Lets go to the Mall..

..today!  The Mall Gallery that is, sumptuously located at the top of the Mall, just by Admiralty arch, more or less opposite the cabinet war rooms.

It is a venue that I had heard of many times before.  It hosts a variety of organisations and is the headquarters of the Federation of British Artists and the Hesketh Hubbard Art Society.  It is a nice bright open space.  When you enter there is the reception and two galleries off to each side.  One contains the café and radiating off this is the smaller North Gallery.  It is well lit with good natural light.

You have to be quick as the exhibitions change almost weekly. I enjoyed it and intend to go again.
When I went, and it will have been and gone by the time this post percolates through to my blog, it was the 155th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Women Artists.  Entry was £3 (or £5 with a program).  Katherine Tyrell on her excellent Making a mark blog (http://makingamark.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/review-society-of-women-artists-annual-exhibition-2016.html) did a very good review of the show.  She was right it has been well hung and well presented.

In this blog I intend to concentrate on those things that appealed to me or taught me something. As I was there, an oil painting of lemons demonstration was just starting up.  I stopped to watch for some several minutes.  She had a good quick technique.  I liked the physical set up.  The box to contain the fruit, good idea, I shall use that, and also the portable set up. I shall use that too. She was painting (I failed completely through a surfeit of British shyness to find out who she was) on a small rectangle of wood.  I liked to look of that surface and should take that to.  Finally she was holding her brushes further up than I do.  I shall have to try that.  She had a quick, flicking style.
 
Onto the artists and the works that appealed to me.  There was quite a few.  What I particularly liked about this exhibition was that there was also a high standard of sculpture on display.  Of the people I liked in alphabetical order they are

Judith Barton – Blue Boys.  A large portrait of two nuzzling cats rendered mainly in oil but with a novel and very effective use of gold leaf as highlights.  It is the kind of painting the draws you in with the main figures evolving out of the background.

 
Diane Bedser – Distant Hills. An example of Diane's work is the first painting (top left). It is not Distant Hills but you can see the style and it is similar (although not as good).  Nice movement and energy of the sea and blurred landscapes. 

Kate Bentley  - watching & waiting .  A very interesting use of watercolours. Large paintings with a sort of spotted effect, strong shadows and shaggy lines giving a sort of horrific edge that reminds me  of Mervyn Peake.  Kate had won the Princess Margaret of Kent Watercolour award for her other work  Chilled & Content (pictured above left) but I preferred this one.

Jane Bridger.  Jane had produced three very fine pieces of Stoneware call Blue Sea Urchin Bowl, Green Sea Urchin Pot and Green Sea Urchin Pot of which 2 can be seen here.  I am sucker for pots and pottery and my hands itched with the desire to handle these, purchase them and scamper home with them. I do like the effect of barnacles adorning the pieces and the gentle pastel colouring.  The shapes are alluring to.

Stephie Butler’s Graffitti Girl is another award winner.  It is a very good watercolour portrait using square brushes of paint to create a very characterful picture, which by the way is perfectly reflected in the name it has been given.  The background and the colour was a lot more subtle and interesting than a first glance would suggest.  I like this allot.  It had sold when I was there.  I am not suprised.

Andie Clay’s Reach is done in the frustratingly unhelpfully described “mixed media”.  I would like to know what.  There is some acrylic in there maybe. I like the movement in this piece with the bird like marks exploding out of the monstrous shape.  Energetic piece. 

The superbly named Rebecca Fontaine-Wolf VPSWA had three works on display of which my favourite was Morning Dew.  A simple outline nude over the gold stripe down the left of the painting and highlighted in red.  I like the contrast between the stark nude and the dripping looser paint over the gold.  These work on my brain to trick me into seeing a face above the torso.  The colour contrast works well in this piece.

Soraya French again in the beguiling Mixed Media has produced a large somehow threatening piece of two dancers.  The marks and the paint suggest competition between the two figures and the cross stich of the right hand figure suggest some kind of bandage to me. It has good energy.  It looks much better in person by the way. 

Jane Gibson Conversation 1 and Conversation 2 both in ceramic (left and right of image).  Each conversation consists of two vase like pieces.  Of all the pieces in the show these are the most I would most like own and I regret not buying them. It would be tough to pick between the two.  They have a tactile sense to them that the photo doesn’t really convey. Neither does the sheen of the colours.  I may have to buy them after all.  I shall certainly keep my eye on Jane Gibson.
 
Gillian Highland – Midnight at Brabourne – Raku Sab pot. It is the one on the middle level on the left.  It compliments very well Jane Gibson pieces.  A plainer simpler shape, but plays to these strengths nicely A very tactile object
 
Sophie Glover produced an almost illustrative series in pen and gouache called Women who Make.  They are all very good and I hope in some way they are kept together if purchased. Simple line but it is very good at showing the movement and energy in the creative processes depicted.

Natalie Holland – Mirror Me – oil on canvas.  This is not really the kind of style the appeals to me, photo realistic type portraits and paintings lack something as far as I’m concerned.  I do admire the technical skill required which this one show.  What caught my eye on this one is the subject matter.  It says something,  well conceived.  I like the pose of the reflected subject and the fact she is holding the phone and the smug narcissist facial expression.

Vanessa Jayne – A welcome visitor. A very sweet oil painting of bluetit  (maybe? I’m not good on birds). Sweet paintings can often be saccharine but not in this case.  The colour contrast is very good and the detail is extraordinary.  She particularly is good a bringing the wood of the door alive. 

Ali Lindley – Mr Grumps Got the Hump is a brilliant titled watercolour of a chimp.  This piece of full of character and made me laugh when I saw it.  She has brilliant brought out the humour of the subject, which is something that is difficult to do and of which I am a big fan in art. It is also a good example of less is more painting.

Elizabeth Bradshaw is a very vivid strongly coloured piece in acrylic that just hammers out at you from the wall and overpowers the surrounding pieces.  It screams “here I am” at you. It does this without becoming bombastic or too much. 

Julie Rawson Should’ve Seen us in Our Prime. A strange title that only really becomes significant after inspection of the painting.  It is one of those cases where the title changes the perception of the painting in this case, for reasons I cannot entirely explain, in a way I strangely resent.  I like the simplicity of this piece, the flat way the red leaves sit on the grey background.

Liz Seward Two Green Bottles is a good piece of Mixed media sitting on the wall.  Sorry but you can’t not with a title like that.  It is more complex than it first appears and what is done very well is light through glass and water and then the diffuse light this produces on the other pieces. 

Jessie Sheffield has produced in Cement and Acrylic (and other things) a remarkably simple piece of sculpture with the unlikely name of Magnaparva No.5. Simple but effective that put me in mind of some kind of strange enormous gun cartridge.  Again very tactile.  I like this.