Yinka Shonibare at Tate Modern

A visit to the Tate Modern on Friday morning was a welcome break from the rain and a great way to get inspired. I decided to wander around the permanent exhibitions and came across a room with a stunning installation by British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare. He was born, studied and lives in London, but grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and his dual identity as British-Nigerian has been the starting point for much of his work.

This piece of work is called The British Library and contains more than 6,000 books, each covered in the brightly-coloured fabric synonymous with West and Central Africa.

2,700 of the books have gold printed names on them. They are the names of first and second-generation immigrants to Britain who have made significant contributions to British culture and history. There are also names who opposed immigration.

The remaining unmarked books suggest that the story of immigration in Britain is still being written.

Pierre Bonnard - The Colour of Memory

The Tate Modern is currently holding an exhibition of the work of Pierre Bonnard and I headed down there a few weeks ago to check it out. The exhibiton focuses mainly on his mature work where he had developed a highly individual command of colour. He used that colour to paint sensuous images of everyday life. As a textile designer, it was very inspiring to see his use of colour up close and the unconventional use of contrasting hues. One of the best examples of colour use is this scene below which uses a bold purple shade to convey the light on the table top.

Bonnard also painted everyday scenes like the 'Woman at a Table' below, which were snippets of life. The composition is also more unconventional, and more like a snapshot in its set up. The viewpoint makes us feel like we are sharing the meal with the woman, who is up so close that her head is cropped. I love the vibrancy of the red dress and rosiness of the cheeks.

In 'The White Tablecloth' below, the simplicity of the cloth sets off the items that are placed on it and surrounding it. I zoomed in on the richly coloured garment of the woman standing.

Bonnard created many room scenes, which used unconventional angles and viewpoints. I love the use of colour in the painting below which combines rigid angles of the interior (along with a fab yellow patterned wallpaper) with the softness of the landscape through the window.

The painting below, has a still life in the foreground and then you notice the woman standing with her back to us in the background, as if she is just about to leave the room.

Bonnard worked on many nude paintings and liked to use mirrors to challenge the idea of space and time. In the painting below he shows two different angles of the pose - the nude in the foreground and her reflection in the mirror, where the suggestion of an outstretched arm is shown.

In 'The Mantelpiece' below, Bonnard creates a complex visual structure with a stretching woman reflected in the mirror and a painted nude on the wall behind her. The nude stands where the painter would be, but the painter does not appear in the reflection.

The 'Nude Crouching in the Tub' below relates to a specific photograph that Bonnard took. The relaxed pose was captured on film and then recreated in painted form. Bonnard used photography and its spontaneous composition as an influence on his paintings and soon no longer relied on a camera to create these poses.

The warm tones of the painting below appealed to me. The orange of the floor reflects the light of the  late afternoon sun coming through the window.

Bonnard's paintings of the bathing nude introduced a new element to his paintings and showed how different the body looks under water. The painting below is the first of four paintings addressing this theme. In this painting, the nude stretches across the width of the canvas and the composition can be divided into a series of horizontal bands - the tiled wall, the white bath, the immersed body, and the rim and the floor.

This later version of a nude in the bath (below) is much moodier, with a more intense and expressive use of colour. Marthe de Meligny was his lover and model. Her health started deteriorating and she would take baths every day following water treatment for her ailments. Bonnard captures the intimacy and melancholy of their relationship through this painting. I love the use of purples, blue and mustard yellow to create the heaviness of the emotions.

This wonderful exhibition is on at Tate Modern until 6th May 2019.

Anni Albers

As a textile designer and someone who is drawn to all things textile-related, I couldn't wait to go to the Anni Albers exhibition at Tate Modern recently. She was an artist who is said to have "combined the ancient craft of hand-weaving with the language of modern art".

Born in Berlin in 1899, Anni started her studies at the Bauhaus art school and, being a woman of the 1920s, was discouraged from joining the painting classes and steered towards the weaving workshop.

She used the workshop, however to begin her creations in textiles which became her key form of expression and led to what she called her "pictorial" weavings, much of which was inspired by the work of Paul Klee. Her art is very abstract and that's what I loved about it.

With most of her works you have to look up close to appreciate the gorgeous nubs and textures. But standing further away creates a whole different feel.

The enormous exhibiton has over 350 objects from small-scale pictorial weavings to large wall-hangings and mass produced textiles.

The exhibition also had painted versions of Anni's creations and the workings out of each piece. I loved the vibrant colours of the two works above.

Albers made many of her pictorial weavings on a handloom that was exhibited in the exhibition. Alongside that was a film showing the loom in action. It demonstrated the painstaking time it takes to thread up the loom, but also the rhythmic action that weaving uses. It was extremely therapeutic to watch!

Alexander Calder

On Friday I went along to the Alexander Calder exhibition at Tate Modern.

Calder is known for his mobile constructions and a lot of the exhibition focuses on his exploration of different approaches to making mobiles. They are beautiful organic pieces which are also wonderfully modern and elegant, consisting of a network of wires and painted pieces of sheet metal suspended from the ceiling. Each element is moveable which means that the mobiles are constantly in motion, many of them relying on the slightest breeze to give them movement.

The piece above, Black Widow, was designed as a 3.5 metre sculpture to hang in the headquarters of the Institute of Architects in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It shows how Calder's work can define a space, rather than just occupying it.

On top of mobiles, Calder also created many sculptures made from wire where the sculptures take on an amazing scribbly feel in 3D. Photos of the sculptures don't really do them justice as they simply look flat. In the flesh, they take on a feeling of being alive, and every angle gives them life.

He did a series of head sculptures, but was also interested in the circus and did a series of circus performers and acrobats, which he used to create stage shows that he performed for artists such as Jean Cocteau, Joan Miro and Piet Mondrian at the Cirque Calder.

Happy Monday

Happy Monday to all. I hope everyone in the UK managed to keep dry over the weekend. It was pretty rainy, in true English summertime fashion! I ventured into London on Friday and got very soggy, but had a fab time, seeing some art and having some afternoon tea.

I started by heading to the Tate Modern where there is a Sonia Delaunay exhibition on. She was one of the pioneers of abstraction and a central figure of the Paris avant-garde. She used dynamic forms and vibrant colour in her paintings, but she also went beyond fine art to embrace fashion textiles, costume and set design. She was obviously a good businesswoman, with her own fashion house and brand name. The textile room of the exhibition was by far my favourite and I relished the selection of prints and embroideries on show, all manufactured, knitted and embroidered by a team of Russian women. What I loved about many of her designs was the modernity of them. Many could be used today.

Lovely geometric silk design in fresh colours.

This design has a mosaic tile effect.

Geometric designs for fabric patterns.

A stunning cotton coat design.

The fashion drawings were beautifully realised and I love the use of geometrics in her designs.

Without the cloche hats, these designs would look like they were designed today.

Embroidered shoes and clutch bag.

Afternoon tea was held in the Library Room of the Marriott hotel overlooking Big Ben!

Still a stunning view even if it's pouring with rain....

We had a selection of teas, cakes and dainty sandwiches, all washed down with an endless supply of bubbles.

Marlene Dumas

Yesterday I headed up to the Tate Modern to check out the much anticipated Marlene Dumas exhibition. She is a South African painter based in the Netherlands and is apparently seen as one of the most influential painters working today. I'm afraid I had never heard of her until I saw the advertisements for the upcoming exhibition, but I was immediately intrigued to know more. The poster and pamphlet advertising the exhibition uses a haunting image of a woman who's eyes have become deadened by darkening them with an indigo paint. This 'deadening' or haunting look of the eyes becomes a recurring theme in her paintings. She focuses mostly on the human form, exploring subjects such as sexuality, love, death and shame, and many of her work included close-ups of faces, often displayed en masse.

Marlene never draws directly from life, but uses existing images to work from. The interesting thing is that instead of appearing photorealistic or staged, they have an amazing fluidity and spontaneity to them. I have dabbled slightly in using watercolour and ink and know how hard it is to control. She does it with ease and an emotion that is hard to imagine creating. Within a few sweeps of a wash, she captures the features and emotions of a person.

The above image is what inspired me to see the exhibition.

The image above is the first piece of work that you see on entering the exhibition. It's a series of ink and graphite 'portraits' and began with images that Dumas had discarded from another work.

The above image was painted after the death of Dumas' mother and was a response to her feelings of loss and loneliness. She uses of an image of Ingrid Bergman from the film 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'. She is crying and the tears have been exaggerated by distressing the surface of the canvas.

These two paintings were hung together in a room dedicated to Dumas' 'Magdelenas' series of canvases. It depicts women from historical art, alongside modern women and is a view on how differently women can be portrayed in the media. Naomi campbell is on the left as a semi-nude fashion model, Princess Diana on the right as a demure stately figure.

I love London!

It's always good to have someone to come and stay to remind you of how great your city can be. Last week Tatsuya, a very good friend from Japan came to stay and we had a fab time gallivanting around the city with him. He is an art lover and a foodie, a great combination in a city that has so much of that to offer. Every day was filled with gallery visits and restaurant samplings and we were more than happy to tag along and enjoy it all with him.

I'm embarrassed to say that it's been a long time since I've visited the National Gallery, but going with Tatsuya made it a lot of fun.  I homed in on the fashions from the Renaissance period where there were many beautiful embroideries and vibrant colours. Check out those bright pink tights and cut-out sandals! These were all outfits worn by men.

Food was an important part of Tatsuya's visit and we had a fab brunch at the Shard one morning. The views of London were stunning and it was great to see so much of the city from above. This was followed by a trip to Borough Market, an amazingly vibrant place with so much to see and eat! We managed to sample quite a lot, considering we had just come from brunch at the Shard!

 Afternoon tea in London is a must and we decided on the Wolsely which is reasonably priced and has a great atmosphere. We only managed to get through half of the selection before getting a sugar low and having to stop. We even got to see someone famous - the beautiful actress, Natasha McElhone.

If you're an art lover, no trip to London is complete without a visit to the Tate Modern, an awesome structure on the south bank of the River Thames. It is housed in an old power station that stands proudly in place. Views from the balconies include St Paul's Cathedral across the river.

We had just enough time to whiz around the permanent collection, which always amazes me.

 A quick trot through Chinatown and we saw this pile of bright red lanterns on the footpath.

Tatsuya even had time to pick up a Chinese snack on his way through.

A trip to the Design Museum was interesting. We got to see an exhibition on the architect Louis Kahn.

This was painted on the wall outside the museum.

Matisse cut-outs

Friday was a beautifully sunny day and a perfect day to head to the Tate Modern to see the Matisse cut-outs exhibition. I was mightily impressed, not just by the scale of the works, but by the quality and amount produced by a man in his 80s. It was so fresh and invigorating. There were about 14 rooms in all, each displaying immense pieces, all made from painted paper which was then cut out to create the shapes. Many of the artworks were accompanied by photographs showing the artist at work. They illustrated how many of the artworks were actually pinned to the walls of his home first. In this way, he could observe them and move them around as he needed, deciding on the layout before he progressed. He completely immersed himself in the process, having assistants to help him move the images around, once he'd pointed where he wanted them to go with a long stick! From a distance the shapes of each piece look just like one solid piece of cut paper, but then you get up close and see how he patched pieces of the same colour together to create the desired shape. My favourite room was the one containing the blue nudes, where the the beautifully formed figures are accentuated by the simplicity of one colour. 

Spots, pills and formaldehyde

Whenever I come to London, I try to fit in a few exhibitions over my three week's stay. I have managed to see quite an eclectic mix this time round, with the British Design exhibition at the V & A, and the Zoffany exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. On sunday, I was lucky enough to see three great exhibitions under one roof at the Tate Modern, one of my favourite galleries.

The main exhibition was that of Damien Hirst, which covers 24 years worth of his work from the endless multi-colour spot paintings, to the animals suspended in formaldehyde. Many of his pieces could be seen as morbid and hard-hitting, yet they are images that have become almost too well-known to offend nowadays. It was interesting seeing his early pieces, many of which I hadn't seen before. My favourites were the butterfly pieces which create beautiful kaleidoscopic designs out of butterfly wings.

The two other exhibitions were by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama and the Italian artist Alighiero Boetti. Yayoi Kusama is well known for her repeating dot patterns which I had seen before, but also on show were a wide selection of paintings, sculpture, drawing and film which I hadn't seen and showed a whole other side to her art.

Alighiero Boetti was one of the most influential Italian artists of the twentieth century and used a wide variety of media to create his art, from industrial materials to postage stamps, biro pens and embroidery. My favourite pieces were the embroidered ones, where maps of the world were painstakingly created, but I was also intrigued by the biro pieces. These consisted of large sheets of paper that took weeks to cover in endless lines of biro so that the whole sheet was covered. The ink changes colour as each pen runs out and is renewed, and it begins to take on the appearance of indigo-dyed, embroidered fabric from a  distance.