Trip to London – Gallery Visits

Hi all,

So recently, my friends and I from uni took an arranged trip to London to view some galleries and current exhibitions, so I thought I would share with you some of the work we saw that day.

We visited three galleries, the first of which was the Royal Academy of Arts. They currently have an exhibition on of Charles I’s collection of artwork. I found this very interested as this is the first time in three hundred years since the Monarch died that all these pieces have been back together in the same building.

Charles I was the first Monarch in history to have an interest in art, and caused uproar amongst his people when the tax payer’s money was funding his rapidly growing art collection. As well as collecting art, he had many portraits of himself, his father the late King and his family commissioned by some of the most famous painters of their time e.g. Peter Paul Rubbens and Anthony Van Dyke.

Royal Academy 2

It was wonderful to see such historical and important pieces of artwork all back together the way they would have been displayed when the King ownedthem. I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition and the history behind all the different paintings, but also because this is the type of and style of painting that inspired me to become an oil painter four years ago. It may not be as interesting to look at as contemporary paintings but it was these historical paintings completed around the 1600 when the Italian Renaissance was underway, that laid the path to the current painting movements we have seen throughout time.

I would definitely recommend going to see this, mostly because it is unlikely that these pieces will ever be able to be viewed again as they were intended by King Charles.

Our next stop was the Glenn Brown exhibition showing at the Gagosian Gallery. Now Brown was an artist I had never come across before, however I really did like the work he has produced. The gallery exhibited a mixture of painting and sculpture as well as his large scale portraits completed in pen and ink.

I thought he had a really unique way of working, especially in his portraits. I thought the abstract way he creates them, using what could be described as sketchy line work, both worked beautiful whilst also alluring to a deeper level. Which I perceived to be something somewhat disturbing in terms of the expression on the figures faces and how they do not look out to the viewer but down or away.

I also found his sculptures very interesting. Although I class myself as a painter I am very interested in sculpture work. The reason I do less sculpture work is due to the fact that I love the creative side of it, however usually am not too impressed with the final outcome. Therefore I was very interested into how Brown produces his colourful sculptures.

I was excited to learn that they are actually made from a metal based frame that is then covered in acrylic paint and then oil paint, which was easy to tell as they still smelt very strongly of oil, a smell I am very familiar to. These sculptures were approximately four, five and maybe even six foot tall, erected on plinths and filled with every colour possible. The smell of the oil and texture of the paint was so appeasing, it’s the type of sculpture I would have loved to touch to see just how dry that oil paint really was.

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The final Gallery that we went on to was the David Zwirner Gallery, which is currently displaying the work of Bridget Riley. I am familiar with Riley’s work and knew that quite a lot of mathematics, preparation and design went into her final pieces. However I wasn’t aware of just how much effort it take for her to produce a show like this.

I know from experience with people who aren’t as interested in art that her work can be seen as underwhelming which is exactly how I felt when I entered the gallery. However after taking a closer look at the pieces and chatting with some of my piers and tutors I learnt that each one of her beautifully perfect circles, triangles and any other shape she chooses is all hand painted. Which is an incredible talent when seeing these hundred of circles all perfectly alined. This made me appreciate it much more, as it must have taken so long for her team to template these pieces, which are painted directly on the walls, then completely them do that they precisely match the designs Riley sends of to her team.

Although possibly not having as much to do with the practicalities behind setting up her shows, Riley is one of the foremost exponents of Pop art over the last fifty years. Who’s work seamlessly and effortlessly present to us the art behind precision, replication and pattern. The research behind her work is immense, dealing with elements of geometry I wouldn’t have believed could be put forward in art, and although I won’t be painting any perfect lines are circles any time soon I appreciate her work much more now I seen it for myself.

Thanks for joining me everyone, let me know in the comments if you’ve seen any of these exhibitions and what you think if the work there.

O, x