April Exhibitions Part 2 - The Green Man

The First Gallery here in Southampton has to be the most unusual art gallery I’ve ever visited, and certainly the most unusual I’ve exhibited in. Run by mother and son team, Margery and Paul Clarke, the gallery was set up in their home in the late 60s with the remit of providing a small, personal space in which professional artists can sell their work, and those with an interest in art can view and buy the work, having seen what it might look like in a domestic setting. The gallery has grown in reputation over the years whilst remaining small and personal.

I was pleased to have a print selected for the gallery’s exhibition entitled The Green Man. The show centred on a series of prints and paintings by Elizabeth Nash based on the subject of the green man (more information here). This was complimented by work on the same theme from other local artists including fellow Red Hot Press members Sue Anderson and Tamsin Loveday. As well as print, there were works in a variety of media; drawing, painting, bas-relief & wicker, sculpture, book-works, digital photography and textiles. My own piece was an aquatint of a Woodwose or wild man, a sort of distant relation of the green man, explained here in my blog post about the print.

There. Not everything's about the royal wedding today.

Image: Elizabeth Nash, Green Man

Life class

2010 hasn’t started terribly well. January has been hijacked somewhat by inclement weather (sub-zero temperatures in the studio) and parental ill-health so I don’t feel as though the year is really underway yet. Creatively, I’ve been drifting somewhat – Woodwose was a bit of an aside, a detour from the main business of… what? I have many ideas in my head but can’t seem to get any of them to form coherently.

A friend of mine did a life drawing class recently which reminded me of how much I used to enjoy figure drawing (I’ve been concentrating more on portraiture of late). I dug out some of my old sketch books and spent an enjoyable hour looking through them, remembering various life classes and models (piercings in the most uncomfortable places!) and decided that I need to do some more. Most of my work tends to contain figures in one form or another so I think it would be useful to revisit life drawing and remind myself how the human form fits together. One of my art teachers at college used to say that in order for us to understand how clothes fitted over the human body and to be able to draw or paint them convincingly, we ought to study the human figure unclothed. So, I’ve booked myself on a session in a couple of weeks at local establishment The Art House; can’t wait!

Woodwose

After the hectic run up to and pleasant Christmas Day (I can recommend Moroccan spiced pie as a vegetarian alternative to turkey), it’s been good to be able to spend a few quiet afternoons in the studio, skypeing with Arizona Jim whilst working on my woodwose aquatint.

Often appearing in medieval European literature, artwork and architectural decoration, a woodwose, or wild man, is an oddly hirsute character sometimes shown brandishing a club. The idea is that he somehow bridges the gap between human beings and the less civilised woodland creatures such as elves and spirits. You may come across him in conjunction with the Green Man, another mythical character who has foliage sprouting from various parts of his face. This print was a bit of an aside really, sort of a bridge between projects.

Studio time has been scarce over the last couple of months so my first resolution of 2010 is to set aside Sunday afternoons at least as designated studio time. That doesn’t mean I’m a Sunday printmaker however… more on projects for 2010 next time.