in attendance from 6-8 p.m. Works will go online on 16 October.
Akiko Hirai Extra Large Moon Jar, Ceramic 66 x 55 cm. Sold
Linda Felcey
New Paintings- 16 October to 11 November 2023
Opens Saturday 14 October. The artist will be in attendance from 6-8 p.m. Works are online now. Please click on the image below
And finally….
What luck—an open bookstore up aheadas rain lashed awnings over Royal Street,and then to find the books were secondhand,with one whole wall assigned to poetry;and then, as if that wasn’t luck enough,to find, between Jarrell and Weldon Kees,the blue-on-cream, familiar backbone ofmy chapbook, out of print since ’83—its cover very slightly coffee-stained,but aging (all in all) no worse than fleshthrough all those cycles of the seasons sinceits publication by a London press.Then, out of luck, I read the name inside:The man I thought would love me till I died. Used Book By Julie Kane
Thank you as always for reading. Please look our current exhibitions webpage to see all the artists exhibiting in the Art of Silence exhibition.Please click on the images above for links to webpages.Contact the gallery by phone or email to purchase, or for any further information.We ship worldwide.Best wishes,Aidan.