Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco - News

The Last One to Know

2012-01-16T14:17:00.000-08:00

Facebook, Twitter and...

oil on linen, 2012

( just joking, the title is Two Wrapped Boxes )

Am I the only person who was completely unaware about Tumblr until now?
If there is still someone out there who is interested in visual arts, has come across the name of the website and ignored it, think again.
The place is a goldmine !
So, Tumblr is something like Twitter, but for images ( and video and audio I guess, but I care less about those). Many users, in my limited exploration of the huge website, collect and share inspiring images of all kinds.
I have come across a few very good collections but I know there are many many more to discover.

I have now set up two mini blogs, one has images of my paintings, the same you can find on my main websites. The other will feature images of paintings I like and find inspiring.

So, how does Tumblr work ?

I would say it is not too difficult to use, I guess any twitterer would get to grips with it faster than me ! The photos upload fast and display in a large format, and you can post your own pictures, images from the internet or share ( reblog) images from other Tumblr users.

Once you sign up for an account you will find yourself on a dashboard page where you can/will see images of the users you follow as well as your own posts, and then if you wish you can also create your own blog.
The idea is to find and follow users whose photos are of interest to you, or for example you can search for painters you like in the "Search Tag" field on your dashboard and find out who has posted images of their work, assuming that you might have the same tast in art.
I typed my name and found out that three users had published images of my paintings !

What is good about Tumblr?

It seems to me that this is a no-fuss website. Facebook for example allows and calls for more exchanges, so that painters get to know each other a bit. Tumblr is more stern, more anonymous: if you share someone else's image you don't need to acknowledge it to them, but at the same time the whole process is quicker, less time consuming.
Images are large and clear, and many users have organised their blogs so that it is easy to access and consult the archive.
Below, for example, a screen shot from the archive of the blog " Neon Fruit Supermarket" which has kindly featured an image of my latest painting.

It seems to me to be a much better platform than Facebook albums for paintings. I have weaseled my way into the FB contacts of a few very good painters who post lots of interesting images and it would be great to see them on a Tumblr page instead.

Tumblr seems to me quite a funky community, where users find inspiration in paintings, photos, illustration all jumbled up for a change.

I hope you might be curious to explore !

AAAAA help wanted

2012-01-12T05:25:00.000-08:00

Stevejobs, I love you but you let me down.

Dear Stevejobs, a few months before you abandoned us, your vision left me out of the picture. You have decided that your Apple wasn't going to host my carterpillar anymore. You moved everything on a cloud in the sky, and I'll be soon left without a home, unless I quickly manage to find out how to grow a pair of wings.

I come from a rather computer-illiterate country, I had to teach myself how to deal with computers when I already was of that age when your brain might not take in new things straight away. I taught myself what I needed to know, not much but enough to interact with the virtual world.

So, dear Stevejobs, I got a Mac and I built my new website on it, and I paid you a few quids every year and pushed a button and my website was online. If my links weren't working, if I had to add one tiny photo it took about thirty second to make the correction and the little icon for iWeb was jumping about to tell me everything was done.

So dear techno-savvy friends and readers, I am now looking for instructions on how to grow wings. From my B.M.S. years ( before MobileMe Subscriptions) I remember hours of wait to upload my very, very heavy website, with lots of high-res photos on a server. For each change I made to a single page or for each page I added, I uploaded all the website again. Every time I tried to only upload one page the website was not working properly.

In my ignorance, this is what I understood about my options now that Apple has cancelled web-hosting.
1: I redesign and rebuild a new website from scratch on a server with an online design software. Auch.
2: I hold on to my website and I use an FTP carrier software to upload my ninetyfour pages all over again for every update. Auch too.

Hopefully someone can suggest me a solution or confirm that the late Stevejobs ( RIP) has hung me out to dry.

The Flagellation, Part Two. Who's Who

2012-01-07T06:18:00.000-08:00

So, who are these mysterious characters that populate the painting ?
The argument has been going on for decades, and Ronchey adds her theory while at the same time mentioning past interpretations and explaining why she agrees or not with them

The first key to understanding the painting is to try and put a date on its execution. This is another element that has been controversial. Ronchey agrees with many in placing it around 1458-1459 mainly because of the influences of Leon Battista Alberti's architectures that are echoed in the painting. This means Piero has ultimated the Flagellation just before the Council of Mantova, the one in which Bessarion and Pope Pius II were trying to find funds and members for the crusade.
In Ronchey exegesis the work does not refer to the Council of Mantova, though, but to the previous attempt at saving Bysantium, the Council of Ferrara/Firenze ( it had moved from one city to the other because of the threat of a plague epidemic). The procession of hundreds of Byzantine personalities with their colourful and strange clothes was seen by a huge crowd, among which probably Piero.

The artist who got to get a privileged view of the dignitaries and of the Basileus ( then Giovanni VIII Paleologo) himself was Pisanello. There is a large group of drawings by Pisanello ( Louvre) where the artist had sketched people and costumes. Pisanello also was the author of at least one medal, bearing the profile image of the Basileus, that had a wide circulation and became his definitive image in those years.

So we can affirm that the first figure in the Praetorium is Giovanni VIII Paleologo, who is pictured as Pontius Pilatus, and is wearing the red footwear that were the attribute of the Basileus.

Giovanni, argues Ronchey, is not the one who is letting the flagellation happen ( this is a more contemporary view of the gospel's figure), but rather a powerless witness to it.

The person who is responsible for ordering the flagellation is actually the figure standing barefooted with our back to us. He is identified with the Sultan Mehmet II, the conqueror of Costantinople. After the occupation of the town Mehmet had his men look for the body of the dead Emperor: He was after the red footwear embroidered with the double-headed black eagle, symbol of imperial power. That is why he is now pictured without footwear ( at the time of the Council of Mantua Constantinople had yet not fallen). The two men performing the flagellation seem to be two pirates of which there's an iconographic precedent again in Pisanello's drawings.

The body of Christ represents symbolically the church of Bysantium. He is tied to a column on top of which is a golden sculpture that might be identified with the huge bronze statue of Emperor Costantino, of which only a few fragments now remain, that was in Rome in front of the Lateran. The whole space in fact represents the town of Constantinople.

In this vision, the two spaces in which the painting is divided are not removed in time from one another, but in space. What happens to the left of the painting, the torture of Constantinople, picture symbolically as the flagellation of Christ, is happening WHILE the three figures on the right are discussing the situation.

As we have seen the painting refers to the Council of Ferrara-Firenze. The first figure on the left, the greek mediator, is identified by Ronchey with Bessarione. We don't have any confirmed image of the Cardinal at a younger age, but the double pointed beard, the cloak and hat all point to the charismatic Cardinal.

Elements of the architecture in the right hand side are another sign that point at the Council of Ferrara. The roof on the left is found in a painting by Francesco del Cossa and reference the tower by Leon Battista Alberti.

If this negotiation is happening in Ferrara, it is likely that the figure on the right is Niccolo' III D'Este, Lord of Ferrara and host of the council. His son Lionello would be pictured with a similar brocade overcoat in a painting by Jacopo Bellini in 1441. Niccolo's sons, Lionello and Borso, were filo-Byzantium and had ties with Bessarione and his neo-platonic circle; they also helped Giovanni VIII Paleologo's brother Tommaso when he escaped to Italy in 1460.

There is only one last figure to identify, the striking young man dressed in crimson that echos the posture of the tortured Christ. "Porfirogenito", this was what the basileus was called, "he who was born in porpora ( crimson, the imperial colour). The man looks like other figures painted by Piero: a fragment of a fresco in Sansepolcro, an angel in the National Gallery Baptism, a prophet in the fresco from the Duomo of Arezzo. Ronchey argues that this is an idealised portrait of Tommaso Paleologo, the youngest brother of the Emperor who could inherit the throne if it was to be saved.

A bearded Tommaso, twenty years older but still fair and " of great aspect", would arrive in Italy for his melancholic exile, where he would die as ever assisted by Bessarione in 1465.

In 1474 the Cardinal was still looking for help for the Empire. Tommaso's daughter Zoe was the csarina of Russia, and Bessarione left for France and England to try and organise yet another crusade. He knew his health was declining and he had planned to come back to his great friend Federico da Montefeltro who had already prepared an abode for him at Castel Durante.

Bessarione took with him all his precious books, which he had left in legacy to Venice ( they would become the initial core of the Biblioteca Marciana). He left them with Federico whom he trusted, perhaps he had a foreboding feeling about his trips.

Bessarione didn't make it back to Urbino, and died in 1472 in Ravenna. His books, after having been detailed in an accurate inventory, were handed to Venice by Federico in 1474. Is it possible that another of Bessarione's treasured possessions was left back in the hands of his loyal friend, thus becoming the most precious treasure of the city of Urbino ?

I cannot recommend enough the book by Ronchey if you read Italian. The exegesis is of course much more detailed and complex than I could cram in these few lines. The book analyzes many other contemporary works of art such as Benozzo Gozzoli's Cappella dei Magi, Vittore Carpaccio's Visione di Sant'Agostino, Pisanello's San Giorgio e la Principessa and many others ( view iconography ). The research was huge and conducted with great respect for other scholars, the result is convincing and profound.

Piero's Flagellation, A Recent Interpretation. Part One- History

2012-01-05T11:24:00.000-08:00

In the past weeks I have been reading a book that I had seen a few years ago but never got to buy. The book is called L'Enigma di Piero ( Piero's Enigma), it was published in 2006 and is by Silvia Ronchey, a scholar of Byzantine History.

Ronchey looks back at previous interpretations of The Flagellation, the small painting by Piero della Francesca in the Palazzo Ducale of Urbino and gives her own reading of the masterpiece.I am summarising the content of the four hundred pages of the book here because I see it has not been translated in English and it is a very intriguing read. Ronchey's interpretation is now well respected and takes into account the work of many previous scholars.

The painting is one of the big mysteries in art history, and since its "rediscovery" it has prompted a myriad of different exegeses.
The Flagellation is the painting where figures were deemed having "some African features" and " thick ankles" and therefore rejected by the envoy of London's National Gallery, in Italy to buy masterpieces for the museum.
Its success started later on with a French scholar, Layard, and Degas was the first painter who rushed to Italy to see it after reading Layard's article. Soon critics realised Piero was a major artist and his paintings were written about by all the most renown art historians, including Berenson, Kenneth Clark, Longhi, Gombrich, Pope-Hennessy and countless others. The first one to interpret the work in the light of Byzantium's history was Kenneth Clark, and Ronchey proceeds from that idea and enriches the book with a hundred pages of apparatus to support her theory.

Ronchey tells the story of the first half of the fifteenth century, when Byzantium was about to fall to the Turkish armies and frenetic negotiations were made in Europe to try and save the Empire.
The main ambassador of the Emperor in the west was Bessarione, a greek cardinal who, though originally an anti-latinist, had argued in favour of the reunification of the Eastern and Western churches during the Council of Ferrara/Florence as he thought it the only way of obtaining help for the Empire. A crusade organised after this council ended in a complete disaster.

The plan was to move the capital of the oriental Empire to Mistra, a city close to Sparta in the Peloponnesus, that was already one of the most prosperous parts of the Empire under the aegis of Teodoro and then Tommaso Paleologo, brother of the Emperor.

This would have been a very beneficial move, as Mistra could be an important strategical bridgehead to contast the ever increasing Ottoman empire both commercially and militarily. Mistra was also at the centre of cultural interest as it had been the home of a school of Neoplatonic philosophers which had deeply influenced Humanism, the movement at the heart of Italian Renaissance.

One of the major sponsors of this strategy was Pope Pius II, Cardinal Enea Silvio Piccolomini, who canvassed for years in order to organise another crusade.
All the leading families in Italy were interested in Mistra: the Gonzaga in Mantova, the Estensi in Ferrara, the Malatesta in Pesaro, the Montefeltro in Urbino. They all had family ties between themselves and with the Emperor ( the beautiful Cleopa Malatesta had been married to Teodoro Paleologo, brother of Tommaso and previous despot of Mistra), they had power and money.

Enea Silvio Piccolomini, painted by Pinturicchio in the Libreria Piccolomini ( Duomo di Siena)

in 1502/1507 with the help of Raffaello.

Pope Pius II organised a second council, in Mantua in 1459 to try and launch yet another military offensive. Not only he was seeking for the support of these families, but he also tried to involve Venezia, Genova, Burgundy and other countries. Constantinople had, in the meantime, fallen, and the last remaining Emperor, Tommaso, the youngest brother who wasn't expecting to reign, had escaped to Italy with his family.
Having decided to personally lead the crusade in order to push all his very reluctant allies, the Pope died in Ancona while getting ready to set sales for the Aegean sea in 1464.

The crusade happened anyway, and it was another failure. In a short time the Pope, the last Basileus Tommaso Paleologo and Sigismondo Malatesta, leader of the crusade who caught malaria in Mistra, all died, and with them the hope to reunite the Empire with Rome. The daughter of the last despot of Mistra would then marry Ivan III, great prince of Russia, the new Cesar ( Csar). The ideological legacy of the Empire of Bysantium was going to pass to Moscow, re-enter orthodoxy and be progressively detached by the West.

The -failed- unification of the first and the second Rome is the project of which the Flagellation, in Ronchey's opinion, was the manifesto.

In the next post I will write about tht Ronchey"s exegesis of the painting.

Yearly Recap

2012-01-01T03:51:00.000-08:00

After having to watch endless footage of yearly football and music charts on tv I thought I'd look back at my working year too !

2011 opened on a faux pas, the silly idea of taking part into a televised juried show that turned up to be cheesy and inconsequential. The experience though did me good: I learned to consider more carefully what makes sense and what is irrelevant if not damaging for my working practice, and furthermore it made me generally reconsider the theme of juries that I then addressed in some paintings.

My paintings were shown in several occasions this year. I started a good working relationship with Fine Art Consultancy, a dealership based in London that has brought me to the 20/21 International Art Fair and the Affordable Art Fair ( Battersea and Hampstead editions) as well as organising a couple of selected guests events to introduce me to their clientele. All these resulted in very encouraging sales and good feedback. On the Italian front I have shown again with Ellearte in Palermo and again I can report interest and sales.

I haven't been painting much during the summer but I worked on a very large personal piece that has whet my appetite for working on a larger scale, albeit the London-size of my studio.

In only took part in two open shows this year, both rather prestigious although very different. The Threadneedle Prize show was held in September at the Mall Galleries in London and was a result of a gruesome selection. My small painting, Studu for Committee, was chosen among the 52 finalists among 4350 entries.

In October one of my self portraits was selected for the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Competition held in the ample and luminous King's Place Gallery in London. It was and interesting and varied show with works by very prestigious painters.

In November I was featured in a lengthy article on The Artist magazine, american edition. Eight pages with many images and text, opening with a full page image of Geneva ( please email me if you would like a PDF copy of the article). The magazine has also selected my painting Mohican I as a finalist in their yearly portrait competition.

Teaching has been a very rewarding activity that I kept up for the whole year. Aside from some very pleasant days with a warm and intelligent group of people, articulating my toughts about painting has helped me progress in my work.
My website and blog together this year have had 66.288 page loads, a staggering number for which I am both proud and ashamed given my difficulties at writing in a passable English.

The last months of this year have seen me working on a new series of paintings, Wrap, that have had good reception and sales when they were shown. In the near future I plan to keep working on this theme and I am planning to show them in London, Sicily and hopefully in Rome at the end of the year. I also have an extremely interesting and cool project for an art residency but it is taking forever to get a final decision from the organisation involved, I'll keep you posted.

Ending on a sad and nostalgic note, this summer I lost Topsy, my studio companion, and I miss her every day.

Bilbao Foray

2011-12-31T03:25:00.000-08:00

I have not been painting for the past two weeks, but I haven't been far away from paintings either.
I have seen a few shows in Rome over Christmas, but I want to start from the end: I spent 24 hours in Bilbao yesterday with the sole aim of visiting Antonio Lopez's show at the Museum of Fine Arts.

The show was well worth a trip. As my friend Allan Ramsey put it, this is a show to fly to, drive to, swim to, walk to, crawl to....
I am not going to dwell on how delicious it was to see all those paintings and what a different sort of experience is looking at them in real life after having burnt my eyes out on reproductions.
I could finally appreciate the surfaces of the paintings, some times dry and scratched, some times smooth and seemingly effortlessly covered, the differentiation between his works on canvas and on board and his astonishing drawings.
Also, it was another occasion to admire the man himself, his work ethics, his dedication, his humbleness, his deep engagement with classicism.

If you cannot catch a plane and get yourself there before the end of the show, you can still buy the catalogue or buy the iPad app.

After such a delight in the morning, I went to the Guggenheim Museum in the afternoon, but what a disappointment !

The building itself, a weird metal extrusion from a fissured sac-a-poche, is nothing like the photos you see of it. One would think it is placed in isolation in an large space, a bit like, say, Sydney's Opera House or the pyramids in the middle of the huge Louvre courtyard.

Actually the metal blob is sunk at the foot of a small urban hill, overlooked by drab apartment blocks.
Once you have successfully located the entrance ( it takes a while) you find yourself in a unnecessarily complicated and shapeless building with cryptic floorplans. ( I don't seem the only one with a dubious opinion)

On the left, another "more sincere" view of the building.

The temporary exhibitions were " Painterly Abstraction" and Serra/Brancusi. The first one was the sort of "one each" show, where someone seemed to have randomly picked one example for each painter and aligned them on the walls of several rooms grouping them up a bit. No depth, no further analysis.
The second show was even more arbitrarily put together. What do two artists such as Brancusi and Serra have in common? Ok, Serra was impressed with Brancusi studio and visited it for many days in a row when he was young in Paris. That's about it. It seems to me that the mini website on the show highlights the differences among the two artists more than any similarity or references of Serra to the work of his predecessor.
Serra works on the perception of space and time, viewers are meant to interact with the sculptures, he often makes site-specific installations, most of his sculptures are made of steel.
Brancusi instead worked on form, synthesis. His sculptures are self contained and do not require interactions, are not generally on a monumental scale ( apart from the famous endless column, made by repetition of smaller pieces though) and executed in different materials, marble, bronze, wood.
Moreover in the show installation, I felt that there was no dialogue at all between the works, Brancusi's sculptures pushing Serra's works on the walls.

What curiously happened, though, was that works from the two artists remanded me to the paintings and sculptures I had seen a few hours earlier at the Lopez show.

Lopez's Carmen Despierta and Carmen Dormida ( first photo above), as well as the many small babies heads in the show echo Brancusi's versions of the Head of a Child ( second and third photos), The First Cry and The Newborn in what is clearly a theme that has interested both artists.

One of Serra's pieces in the permanent installation The Matter of Time instead made me think about Lopez's drawings of his studio.

More evidently than in his paintings, the vertical lines defining the narrow walls of a bathroom bend in describing a field of vision that is spherical, curved: the huge steel walls of Between the Torus and the Sphere enhanced this feeling of a reality centred on the viewer's vision.

I am now back in my studio with plenty of inspiration and I wish to all a Happy New Year full of art !

Aquisitions/2

2011-12-02T03:43:00.001-08:00

I am not sure what the core subject of this post should be: an ode to social networking that made me find out about so many incredible and inspiring painters, a reflection upon how much a painting is or should be worth or simply the joy of buying works of art.

Anyway in this order this is it: firstly I confess I spend time just wandering around Facebook and snooping into photo albums of friends of friends of friends.

So this is how I came across Harry Stooshinoff's paintings. Now, I am not a landscape person. I can't paint them and I often don't get excited about landscape painting ( my fault). But with Harry's I just had to stop and pinch the screen to have a better look. They are undefined big spaces, non picturesque, and painted loosely but with intention.

Re-grade, 6"x8.25"

Anyway out of curiosity I check the guy out and find his Etsy store, and this is when I fall from my chair at seeing the price of his works. These are not cheap, they are a steal.

This is what Harry wrote in one of his comments: " I am in NO galleries. I sell my work for chicken feed...check my etsy store. . I am a national treasure waiting to be discovered. But I'm extremely difficult to deal with :)".
It took me about two minutes to pick a companion for the above piece, and I have chosen this distant view of trees, I just loved the brushwork and interplay of colours in the sky.

Late Winter Blue, 6"x8"

So if you haven't clicked on the link to his online gallery shop, how much do you value these works ?

Harry, put yout prices up ! It's not because you are prolific that you should undervalue your work. And everyone else, snap these paintings up before Harry comes to his senses.

Oh, and I received them safe and soud from Canada in less than a week, they are being framed right now and I can't wait to be able to look at them every morning and be delighted.

Vespa & ukulele

2011-11-19T06:28:00.001-08:00

In the past weeks I had the chance to paint Kelley Swaine, an American writer and poet who sat for my painting groups. She has a wonderful face with large green eyes, I see her features as very retro', and she dresses with a touch of vintage too.

The day after our latest session she set off for France on a writing residency. As a consummated scooter rider I almost fell off my chair when I heard she was going to drive her 1967 Vespa to Paris ! Since then I have been avidly reading the account of her travel on her blog, Poetry, Science, and Other Tales of Writing.
Behind her beautiful calm face there was a real adventurer! The story of her brave journey with the faithful Vespa, carrying her, a trolley and a ukulele through the French countryside is extraordinary and involves a gipsy van, Dante's inferno and a huge translation mistake.

The American Dream and Other News

2011-11-11T01:14:00.000-08:00

Recently my work has been appreciated by our friends from across the ponds.
Following an introduction from my friend Alex Tyng, the american magazine "The Artist's Magazine" has featured me in an eight-pages-long article on their November issue.
You can download the magazine from this page for $5.99. To introduce me to their readers, the magazine has also published photos of some portraits on their website and two excerpts from the article here and here. I was in US a few days ago and bought a couple of copies. Once home I realized that someone had ripped off the pages on me in one of the copies, I have been stolen !

"In a separate incident" my painting of Natalia has been chosen as a finalist in The Artist's Magazine's Annual Portrait Competition this year, a selection judged by Robert Liberace !

On the home front: two more weeks to go see the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Competition at King's Place Gallery. At the bottom of this page there is a link to download the list of the paintings on display.

This month more works of mine were on display atboth editions of the Affordable Art Fair, in Battersea and Hampstead. I am happy to report that I had very good sales, particularly my new series "Wrap" has been decimated !

In these days I am working feverishly on more "Wrap" paintings both for the 20/21 Fair in February and for a show in Italy next year.

MY PALETTE/3 and Wrap

2011-10-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

REDS

In time I have tried different reds and all of them have their merits. I love Cadmium Red Deep ( I don't have a use at all for Cadmium Red), I have one from Old Holland, but I only squirt a little blob as I don't use it much. Among transparent cool reds I like W&N Purple Madder very much, especially in combination with Yellow Ochre.
Among the earth reds I switch between Transparent Oxide Red and Burnt Sienna. A relatively new addition that rapidly became fundamental is MH Mars Violet Deep. It's a thick, cool and dark colour that can be warmed with Green Gold and helps me to give body to mixtures for darks.

In need, I have some chromatic colours that I can add, such as MH Brilliant Pink and MH Permanent Orange, the first opaque, the latter semi opaque.

As you can see I do care if a colour is opaque or transparent, and I like making opaque+ transparent mixtures.

BLUES

I always used W&N French Ultramarine as my basic blue. I then have a black, either Ivory Black, W&N Blue Black or W&N Charcoal Gray. The latter is grainy and thick with charcoal powder, it's not very tinting and gives the paint a dry matte quality.

Another blue that I always have on the palette is MH Kings Blue Deep.
This is the perfect cooler for skin tones. One of the mixtures I love is this blue with green gold, purple madder and white. It can easily be shifted towards each of the hues.
I some times add MH Phthalo Turquoise, a very cold and chromatic paint. Kings blue+Ultramarine and Green Gold yeld a similar colour but less saturated.

Also, I have updated my website with images from my latest ongoing series, Wrap.

Emil Robinson at Waterhouse and Dodd

2011-10-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

I really meant to write about this show earlier, but there's still a few days left before it closes.
Emil is one of my online friends, and hails from Cincinnati, Ohio. I was very happy to learn that I would be able to see his work in real life, as this rarely happens with American friends.
His works are shown at Waterhouse and Dodd, in Cork Street, and tie in perfectly with what is generally shown in the street.
Emil's colours are enticing and his choice of subject is even more intimate than just domestic, it rather seems confined to the studio or better to those interiors that become artist's studios just because a painter has set up there and started observing a subject.
I had the chance of finally meeting and talking to Emil at the preview, and we agreed how the Internet has been such a powerful tool for many artists to break isolation and find like minded people in which to find confirmation and inspiration.
One of Emil's paintings was also on display at the Art London Fair last week. I was talking to the gallerist there and he rightly made a connection to the work of Domenico Gnoli, whom I also thought about while seeing that particular painting of a shirt as other works such as "Blue Envelope" from the show.

Gnoli is not very well known outside Italy, but he was a marvellous painter. In my recent and quite disappointing visit at the new MAXXI museum in Rome I was astonished that on the couple of hundred pieces from the collection on display there was only ONE PAINTING ! ( the rest being sculptures, videos, installations and the like). The painting was a Gnoli.

Emil's show closes on the 21st of October.

Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Competition

2011-10-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

In self portraits one can see artists at their more sincere moment. They are rarely painted to impress, rather more to experiment, to express.
There are almost two hundred of these honest works on display at the King's Place Gallery. I wish the selector of the BP Portrait Show would see the show and realise what an impressive selection of PAINTINGS this is. There are painterly paintings, whimsical paintings, desperate paintings, inquiring paintings, photographic paintings, nude paintings, dressed up paintings, faces, bodies, studios, bedrooms, gardens, each of the work in the show commands attention.
Here are some random photos, unfortunately there isn't a catalog for the show, so if you can, go see it !

Norman Cornish, Will Kemp and Laura Gressani

John A. Smith, David Gleeson and Laurece Kell

Henrietta Young and Alison Lambert

Jaimie Boyd and Michael Grimshaw

Caroline Bays

Melissa Scott-Miller, Stuart Howitt and Lizzie Rowe

Sally Muir, Phil Widman Katie Lam and Bernie Clarkson

Robert Dukes and Susan Eaton

Yours truly and Juliet Kac

Cherrie Pickles

Brita Grindstrom

Helena Mc Grath

Celia Paul

Celia Paul, accepting the first price of 10,000£, with Robert Travers. They stand in front of Anthony Green's and Maggi Hambling's works

MY PALETTE/2

2011-10-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

YELLOWS

Although my palette is mainly chromatic, I just need to have Yellow Ochre on my palette. Ochre is a series 1 paint, it's a cheap and versatile colour. I also like the idea that it has been one of the first pigments ever used by man.

It is thick and opaque and it combines very well with the transparent colours on the palette, allowing me to make thick mixtures. I use W&N or MH Yellow Ochre. Recently I also have been trying MH Raw Sienna, I am learning about its use, for the moment I like the consistency very much.

Another yellow I use regularly is MH Lemon Yellow. Harding claims on his website that he is probably the only colourman to make it.

I suggest to my students that when they want to lighten a mixture for shadows in flesh, they should first reach for yellow ochre and then for lemon yellow. Again this is a strategy to avoid mixing white in the darks with the danger of making the whole painting go chalky.

I also use lemon yellow in combination with reds and blues, as if it was a warmer version of white.

My last essential yellow is W&N Green Gold. I don't know why it is called green, if you mix it with a little bit of white you would see that it produces an acid yellow. It is a transparent colour that has a real zing.

Since it is transparent, it will not modify the tone of a mixture, but it would give it a twist towards yellow. Mix it with blue to make a range of greens, with ochre to turn into a greenish hue, with oranges, reds and magentas for even warmer, tangy mixtures.

Of course, if I am painting a lemon I might have to reach for a cadmium yellow, but otherwise these three yellows are all I need.

MY PALETTE/1

2011-10-08T08:24:00.000-07:00

Why I use the colours I use

My palette has undergone many changes and is always an ongoing experiment. With time I have established some principles for choosing the colours I wish to use for any single painting.

As painters know the combinations are endless and I think each artist should have a minimum knowledge about pigments. However the most important question I ask myself in selecting a palette is what each colour can do for me, for my way of painting.

So firstly, what is “my way of painting” ?

I work in flat brushstrokes and in several layers applied wet over dry. I don’t do glazes, only some times I scumble over small areas. Some of my paintings have subdued, earthy colours, others are more saturated. I pay attention to colour temperature and to how chromatic (saturated) a mixture is. The surface in my paintings has texture, some areas of paint are thin and some are thick.

My palette technically allows me to achieve these characteristics for my work. I use high quality paints, and because of availability, all of my paints are either Winsor and Newton or Michael Harding, since they are both stocked in my local shop in London as well as in Italy and Spain. I paint abroad sometimes and I don’t want to develop an addiction to a colour I cannot easily get hold of.

White

I have been using both flake and titanium white, but I now tend to prefer the latter, particularly in mixture with zinc. Flake has luscious thickness and I think it is also a very good white for painters with less experience.

One of the most common mistakes of the beginner painter is to overuse white in mixtures. Because flake white has less tinting power than titanium, you would need to add quite a large amount of paint before the mixtures might go “chalky”.

As I learned better how to control the white on my palette, I switched to MH Titanium Zinc. The main reason is because flake white is toxic and being an absent-minded cook, I tend to have cuts on my fingers which should not be in contact with lead.

I now use Michael Harding’s Titanium White No. 3 ( with dryers) in the winter and Michael Harding’s Titanium White No. 2 in warmer months.

Self-Portrait

2011-10-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

In the last year I have painted myself twice.
The first painting was done in my studio, I set up a wobbly construction so that both the mirror and the board were on my easel. It took me quite a while to complete it, basically because the model kept moving !

Self Portrait with Earrings, 2010, oil on board,

This is indeed one of the difficulties of painting from a mirror. While the painter is concentrating on observing the features, the model absentmindedly turns her head, the eye changes place and the painting goes all wrong.
It is reassuring anyway that the model doesn't mind not being flattered, is not disappointed if the painting is going nowhere, will sit for as long as the painter wants to work.
The portrait is painted on a board primed with a casein ground, particularly absorbant. Its resistance to the brush helps me be more assertive about laying the paint.

I was interested in a frontal view of the face. I placed the head slightly on the left, and painted what I found is a natural stance for me, the head leaning towards my left a little.
The hair and collarbone form an ellipses, and ellipses are also accentuated around the eyes. The earring I am wearing are a design by my friend Cristina at Raris, inspired by Michelangelo's design for Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome, my hometown.
The palette I have used was essentially chromatic, with the addition of Yellow Ochre and Mars Violet Deep, two earth colours that I find particularly useful.
I was simply concentrating on features. Having worked for many hours, left the painting aside, reconsidered it, abandoned it then picked it up again, my face expresses many of the emotions I went through.

The second self portrait was painted this August while I was staying with family in Tuscany.
There were fourteen of us in the house that day, five about to leave and ten arriving the following week. As someone who is used to spend most of the days alone and quiet, I find the situation very jolly but at times overwhelming. Painting is a good excuse to retreat to my room.
I had this small canvas and set up with a mirror and the canvas both on a table. I had a headache that morning, unusual for me. I had just received the news that my dog, staying elsewhere with my mother, was sick and poorly. She would die that afternoon.
I concentrated on painting and this is what came out. Limited palette of white, Ochre, Burnt Sienna and Black.

Self Portrait with Headache, 2011, oil on canvas 24x18 cm

Looking back at this work, painted in a couple of hours, I find it dense with feelings and with a strange sense of foreboding.

"SELF PORTRAIT WITH EARRINGS" WILL BE DISPLAYED AT THE RUTH BORCHARD SELF-PORTRAIT COMPETITION SHOW AT KINGS PLACE GALLERY, LONDON N1, FROM THE 14TH OF OCTOBER TO THE 24TH OF NOVEMBER.

Queen of the back room

2011-09-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

I am just back from the preview of the Threadneedle Prize Show.

My painting was hanging in what is by now my "usual" spot in the Mall Galleries, the smaller room at the back (it's about the fourth time my works hang there). The director of the gallery congratulated us on getting selected: he confirmed that the entries were 4350 from more than 1800 artists for only 52 works in the show.

Just before the speech, I introduced myself to Joe Tymkow, whom I recognised from his FB profile photo. Above is a photo of his work: it looks all white but it actually consists of a drawing of a figure which has been overpainted in white, it is barely visible from life. Joe explained to me that his work is mainly abstract, but he occasionally paints figurative almost as a form of doodling.

Seeing the show, I have to say I could hardly relate to the works included; apart from a few exceptions, I felt like I think a classical musician might feel when walking into a rock concert.
I came to the preview wanting to meet two other exhibitor that I knew from seeing their work online. I didn't manage to locate Laura Smith, one of the seven shortlisted artists. I liked both of her works very much, both reminiscent of Richard Diebenkorn. Sorry but I also could not resisiting posting one of the scissors paintings by Robert Dukes, I love this one.

Diebenkorn

Dukes

Laura's older work has been recently taken down from her website, but some images are still on this website. I regret that some of her portraits have gone, I often checked them out online, especially the one of actress Romola Garai.

I had more success with the second person I wanted to meet: Simon Wright.

Again I had stumbled upon Simon's works online and I visit his web page regularly.
As a child who always loved to make things, little models, paper snowflakes and the like, I cannot help loving his paintings of little paper creations. Paper boats, houses, chairs and more recently planes just make me want to pick them up and hold them on the palm of my hand. They have the same grace as Peter Callesen paper creations. I like the vulnerability of these objects, held together by a little bit of glue and tape. I think his works are a wonderful union of an emotional subject and a truly enjoyable technique, paintings that one never tires looking at.
Anyway I went up to Simon and his beautiful mum, introduced myself and as it turns out he had read my blog and knew my work! We had a nice chat and found out we share many favourite painters. I hope I am not violating some sort of law by confessing I voted for him in the people's choice !

Finally, on my way out I had this startling vision: Cezanne himself was in the crowd !

Threadneedle Prize 2011 Show- My inclusion

2011-09-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

The shortlist for the Threadneedle Prize has been announced and images of the selected works have now been published.
The show will open to the public on Thursday and I am going to attend the preview tomorrow.
My submission to the show was a very large painting I completed this spring.

"The Committee" (134x168cm) is a painting born from a reflection upon precisely submitting works for open shows.
I deliver the work on the right date, together with many other hopeful artists. Everyone unpacks their works, often keeping them face down; I leave clinging to the form slip, trying to memorize the number stuck to the back of the frame so that I can check results more easily as soon as they come out.
After a week of silence a stern list is published. In or out, that's all. You are not told why, often you don't even know who has been judging.

If I am in, a sense of elation grips me. If I am out I shrug my shoulders and try to minimize the disappointment, but a nagging voice keeps telling me I am not good enough, could have done better, should have submitted different works.
Why taking part at all, risking the heartbreak then? A bit of visibility for my paintings, a feeling of being part of a group: at the preview of last year's BP Portrait Award I was given a pin with the word "artist" to wear on my shirt, it felt to me like some sort of official graduation, if the NPG says so...

For the Threadneedle Prize, uniquely, artists have the chance to submit up to three pieces and write a short introduction about the works. I did so and then I decided to support the submission with two small studies I had painted for it, in case the judges would care to know about the sort of preparatory work that went into the large picture.

The chairs of the big painting are set in the studio where I teach, and I was not allowed to work there nor to borrow the chairs. I had visualised those chairs in that space, and although I tried painting white chairs instead (hence the studies) I stuck to the original image in my head and ended up working mostly from imagination. I like the theme and I will paint it again in the future.

Rather than the large work, my little 27x22 panel was one of the 52 works chosen among more than 4300 entries.

Now that I saw the images I can only guess that the show will not at all look like a showcase for a variety of styles of representational painting.
It seems to me that the judges wanted to assemble a homogeneous ensamble, something that looks more like a curated show that an open competition : this is, for them, what figurative painting is or probably should be today.
I don't think my work as a whole fits in this group at all, but this particular painting of mine somehow does.

Away

2011-08-16T02:34:00.001-07:00

I am writing during my long holidays in Italy, when I always try to sneak in a little painting time among sun bathing and chatting with family and friends.

Just in case, I store some painting supplies both here and in Spain, where I just spent five weeks. Painting outside my studio and without my usual tools has been interesting and made me think about what I do and why.
Working on these few mediterranean pictures has been very beneficial, mainly because I consider these my holidays and I am not concerned if the paintings might be sellable or not, besides I am not even sure I'll be taking them back home.
For a not very prolific painter as me, getting into this state of mind is rather unusual, the idea of showing is always at the back of my head. During my otherwise rather idle summers it proves me yet again how the activity of painting for me is a real necessity, something that lends a meaning to the day.

On a more practical level, stepping outside the studio makes me work without my safety blanket: my sturdy easel, my huge weighted palette, favourite brushes and what I found was the most difficult element to substitute, my usual solvent!

In my local shop in Spain I only found aguarras, some sort of turps, aqua ragia in Italian, which is thicker and more oily that the OMS I normally work with. It affected the brush work very much, the areas of paint that I normally keep separated and overlapping instead blended together like mayonnese !
Despite the heat and the wind, I was working in a sheltered area outside, with aguarras drying times were longer than usual and I ended up trying to include a little Vandyck Brown in mixtures where possible, it was the fastest drying colour I had.

In Spain I worked on a few tiny landscapes from which I tackled a very large canvas, 1,90x1,30m. I am really starting to like painting big! It becomes all about design and the texture of large areas.

Since I arrived in Italy last week I just painted a small self portrait ( forgive the photo taken with point and shoot camera). I had a headache that morning, which rarely happens to me. The headache was still there the day after, when I finished it.

That afternoon I received the news that my dog, as she was staying with my mum, fell ill and died suddenly despite the efforts made to save her.
She was my studio companion, a quiet and loving presence that enlivened my days. Looking back at this painting I now see a sense of foreboding and nostalgia in it.

Bye, Topsy

Season Redeemed

2011-06-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

Let's spell it out in football terms: I haven't won the Premier League, I didn't qualify for the Champions League but in a last minute twist of this year's showing season I am unexpectedly in the FA cup final !
Translated: although my portraits this year were not selected for the shows I have entered them, a little painting has sneaked into one of the most important prizes in town.
The Threadneedle Prize is rather young, it's just in its fourth year, but it has established itself as a major art prize for figurative artists. A 41,000£ prize money definitely helped.

I entered the prize for the first time this year, I wanted to submit the painting "Commitee", of which I wrote here.
The Threadneedle's submission website was very good, allowing artists to write a short piece about their work. I thought this was a good opportunity for the artist to introduce and place the work in context, and in my experience of open shows a real novelty !
I also submitted two of the small studies I had painted for "Committee" as a support to the work. Well, in the end it was one of these small studies that was selected !
I was told that they had received more than 4000 entries, and only 52 works will be on show.

"Study for Committee 2" is little more than a drawing with paint, done while I was considering if painting white or red chairs for the larger picture. It literally took me a couple of minutes to complete it from observation. I think that the patch of sunlight on the left side of the chair shows that I was actually painting from observation.
Of course I would have preferred that the selectors had picked the large painting, still I am incredibly happy for being part of this very prestigious show. I am looking forward to September !

Summer Show at Cricket Fine Art

2011-06-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

My "local" gallery, Cricket Fine Art, is including four of my paintings in the usual summer show.
So here are the new works.

This first still life, Roses with Peaches and Melon, is quite large, 60x90 cm.
I have found a shop on the Kings Road that sells real flowers, I mean flowers that live under the sky! I wish my painting could give an idea of the wonderful scent these roses had. The melon and roses together made my studio smell like a summer garden !
The open drawer of the table is an easy reference to Chardin, who included it in several of his figurative paintings. I love the half open drawer: visually it helps solve that problematic area for still life, but it is also an evocative and mysterious element; is there something in there, who left it open?

Chardin is again an influence for the second painting on show, Girl Reading With Tulips, an oil on linen, 51x64cm.
The girl in the painting is a friend's daughter who came to sit for me during school holidays. She has been a very patient model, her quiet presence set the atmosphere of the work.

Set up in the same corner is another still life, Flowers with Zocchi Print, oil on linen, 61x51cm.

The antique print in the background is part of a series my maternal grandmother gave to me when I got married. She was from Turin, and these prints represent views of Tuscan villas, so she felt it would be nice to split them among me and my sister because our Florentine blood. I have only recently started considering them as possible subjects and I am sure they will soon reappear in other paintings.
I am very happy that the show will also include this little head, mentioned in the previous post. It is unusual for galleries to show portraits, it is probably not easy to sell other people's portraits. For my part I can say that I have bought two portraits of strangers in the past ( this is one), and I really enjoy having my walls "inhabited" by these characters.
The show will be open from the 28th June to the 30th of July, if you are in London please come visit.

One a day

2011-06-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

Here are three small paintings on board that I painted during one day sessions.
I don't normally have such a limited time to make a painting, albeit small, as I normally work for quite a while on each picture, and I declare a painting finished at least four times before it actually is.
Anyway these are all on board, prepared with my favourite casein ground. In this first one I was quite distant from the model, always a good idea when I work on a small size painting: it helps me not getting too detailed.

The other two paintings were done with a model wearing a nice kimono coming straight from Japan ( thank you to my friend Bukie, and I got to keep the kimono after the class !).

I did not have a canvas prepared for the day so I arrived with a couple of small boards and I was not sure how I was going to use them. I am recently experiencing the need for more room to move around on the canvas, and the idea of painting large works doesn't seem daunting anymore. I immediately got used to larger size canvasses and now I find small boards harder to deal with.

During my recent short trip to Paris I was very impressed with some of Corot's figure paintings that I saw in the Louvre, and I thought I might paint something more or less in the same scale, this is 34x29 cm (13"x11").
I have deliberately made the head very geometric, egg like, abandoning any temptation to paint a likeness. In the background there was a pot of hydrangeas on a table; someone pointed out that they look like a flower painting on an easel, which I like.

This last small head is a result of a morning only, unfortunately I had to leave early. I am making some studies for a project I have in mind for next year, so I am experimenting different sizes for head only portraits.
I don't think I could paint a portrait smaller than this, at 24x16 cm ( 9"x6") it's a very "dense" size.

Ilaria Goes Conceptual

2011-05-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

Late evening a few months ago: a friend forwards me a call for entry.
I understand it is some sort of juried show filmed by BBC2. I lightheartedly apply and before I know I find myself talking about my painting on camera in front of three judges on some sort of reality TV program cheesily titled "Show me the Monet".
My painting was probably too simple, or maybe simplistic, to appeal to the judges; two of them didn't like it and I was "voted off".

The experience of being severely criticised in front of an audience has left me a little bruised, for a couple of days my head was buzzing with things I should have blurted out during the filming ( not that I did not fight some of the remarks !).

Anyway I had to digest the experience and I did it in my own way, with painting.
So here is my very first "conceptual" painting: The Committee. Oil on linen, 167x128 cm.

It is not difficult to understand what the subject is, but in fact I was very interested for once in trying a large scale work where I was not attempting to describe form but I was dealing with empty space and large flat surfaces hit by light; the painting is simply a composition of rectangles.

I hope my committee without an identity might look back at the viewer !

Painting this large work gave me time to think about how I need to build a thick skin to avoid being undermined even by the shallowest criticism.

The rejected painting is the wonderful, marvellous, skillful, emotional, original: "Clelia with red skirt".

Robert and Adèle

2011-05-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had two friends whose shows were opening across the road from each other.
Robert Dukes' Paintings and Drawings is now open at Browse and Darby in Cork Street, London. Robert is a fantastic painter and I attended a few of his drawing sessions at the National Gallery. He is extremely knowledgeable about the Gallery and has a profound understanding of painting.

Robert makes old masters paintings, or rather Painting with a big P, one of the focuses of his work. Here is a wall in the show with his studies from Degas, I especially loved the first one on the right.
More studies, from Balthus, Rembrandt and Hals on the opposite wall.

I called them studies but in fact I think these are really paintings in their own right, the subjects having been totally appropriated by Robert and made his own. The brushwork is as usual spectacular, thick paint, deliberate marks, impeccable colour mixes.

There are photos on the Browse and Darby website ( but what a shame they introduced a slideshow viewer as they used to have very high resolution images !), and a surprising interview with Robert by Neil Plotkin on Painting Perceptions, but the news is that Robert has finally given in to technology and is having a friend designing his website, so don't forget to check it out in the next weeks.

Here are more photos from the display downstairs.

How curious that in the past weeks I was working on a similar painting as the second from right in the bottom pic.

I have recently been commissioned a large portrait of an ambassador. In my painting he is standing in front of a large neapolitan landscape he owns; here is the detail from the background of my picture: the classic bit with the view of the Vesuvio, seen from a very similar point of view as the painting that Robert has so intensely looked at. Could it be the same tree ?

Also briefly met at the opening: Alex Fowler, Susan Wilson and Claudia Carr, three amazing painters from the gallery roster.

At the same time, on the other side of the road, a large crowd was enjoying the paintings from a group show at the Medici Gallery. I have recently made contact with painter Adèle Wagstaff via Facebook. We have been corresponding and finally got to meet yesterday.

I was aware of Adèle's work because we had paintings hanging in the same show a couple of times, and so I am glad we have managed a few words and will be meeting again soon. I really admire her sensitive portraits and I am very curious about her trips to Egypt and the work that has come out of this experience.

Here is a wall with two still life paintings and a nude by Adèle.

The landscapes are by Judith Green, another painter who has been recently featured on Painting Perceptions.

What an inspirational evening !

Group Show

2011-05-04T15:29:00.000-07:00

I have two paintings in a group show at my representing gallery in Palermo, Sicily.
The show features thirteen artists to celebrate thirteen year since the opening of Galleria Ellearte.
My paintings are a studio of flowers and a portrait sketch.

I used this bunch of tulips for a larger painting of a young girl reading, the daughter of a neighbour who came to sit for me during the school holidays.

I actually painted this close up of the flowers ( 30x38cm) from the other painting to study the colour and the leaves better. It is great fun to paint from another painting, in this case the flowers had wilted in the meantime, as it gives me freedom from the subject and more time to work.

I then made some changes to the original painting following things I tried out on this studio.

The portrait is also one of two paintings I made from the same setting. I had three session with this lovely model and I painted this smaller work in the second session before going back to the larger work on canvas.

This one is done on board ( 36x24 cm) primed with a casein ground, which is very absorbent. The pink occurs in the background, flesh and robe, with a unifying effect. I love the contrast of the masculine haircut with the very feminine features of this girl, and I am glad I get to paint her again in two weeks !

The show runs from the 11th to the 31st of May.

A long awaited debut

2011-04-20T03:11:00.000-07:00

One of my former tutors at Heatherley's has finally decided to step on the virtual stage and post his marvellous portraits on the internet.

Allan Ramsay is a winner of the John Player Portrait Award, now BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London ( some may wonder if NPG picks their sponsors among the most popular companies charts ).
Anyway I have learned a lot from Allan and I admire his work very much. He has an incredibly confident brush stroke which makes clear statement about form. He possesses the ability of mixing very harmonious neutrals and his paintings look as if they were executed with ease and flow even if I know there is a lot of work on all of them.

When I start a painting I often hear his scottish voice resounding in my ears with one of his teaching mantras:" Where is your darkest dark and your lightest light? "

Allan shares name and profession with the great master of scottish portraiture of the 18th century, therefore he is not easy to find on google. He just started loading images of his work on his brand new blog, so, to be able to visit it often and see more of his paintings and drawings, be sure to bookmark it or sign up.

Two and a half shows

2011-04-08T11:09:00.000-07:00

Today I made a foray into the West End to see two shows I was looking forward to.
William Nicholson's works hang at Browse and Darby while the Avigdor Arikha show is open a short walk away at Marlborough Fine Arts. Both shows are definitely worth a visit.

Nicholson's delightful still-lifes include the frivolous "Miss Simpson's Boots", completed by the very red boots themselves, jugs, flowers, pewter, gloves and all his favourite subjects.

What strikes me about him is how diverse his pictures are: at times his still-lifes and landscapes look as if they were painted by a different person, some are thick, some are thin, some have a large tonal range, others are very close in tone. I would say that what keeps them all together is the choice of colours, a palette of warm neutrals with or without accents of a more chromatic colour.
I enjoyed his loose paint handling and that dryness that I love in British painting.

Now cross a couple of roads, jump forward seventy years and enter Arikha's show. More still life, more dry, matte paint but a sense of intimacy we never find in Nicholson.

One really has the sense that what is painted is HIS umbrellas, HIS wife, HIS studio. They are paintings of a disarming truthfulness, simple, light yet incredibly intense and charged with emotion.

How curious that on of these painters is "the grandfather of abstractism" by having generated his son Ben, and the other, already a well known artist, has abandoned abstract painting at the age of 36 in favour of painting from life !

Now the half show of the title is one I regretfully cannot see because it is in Rome, I just have the catalogue which, I am told, does not make justice to the paintings. Still the paintings have an immense appeal to me.

I saw a painting by Alessandra Giovannoni at a friends' house a few years ago. I was immediately very taken by it and I was a hundred per cent sure of where it had been painted.

Giovannoni restricts her painting world to a certain itinerary of her walks in Rome. She mainly paints Villa Borghese, and occasionally other areas on her route from the park to her house. She absolutely has got the genius loci, so much so that looking at the catalogue of the show today my heart ached for how I miss the light in my hometown.

Typically Giovannoni does not have a website but there is a Flickr album of the show at the Museo Bilotti in Villa Borghese here.

Small Solo Show

2011-02-28T04:39:00.000-08:00

After successfully showing my work at the 20/21 International Fair at the Royal College of Art, Fine Art Consultancy is introducing me to her clients with a small show at their basement studio in Hampstead.
There will be a drinks party on the 11th of March with my paintings and sculptures by Vanessa Pooley.
Please email me if you would like to receive an invitation for this event.

Pallant House

2011-02-20T10:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to visit Pallant House in Chichester, something I wanted to do for a long time.
Still bruised by the harsh critiques that my painting of Clelia received last Monday during the filming of a tv show ( more about this later as I digest the whole experience), I dragged my husband to a soothing arty day out.

Pallant House is a museum that specializes in British twentieth century painting. The permanent collection originates from the donation of the Walter Hussey, Dean of Chichester Cathedral, just a short walk away. More donations followed, particularly my favourite works on display were coming from the collection of the architect Colin St John Wilson.

Colin St John Wilson by William Coldstream

I was familiar with his name not for being the architect of the British Library ( shame on me), but from having read his account of being painted by William Coldstream and Michael Andrews, two painters I venerate. This slim book is such a better read than the redundant Man in a Blue Scarf about sitting for Lucian Freud. There is already so much information on Freud out there and the book does not reveal anything really surprising. Wilson's account instead tells about these less well known artists and has many images of their works.

Wilson by Michael Andrews

Wilson not only donated his collection, but is also the architect who designed the modern extension of the museum. I have to say that the pleasure of the visit is greatly enhanced by the architecture of the place: the rooms have nice, elegant proportions and perfect light. The paintings are hanged at a good distance from one another, they can be appreciated individually but also work as a collection.

Since the collection is not all on display, there is a reserve room, where some of the works in the depot can be also seen, a bit more crammed. I was happy to be able to see this painting by Victor Willing, a painter I have been curious about but never before saw from life.

I really liked this large and mysterious work in which the model boat transforms the room into an ocean. I found a preparatory drawing for the painting here.

Other highlights of my visits were this painting by Michael Andrews together with another one from his Thames series,

this other portrait of Wilson by RB Kitaj

and the three portraits by Coldstream on display.

I absolutely recommend visiting, even if you have dogs. You can leave them in the car park.

PS This morning we went for a walk in Climping and the landscape there reminded me so much of Patrick George's paintings.

A portrait

2011-01-29T08:07:00.000-08:00

Before the summer I received, through the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the commission of painting a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan.

Ben Babington-Browne was a captain in the 22 Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers. He died in a helicopter crash in the Zabul province on the 6th of July 2009. The portrait will hang in the refurbished mess of his Regiment in Hampshire.

I had been given some photos of Ben by his Regiment, and one of his friends gave me access to a large photo album which contained many pictures from his life and trips.
Browsing the album was very difficult: I felt I was intruding in Ben's life, but I needed good images to be able to paint an acceptable portrait. Looking at pictures of him I was often overwhelmed by sadness. Ben was a wonderful person, and all the words his colleagues have written about him can be read in his eyes.

My task was to paint Ben in Afghanistan. Among the photos I had there were some images of him on the snow which I thought could have a similar lighting situation as the desert.

I put together a composite of three different photos to build a reference for the picture. I wanted to represent Ben as the inspiring officer he was.

Painting him was a real honour and also a very emotional experience. I thought about him, his sense of duty, his attitude towards his task.

Yesterday I drove to Hampshire for the official unveiling of the portrait.

I had the chance of meeting Ben's friends, his brother and especially Nina, his mother.

Her words were very touching and I am happy I was able to give her a smaller copy of the painting for her to keep.

I have thought about Nina very much during the time I was working on Ben's portrait. I reflected about the feeling of a mother who is aware she might one day loose her son and I looked back and copied a painting by Giovanni Bellini which for me represents this emotion with subtle intensity.

After Bellini ( Madonna degli Alberetti, Venice Gallerie dell'Accademia), oil on board 2010

The portrait was very well received and the people who knew him commented that there was a strong likeness. I feel privileged to have been chosen to paint such a remarkable young man.

A Portrait Demonstration

2011-01-23T06:19:00.000-08:00

Last week I have been kindly invited by the Twickenham Art Circle to paint a portrait demonstration. One of the members, Leslie, has impeccably sat for the two hours session.
I have to say I was rather scared: this was the first time I painted from life in front of so many people ( about twenty five members showed up) and it was just after three long weeks of holidays without working.
Anyway I think it went quite well, and somehow I managed to talk and paint at the same time. The resulting work was far from finished but I hope has given the audience a good idea of my working method.
This is a short slideshow from the day.

Acquisitions

2011-01-21T09:10:00.000-08:00

It is a great joy to be able to buy some paintings from time to time.
Last Sunday I had the chance to go visit a painter whose work I like very much and came home with two of his paintings.
I was first aware of Daniel Shadbolt's work when his painting was hanging opposite mine in the 2009 Royal Society of Portrait Painters Show. Then again our works were hanging in the same exhibition at the Lynn Painter Stainer Prize later that year. I attended a drawing session tutored by him organized during the show. I walked away with one of the subject he had brought in for us to paint, a little dead bird, but that is one of my next stories.
Anyway I was always in great awe of Daniel's work and dedication. In December I went to the opening of a group show that he organized at his studio/house. Susan Wilson, a former tutor of mine, was also showing some of her intense portraits.
Having decided I definitely wanted to own one of Daniel's paintings, last Sunday I installed myself at his studio to choose. The poor man had to endure almost three hours of my chatting before being able to give me a send-off with a canvas under each arm !

So here are my choices: I picked a painting from 2007, a night portrait of a girl. It is a painting done in a shorter period of time than the usual. I liked the freedom of its marks, which suggest a rapid and intense action. The painting is also very tactile, and bears the change of cavas size which happens often in Shadbolt's paintings. It is rather different to his latest works that have a more compressed tonal range, but is painted with confidence and boldness.

The other work is more recent and is a view of the house's back garden. As Daniel put it, the shed in the back is "one of those things that look back at you". I chose it because it was one of the urban landscapes, such a typical London garden, as opposed to the more rural ones he also painted recently.

I am very happy with my new possession which have been appreciated by the whole family.

Sarah Nutley & Tony Rothon Show

2011-01-18T13:48:00.000-08:00

I am just back from the private view of Tony and Sarah's show in Mayfair.

Above, "Figure in the Kitchen of Keat's House" by Tony, and "Woman in a Fur Collar" by Sarah.

I have been studying with Tony and Sarah for many years and I practically have learned from them everything I know about painting. It's fantastic to see their work in a show together, and see how they have affected and shaped each other in painting.

"Kimberley Robinson, Soprano", " After Boucher" by Rothon- top right painting by Nutley

This large reclining nude is my favourite among Tony's works. I had seen this painting last year and I was looking forward to be able to admire it again: for me it's like a painting lesson !

centre "Chillingham Castle", "A Garden at Audley End" by Nutley

The bottom painting in the middle was my favourite among Sarah's painting, a very calm and subtle view of a garden, I love its very soothing dusk colours.

Painters like Tony and Sarah are very rare: their respective visions, sensitivities to colour, eyes for composition are marvelous and always leave me full of admiration and inspiration. You can find their website in the blogroll on the right.

Tony Rothon and Sarah Nutley

The Gallery, 54 Shepherd Market, Mayfair, London W1

Monday 17th to Sunday 23rd January 2011

Clelia with red skirt

2010-11-30T13:04:00.000-08:00

I just completed a painting of Clelia, a model I have been painting for years ( I actually found a drawing I made of her in 2002 ). You also might recognize her profile here.

Clelia is a professional model and a performance artist, and a great asset for any painter.
Her large, deep eyes give meaning and strength to portraits.

In this simple setting I placed myself rather close to her and I painted standing. I was interested in the articulation of the hips: seen from above, the right angle formed by the thighs and the bust opens up a little and the figure is more open to the viewer.

I wanted to render the different distances, the hands being the closest to me and the head further away. I planned to do this by keeping edges in the head softer. However what visually interested me more and more while working was the spatial relationship between the hands, and the ambiguity of her left arm, which has both flat elements of drawing and a strong foreshortening.

The painting is 72x65cm, and took three full day sittings.

Glasgow Boys

2010-11-27T10:53:00.000-08:00

Today I went to see the Glasgow Boys exhibition at the Royal Academy. It is certainly a very pleasant show with many good paintings, although in my opinion no real masterpieces.
Landscapes, bucolic scenes ( beautiful blue cabbage fields), geese and tennis, nothing that really left me breathless.
It is probably the paternalistic attitude of the painter that does not convince me. Bastien-Lepage's, a major influence on the group, painting of a girl is titled Pauvre Fauvette, poor little bird !

Children seem to be a preferred subject, as to say: this is what they are like before they turn into those hard skinned farmers. The painter is never really part of his subject's life, he is distant, he looks at these people from above.

I just couldn't stop thinking about Giovanni Fattori. Now that's a painter who breathes the same dust as his subjects. Technically he is not too far away from the scottish group, but I find truth and real feelings in his works, as opposed to some sentimental and frivolous works from today's show.

Glasgow

Livorno

Glasgow

Livorno

Glasgow

(here they draw)

Weather's practical jokes

2010-11-09T13:48:00.000-08:00

      Light in London during winter months is often very depressing.
Clouds are so low it feels like one can touch them just standing on tiptoes, they are grey and thick and let very little light through.

      It's such a frustrating situation for a painter. One struggles all day with darkness: lights on, lights off, daylight bulbs, blue bulbs... and then you go out at four o'clock and there it is: a very dark line of clouds and underneath it the sun on the horizon.
    Look west and the clear sky you have been longing for all day is aptly appearing in the distance just moments before the sunset.
This far away line of blazing light is a constant sight of my school runs, that usually mark the end of the painting day in winter.
Today it was there once again and I had my camera handy.

This cruel prank the weather plays on me is such a feature of London skies that the looming dark grey found its way in the background of a couple of paintings from last winter.

Small winter rose, oil on linen (45x38cm)

Ficus, oil on linen (106x55cm).

November, here we go again.

Carlos Ygoa

2010-10-26T13:41:00.000-07:00

Although we only met once, Carlos and I have shared many emotional moments.
You should know that Carlos is a victim of an epidemic which has struck in my family too. Having lived in a contaminated habitat for many years I am sensitive to this illness but not as affected as my relatives. Of course I am talking about football. Carlos and I always comment football matches, and this year, with Italy out of the world cup so soon I just had to root for Spain.
Being the only woman in my household I have long been banned from the living room for making unrelated comments to the game ( footballers hairstyle, shirts' colours etc.). During world cup matches I often wrote to Carlos whom I knew was probably not watching because he can barely stand the pressure ! We have cheered for goals and waited for penalty kicks with an eye on the tv and one on the computer screen !

So, Carlos supports Real and is a realist painter!
He paints very large decorations in churches as well as small street scenes, large figurative works, still-lifes and intimate portraits, all executed in an earthy and rich palette.

Carlos is also an accredited copyist at the Prado museum which he knows like the back oh his hands.

He also paints multi-figures decorations for religious buildings, complicated compositions and large scale works.

I had the chance to finally meet Carlos in Madrid in 2008. I was in transit for a few hours with my sons and Carlos has been a fantastic cicerone ! He picked us from the airport, drove us around the whole town and gave me a beautiful watercolour. We visited the Prado together, then the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum, where we saw an excellent exhibition of works by Avigdor Arikha.

What made the day unforgettable for my sons was not only Carlos' sense of humour and kindness, but also that thanks to him our tour of Madrid ended onto the pitch of the Santiago Bernabeu.

Here we are under the statue of our myth Diego. I look forward to pay another visit to Madrid, Carlos beware !

Alexandra Tyng

2010-10-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

My online friendship with Alex started back in 2004 but we only had a chance of seeing each other a couple of years ago when she was visiting London with her family: I finally could experience in person all the warmth, niceness and wisdom that she expressed in her online posts and her messages.

Alex is not only such an amiable lady, she is also an incredibly gifted painter, and a real all rounder. She can produce strong and insightful portraits, airy figurative pieces and luminous bird's eye view landscapes.
I think the success of portraits is the result of her being so perceptive, while her ability at describing space might come from her genes: Alex is the daughter of two architects, one of which is among the gods of modern architecture.

I like and admire portraits where sitters are actually placed in a precise environment, and Alex seems to love the challenge: she never shies away from complex background, intricate geometric constructions, musical instruments, rooms full of objects.

Her generous and discerning comments on other artists' works only confirm her knowledge of painting.

I hope sooner or later I will manage another meeting with this lovely and extraordinary woman.

Chance meeting ( Roni Taharlev )

2010-10-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

This summer, while I was spending a few days in Chianti, I made a short visit to the Certosa di Pontignano, where the Jerusalem Studio School was holding its Summer Program.
I learned about the program on Painting Perceptions, a very informative blog run by Larry Groff who a has also attended the program.
I was greeted by Rebecca Harp, who runs the JSS blog ( another regular read of mine): she showed me around the Certosa, and kindly introduced me to some members of the faculty.
They were all painters whose work I admire, until then only online: Israel Hershberg, Stuart Shils and Ken Kewley. I had the chance to talk to all of them and look at the work Stuart, Ken and Rebecca produced during the summer. The visit was a great source of inspiration and it seemed to me that the program is very beneficial to the students.
After chatting to Rebecca for the whole morning ( my fault), I had the privilege of assisting to a crit session. I was sitting on a side, telling her that I had a Facebook friend from Israel whose work I really like, Roni Taharlev. As it turns out, Roni was there ! She followed the program for the whole summer.
I immediately recognized her work among the thirty lined up for the crit, and as soon as I explained to her who I was, we said hello like old friends.

I had added her on Facebook months before after seeing her work through mutual friends pages. I had written a message to her because I thought it was funny that we were both painting the same subjects at the moment, roses and portraits.

Roni and I clicked immediately, we spoke about our lives and our work. She told me that she is the daughter of a poet, she told me about her family, her studio and her work. She is a strong woman, with a distinctive and fascinating personality. I like her attitude towards painting and share her interest for the old masters. I think that her work has an incredible emotional intensity.

Roni told me she has planted a lot of roses in her garden and I am looking forward to many more paintings to enjoy and learn from.

Balla, Linda ! *

2010-10-01T10:07:00.000-07:00

Some times the warmth of a person shines through even a brief and distant contact. When Linda Brandon and I met in London a few years ago, I was sure a real friendship would start. We had only corresponded over the internet, having met on an online forum, but I knew she was a fantastic woman.
We spent the day together, chatting and walking, and never for a moment found ourselves short of things to say. From then on, we seized every chance to meet !

Linda lives in Phoenix but she is a bit of a globe trotter, and she often fits a short stay in London in her trip. I have happily paid her back a visit in Arizona in 2007: Phoenix is the perfect starting point for a traditional Grand Canyon family holiday ! I had a chance to see Linda's studio and I enjoyed her legendary hospitality with my whole family; and we already have a date for her next visit to London !

Linda is a very skilled portrait painter, who loves painting from life. Her work is as warm as she is, full of life and enthusiasm. In her paintings women, men and children are really alive, expressive, ready to engage with the viewer. Linda's brushwork is fluid, her colours are rich and her tonal range goes from deep darks to luminous highlights.
If there is a person who is encouraging, supportive and positive, this for me is Linda. I am lucky I can count her among my friends.

* If someone is called Linda, it is likely that in Italy she'll get this song sung to her every day :-)

Scott Bartner

2010-09-19T15:57:00.000-07:00

In alphabetical order...
Scott is an american painter who has been living in Maastricht for many years.
We first met in 2005 as he was submitting work to a juried exhibition in London. Having previously exchanged emails for several months we nerdily met in front of a tube station and spent a few hours around museums. I didn't end chopped up in a suitcase. The Royal Society of Portrait Painters readily accepted both of his works, a quirky picture of a girl with ginger hair and a haunting portrait of an older girl in a shawl.

His inclusion in the RSPP Show led to several more commissions in London and each visit meant belgian chocolates and all sorts of wine and delicatessen for me and my family. My dog developed a taste for high quality cocoa and has learned how to open any kind of zip, buckle or bag lock. Scott loves her dearly.
In exchange, in a well meaning attempt to cook around his vegetarian diet, I fed him my secret recipe chocolate mousse cake made with five eggs and a brick of butter, for which he still threatens me with an attempted murder charge.
On viewing an episode of Letterman Show my youngest son has remarked that Letterman was " a bit like your friend ". Scott's irony and dry sense of humour were probably quite cryptical for him but he more or less got the point. Apart from being the Mordecai Richler of the brush, Scott is a connoisseur of classical music and wines and a relentless train traveller.

I am a worshiper of Scott's work, especially after having seen it in real life, as photos don't do justice to the subtlety of his work.
He originally moved to the Netherlands to learn glazing from a local master, and has a superb technique. His colours seem to be painted on a cloud. The image floats like mist on the shiny surface hiding every trace of its maker's hand.
His insubstantial painted ladies glance icily or benevolently at the viewer and seem to belong to another world. He has a special ability of painting patterns to compliment and enrich his paintings, all flawlessly designed and executed.

Friends on the Net

2010-09-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

I am going to start a series of posts about artists I have met online and in real life in the past years.
Painting is a very solitary occupation, and if you are reading this blog chances are you are aware of the importance of networking for many artists.
Internet has become a place to look at other people's work, ask for critiques and suggestions, or simply chatting with people who are definitely more interested in painting than friends or family members.

I first signed up to an artist's forum in 2004. Since then, I was always mildly but constantly active online, probably more of a reader than a public writer.
I have made many friends: we started by exchanging messages about our work and ended talking about our lives, including live commenting on football matches, and arranging meetings around the world ( London, Spain, Arizona, Italy).


At the Prado with Carlos Ygoa

Painters are a friendly lot and their personalities shine through their work. In many years of exchanging messages and ideas with other painters there was only one time when I felt the person had an ulterior motive for writing. I can encourage everyone to take advantage of the many opportunities that social networking offers !

BP Portrait Award Show 2010/review

2010-06-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

I have to start the review by confessing to a bit of vanity: I have googled myself and I found this review.
I was also told by a friend about this other review which appeared on Metro this Thursday, so I am very happy with how my painting has been received.
As I said in my previous post, the enjoyed being at the preview very much. I have introduced myself to several artists and spent time looking at all the other selected paintings.

In the show there is something for everyone. For people who admire tightly rendered portraits which are superbly painted by using photo reference and for those who look for a high emotional content. Paintings that are imaginative and fantastic are hanging side by side with lyrical or expressionist works.

I love painting from life, and in a show like this one I look for works which are clearly painted from life as an inspiration and an example. I also work from photo references and in my early training as an illustrator I have been taught to draw hyperrealistic plates in coloured pencils : I admire those kind of paintings too since I know the amount of work and thinking that goes into every single piece.

There are reasons for painting from life and reasons for painting from photos. When I speak about my work, especially when I write or talk to other painters who are particularly interested in the process, I am candid about whether a part or the whole painting have been done from life or not. Painting a good portrait is very difficult, whatever the process.

Now this year finally the word "photo" is mentioned in some captions: photography is included among the tools for the portrait painter. I was very annoyed when, in past editions, paintings which were clearly painted exclusively from photos had a caption including the words "sitter" and "sittings"which I thought was rather naughty.

So I do tend to like portraits painted from life more as they are more relevant to my work. I want to start this review though with a painting that is NOT painted from life but I absolutely admired. Not only it's painted from a photo in a hyperrealistic style, it is also a big head ( I hate big heads). But I must eat my words.
"iDeath" ( I don't care about the catchy title either) is a painting I would hang in my living room. I met Michal Ožibko during the preview. He is a nice young man from the Czech Republic. He showed me a photo of another very similar painting he made and explained to me that he had to choose which of the two was destined for a show and which one instead was being gambled on a very difficult selection.
I think he absolutely made the right choice !
"iDeath" is not only impeccably executed, but is a portrait with a strong presence, a compressed emotion and a peaceful symmetry.

My favourite painting in the show was Rosy Lamb's "Put the Dog and the Cat in the poster". I liked Rosy's brushwork very much and the real space that she has created in the painting. As a painting that deals with old age and sickness it has a lighter approach than the painting which won. I admire Rosy's dedication and ethic of work that I gather from her website, and I hope I'll be able to meet her in a future trip to Paris.

More later.

BP Portrait Award Show 2010

2010-06-24T03:24:00.000-07:00

     In the summer of 1987 I came to London for a summer art course. I was staying at a dormitory in South London. One evening I was sitting in my room, drawing, and another student passed by, saw me and asked: "Are you also an artist ?". I thought the question was really pretentious, and my efforts overstated. I think I replied, " I am just drawing".

     Twenty three years later I have been handed out a badge saying "Artist" by a major museum. I wore it yesterday at the preview of the BP Portrait Award 2010 but I still felt a bit like an impostor there !

   The day had started with a bit of a commotion, me and my husband had to drive 400 km at night to fetch a son who broke is wrist during a school trip, but ended in heaven. I enjoyed the evening so much that I think I was the last to leave, they practically had to push me out of the door.

     Seeing my painting on the wall of the NPG was very exciting, and I also got to meet other artists. I thought the show was really good this year. I was humbled at how ambitious most paintings were, large sizes, intricate compositions, emotional strength. In comparison my small painting is much more ephemeral, result of a single day of work ( + 20 years of painting !).

I'll cut this post short now, since Italy is playing, but will be back soon with my comments on many paintings from the show.

The other flower paintings at Cricket Fine Arts

2010-06-15T13:22:00.000-07:00

These are the other three paintings on show at Cricket Fine Arts until the end of July.

" Red roses on gray background" is a painting I have completely reworked hours before the show.
I wanted to try and paint red roses and I originally set them against a very dark background. It wasn't that bad probably but once the painting was framed I felt I was really unhappy with it and made some drastic changes.
I repainted the whole background gray and simplified all the flowers. I completely repainted the last one on the right. I cut a rose from my front garden for that one, vowing, from now on, not to paint greenhouse roses anymore. They are terribly stiff and... well, square. I am much happier with this last rose, a more calligraphic flower.

This is a small oval I painted a couple of months ago. It was also reworked a little just before the show, this is not the actual final painting. There is nothing like a deadline to make me see faults in my work !

The last painting on show is this one of white peonies. I think this is my last attempt with peonies for a while, I find them almost impossible to paint, but I like the shape of the leaves.

2010-05-27T08:20:00.001-07:00

I am going to have some paintings at a group show in London.
The show will open on the 8th of June at Cricket Fine Art, 2 Park Walk, Chelsea.
I am very happy to have started a collaboration with this gallery which represents artists such as Chloe Lamb and Valeriy Gridnev.

I will be showing some flower paintings; among the several I painted recently the ones chosen for the show were the ones with a summery feeling.
I very much enjoy painting flowers and I quite like the urgency of the subject matter, since they change so fast. I try not to stop painting once the flowers have died; I keep working from my memory, tiding up and simplifying some areas, building up layers of paint.

The Unwilling Sitter

2010-05-06T11:08:00.000-07:00

I am posting a small portrait I started out as a demo for the Fulham Society Of Artists and Potters workshop.
Having helped with an art assignment from school, I earned a certain number of airmiles from a family member, who agreed to sit for me just the time to take a couple of photos of him. The workshop was based on the problems artists encounter when working from photos.
I was painting on a small board ( 20x27 cm) primed with a product from Sennelier called Case Alba. I had bought a pack by chance some time ago and I find it a very good ground for painting. It is a very absorbent, off white surface, which sucks in the oil and allows fast drying. Although it can be sanded, it has a granular surface that gives a good resistance to the brush. My painting "Geneva" is done on board primed with it.

This is how I started the painting:

I was trying to convey the use of greys and low chroma colours to represent flesh. The paint application is in my usual style, with flat separate areas. I stuck to the cool lights, warm shadows rule.

One has to learn how to ignore the colours of the photo reference, which are often just tonal variation of orange.
I normally work from black and white photographs as this allows me more freedom with mixtures.

I think this photo was taken about half way through the demo but I didn't manage to do much more since I did a lot of talking and mixing.

Once home I decided to go on with the painting and worked a couple of more hours in fading light.

This is the result:

The drawing is not particularly accurate but there is a certain likeness, although he looks much younger than in real life.
The grey I have used in the background is a colour that keeps coming back into my paintings recently. It is a colour I see in the sky here in winter time: in the afternoon a grey and dark cloud toward the west, and the last rays of a sunshine that shone somewhere else that day.

I wasn't particularly interested in carrying forward this painting but it was there in my studio and I just had to rework it, at least to get the right age ! Normally I have the opposite problem when I am painting young people: because I look for the form of their features they loose a bit of roundness and look older.
Anyway I worked on this portrait for a few days at a relaxed rhythm. This now looks finished but is still there in my studio....

I have added a little video to my website just for fun.

One day workshop

2010-05-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the chance of conducting a one day workshop with members of the Society Of Fulham Artists and Potters.
The workshop was about painting portraits using photo references. I started talking about materials and on my ideas for a good palette composition.
I have often seen students whose palette doesn't seem at all consistent with their painting style or what they seem to be trying to achieve. I believe there has to be a rational approach for setting out colours for a specific painting. I generally recommend a palette which includes both earth colours and more chromatic hues, and I mentioned a few colours I find particularly useful. I also suggested some tips for taking good photo reference.

After a brief introduction on colour characteristics and temperature I painted a small demo for about one hour. I am actually still working on the little painting I had started ( The Unwilling Sitter).
The afternoon was dedicated to practice: everyone did a very good job considering the limited time and in some cases the inadequate reference they had brought with them. I hope they will give it another go on their own !
SOFAP Spring Show is opening on the 9th of May at the Fulham Library on Fulham Road and will remain open until the 23rd.

Best breakfast ever

2010-04-08T00:38:00.000-07:00

The past week I have been away for a family holiday in the sun. The hotel was beautiful and very conveniently offered wifi connection everywhere. So here I am yesterday having breakfast with my husband and checking emails on the iPod.
Message from bpaward... I open it without even realizing it is actually the BP Award. Anyway I read the first lines : "Thank you for entering your painting in the above competition. The judges have now made their final decision and..." at this point I was expecting the usual "I regret to say" instead the message goes on : " I am delighted to inform you.."
I had to read it a couples of time before I understood that my painting has actually been selected for the show. I had a rather hysterical reaction, my husband was quite puzzled.

It is the fourth time I enter the competition. The first time I tried there still was an age restriction, but then as it got lifted I vowed I would keep entering until I got in. It was a bit of a joke and I never seriously thought I had a chance. Apparently this years the entries were 2100 and the judges selected 58 paintings for the show. During the flight back I calculated my odds were 2.8%.
I sincerely believe that I was very lucky that my work was noticed. On delivery day paintings were arriving by the truckload, and I have seen some amazing works brought in.

Oh, by the way the painting in question is " Geneva" the little profile painting I have been writing about in the previous post. I think its bright colours might have caught the eyes of one of the judges and make him/her come closer. I really hope I will get to meet them at the opening in June and find out more about the selection process.

Anyway the National Portrait Gallery calls the event " the most prestigious portrait competition in the world" and yours truly will be a part of it ! I can't wait to see Geneva hanging in a museum.

Profile portraits

2010-02-11T10:53:00.000-08:00

In the past months I have painted two profile portraits from models.
I originally felt like trying a profile after looking at renaissance profiles, not only Piero's famous Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza, but also paintings by Pollaiolo and Piero di Cosimo.
Recently a drawing of a girl in profile was attributed to Leonardo by analyzing a fingerprint found on the paper. It doesn't seem a Leonardo to me but definitely the image has stuck to my memory.

So why the profile? My first thought is that painting a profile switches the attention away from the personality of the sitter, and denies the viewer the psychological reading that many people look for. The model is looking away and the viewer is not compelled to look at her in the eyes. The attention is shifted to the model's features and to the composition of the painting.

This portrait of Clelia was painted in two sittings. I had done a first attempt during a previous sitting but I didn't find it interesting and have now destroyed it. This second one is more carefully planned and designed.
What I tried to do was incorporate a rigorous geometric construction underneath the painting. I think it gives the portrait a calm elegance and a strong balance.
Here are the lines I have used to establish the placement of the head and shoulders. You have to take my word that despite the straightening and idealizing of some lines the resemblance with the model is still there !

The landscape format allows for more space behind and in front of her, some space to breathe.

The axis of the composition is the diagonal from the top left corner to the bottom right, that passes through her cheekbone. I then considered the two lines that form an x on the right of the painting: they both go from the corner to the middle of the length. Both sides of her shirt align with one of these lines, while her back and her hairline align with the other.

The back of her neck is completely vertical and she is placed as in a pyramid, with her forehead parallel to the line on the left. The overall design is made more gentle by a series of curves: her throat, her right shoulder and the hairdo.

The second profile is also painted with an awareness of geometry, but the paint application is allowed more freedom. It was done over one sitting on a small board.

The tip of her nose is placed halfway down the height, while again the axis of the composition is the top left to bottom right diagonal, to which the hair is parallel. The horizontal line that divides the part of the hair which is lit ( grey) from the part directly facing me ( black) is placed at a third of the height.
I have tried, while painting, to make the back of the head turn on the horizontal line on the middle but it just didn't look right anatomically.

Anyway I am satisfied with both works and I hope this post might offer a different and interesting way to look at a painting.

Opening in Palermo

2010-02-09T07:24:00.000-08:00

I am just writing a brief post to tell about the opening of the show in Palermo. It was a success !
The reception was very crowded, people kept coming along from 6 to 9 o'clock. For this I must really thanks not only Laura Romano, the gallerist, but also my friends in Palermo, Renata, Angheli, and my expat sicilian friends Margherita, Valentina, Paolo and many more. My father ( above on my right) came from Florence and his support was incredible as usual.

I was surprised by the warmth of Sicilians, not that I didn't know about it. They really embraced me and my work with affection and I felt as if I were at home.
The show was hanged very nicely, I had the first rooms and entrance, and two further rooms were dedicated to a collection of still life in different techniques. Many other artists were present, so I had the chance and honour to meet Tino Signorini, Anna Kennel, Bice Triolo, Renato Tosini, Mariolina Spadaro, Maurizio Priolo, Marta Cannizzaro and Salvatore Caputo, who had helped Laura fixing one of my paintings arrived at the last minute with a badly damaged frame.

Critics and journalists were also there, and the show has been reviewed already here, while more reviews should appear in the next days.

Considering the short notice ( the show was only devised a few weeks ago) the outcome has been fantastic, sales have already started and I hope they will continue, since the show is open until the end of the month. There was also much interest for portraits, so I am hoping to go back soon with the excuse of painting someone !!

A Show in Palermo, Sicily

2010-01-20T08:44:00.000-08:00

       Last year I went to Palermo for a few days to visit one of my closest friends. With the occasion I emailed a couple of galleries thinking they would delete my message without even opening it. I was surprised when Laura Romano emailed me back to make an appointment.
       Laura has been the owner of galleria Elle Arte for more than ten years now and has organized countless events and shows, not only in her gallery.
Although the gallery's website is in desperate need of a revamp, Laura has an excellent rooster of artists.
Among them, Pedro Cano , Tino Signorini and Sarah Miatt.
When we met she gave me some catalogues of past shows which were a source of inspiration and a reminder of the high standard of the gallery. Laura was recently in touch with me as she is putting up a still life themed show. She has offered me a room of my own in order to introduce me to the sicilian public.
        I am very excited at the opportunity and just got the plane tickets for Palermo. She will be showing some paintings from last year with the view of having a larger show of new works in the future. The opening is on the 5th of February.

Teaching for the first time

2010-01-16T06:31:00.000-08:00

I am very excited about my new adventure starting next week.
After my tutors Tony Rothon and Sarah Nutley decided to stop teaching ( they still offer tutorials which I strongly recommend ) I have put myself forward to keep their Kensington Square class going.
From next week I will be in charge of organizing the sessions for a group of twenty three people and I am also teaching to about ten artists from the group. I am humbly proud ( oxymoron, I know, but this is how I feel ) to say that the course is already oversubscribed.
I have been thinking hard about what sort of information I can offer that can be useful to each of my students. Since they were my class buddies up to a few weeks ago I know them and their work well.
Revising their paintings in my mind, I am trying to pin down the problems each of them is facing.

I am making viewfinders, gridded perspex sheets and plumb lines to help with drawing and I am putting together a collection of interesting objects to paint.

I think I will learn a lot from this experience and I can't wait to start.

Sargy Mann at Cadogan Galleries

2009-12-10T07:27:00.000-08:00

This is the second time I go to see a show of Sargy Mann works. I first approached his work through the paintings of his wife from a show I saw two years ago, pictures I couldn't stop looking at, and slowly made my way through his landscapes.
Especially after reading his son's book on him and seeing his development over the years I am absolutely enthralled by this artist. What I find extraordinary is the way he can actually suck you into his paintings. When I look at his pictures, especially large landscapes, I find myself suddenly right in the spot where it was painted.
I have been thinking about why this happens, and I believe it is because they represent the sensation of "being there" more than the spectacle of the scene, and communicate this sensation to the viewer. Visually they are very much structured spherically, following the way the artist can/cannot see what surrounds him.
Generally the painters I admire the most are dealing with the problem of representation, the subject matter becoming secondary or incidental.
Mann's work is definitely about looking. With time what started as short-sightedness and astigmatism has become cataract and ultimately led to a corneal transplant. Mann is totally blind since 2005. He has always been a painter and always will be, and he is still producing the great works. His brushwork is confident and furiously fast, his colours like music.

At the beginning of his book there is a portrait done in 1963, when he had good eyesight, strikingly similar to one of his latest paintings of his wife from 2007.

Perhaps it is the effort to perceive the reality around him that makes his paintings so strong. "Seeing is subjective, you see in your brain, and I always saw at my best when I was painting", says Mann.
He is really one of those artists who is able to enhance our everyday life, the way we look at the reality around us.

Interviews and reviews:

The Times

The Spectator
The book Sargy Mann: probably the best blind painter in Peckham is also available on Amazon and I can't recommended it enough.

Alex Kanevsky show in London

2009-12-04T10:15:00.001-08:00

Now, is there anyone interested in painting that hasn't visited Alex Kanevski's website ?
Alex is a lithuanian painter based in Philadelphia. I have been fascinated by his work ever since I stumbled upon it on internet years ago.
During my most recent virtual visit I realized that some of his works are in London, of all places, at Victor Felix Gallery in Notting Hill.

I just went to see the show this afternoon and wasn't disappointed. They had two paintings on Mylar, L.G. 4 and L.G. with sprained ankle. Actually I was disappointed because I would have liked to see twenty of them. You never get tired to look at these works.

There are a lot of pictures on Kanevsky's website including interesting slide shows which reveal his working method ( no secret, he's just plain good at it) and links to interviews.

A new portrait

2009-11-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

I have recently completed the portrait if a judge. Judge B. has been a fantastic sitter, extremely keen to take part into the process and very available for life sittings.
His sons commissioned this portrait for his retirement after seeing my painting "The Russian Lady" ( read about it here )at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Show. He told me he appreciated its expression and that he chose me because of my loose style,"not too specific", he said.
We had two appointments to discuss the painting before starting. These conversations were particularly useful for me to observe him and understand what he expected. We discussed the size of the canvas and his attire, whether or not he should wear his wig. We agreed that wigs make people difficult to recognize, but that it was important to mention it.
The object itself by the way, is something I would love to paint in a still life.
I stretched some pre-primed linen and chose a format that would allow me some lateral space to include the wig.
Judge B. naturally sat leaning slightly toward his left. Because of the strong graphic impact of the robe, I believed I did not need to do much about the design. I started by placing his right eye on the vertical midline. This is an important compositional device valid since Renaissance and helps establishing the dominant eye.

I tried to keep a minimal tilt of the head. Judge B. is a phenomenal communicator and chatted amiably during our time together. I wanted to render the relaxed atmosphere of our sittings although this is a rather formal portrait. His slight smile is a very natural expression for him, which he had at all times.

I used a chromatic palette, no earth colours apart from Ivory Black, and tried to include areas of thin and thick paint. The most intensive painting activity occurs in the head and collar, while the background, chair and wig are very loosely rendered.
I am satisfied with the result and the Judge seems to be very happy about it.

The mysterious smile

2009-11-23T14:17:00.000-08:00

I recently had the chance of working again with Tatiana, a beautiful russian model who features in my painting " The Russian Lady".
I think I painted Tatiana's portrait over the course of just one session. I used a small canvas I had stretched, sized and primed with lead primer. I normally used pre-primed linen but that canvas was a leftover from a few months earlier, when I had made a batch, and was the first one handy that day.

The painting has been very successful: it was selected for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Show this year and was one of the first paintings sold at the opening. It also yielded commissions for three more portraits.
I think that part of its success depends on Tatiana's expression. While I was painting I wondered how it was possible for her to keep that slight smile for so long.

Smiling is something we are very used to in photos, but its appearance in portraits can be tricky.
Antonia S. Byatt, in an essay about portraiture, said that a photographic portrait is often about a fleeting moment frozen in time, unrepeatable, therefore ultimately about death. A painted portrait for Byatt incorporates the concept of a longer time, its thoughtful creation a deep research on personality and human essence, so really about life instead.

Here is where the problem of the smile in portraits lies for me, in that its fugitive nature does not allow a long investigation. But when I painted Tatiana the smile she started with just remained there unchanged, and with the same intense look, for the whole session.

This week I had the chance of painting her again and we had time to chat. Tatiana told me that she is an instructor of Health Qigong, a chinese practice that is extremely beneficial for the organism. As a former Tai Chi student, I immediately understood the origin of the smile. Qigong uses meditation and breathing to channel the qi (energy), and allows a very powerful control of the body.
Tatiana has explained to me that while sitting she practices Qigong and tries to reach a state of total relaxation. Her smile originates from the deep relaxation of the muscles of the face. I think it is like the smile of Buddha; while practicing Tai Chi I too have been taught to keep a smile when performing the movements.
I believe that the appeal of her portrait lies with the deep serenity of her expression and I am happy to have unveiled the mystery !

Following Piero della Francesca/2

2009-10-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

With a little delay this post is about the last day of my summer trip.
Urbino is fabulous. We went for a walk in the evening and found out that Palazzo Ducale opened in the morning at 8.30 so the next day were the first visitors, and the guards were opening each rooms as we came in.
What an experience to be alone with the paintings. There are two masterpieces by Piero in Urbino, and they share the same room.

The Madonna di Senigallia was a complete surprise for me, I think I overlooked it while browsing through Piero's paintings.
It's elegance and balance are stunning.
The draping, jewels and the little basket on the upper right corner are all executed with chilling realism, while the heads are idealized and pure. I feel that this painting is visually very much about the position of the heads and their relative size.
I spent a long time staring at it and taking in its vertical and horizontal rhythm, the chiaroscuro barely hinted at, the perfection of the simple blue and red colour scheme.

"La Flagellazione" is one of the most famous paintings of Piero, and it's size is quite a surprise, only 58x81 cm. Small size for an immense work. Enough has been said about it's elusive meaning. Standing in front of this work as a painter I was wondering what it was I was connecting with.
I think that the absence of strong passion, of movement is what I liked. The flagellation is stilled in mid air, Christ is just looking at his torturer, the man in the black hand is making a gesture as if to quiet the action.
This perfect harmony of stillness is something I always found appealing in painting. The composition here is so perfect that it is impossible the action will ever begin again, that time would re-start.
Is it the use of geometry and mathematics that imparts this sublime balance to the painting? Does the regular rhythm of the darks help, or the simple three values scheme?
These are all elements I will have to remember when I work.

PS: Sir Charles Locke Eastlake opted not to buy the painting for Queen Victoria in 1858 because of some features which offended his taste, notably the thick ankles !

Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize 2009

2009-09-24T05:07:00.001-07:00

The list of selected paintings has just been published. I scroll down... and here's my name !
I am so happy to have made the selection again. Every time that I take part into juried shows it's an agony. One brings his works at the venue and you find yourself in a queue. This year the place where the selection took place was a large hall in Kensington. I arrived on the morning of the first day: paintings were placed on the floor all along the walls, and my pictures were already in the third row.
Looking at the list of entries I can't fail to notice that the numbers go up to 1195.
I was confident about the work I submitted, but there is always a doubt on whether the judges will take the time to look carefully, come close, really close. Among more than a thousand works will they spot my rather small portrait?
It seems like they did this time, but still I think that it is not fair for one's own painting to throw them in the arena like this, and I will only take part to one juried show next year.
Please do take the time to look closely at the painting by visiting my website page and clicking on the picture for a high resolution image.

Following Piero della Francesca/detour

2009-09-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

From Sansepolcro we headed toward Citta' di Castello, further down along the Tiber valley. There isn't any painting by Piero there, but two interesting museums devoted to Alberto Burri.
Burri is a painter and sculptor who died in 1995. Originally a physician who took part in WW II, he started to paint during his time as a POW in the States.
His paintings were made with different materials of which he highlighted the qualities.

He sewed and painted on raw canvas, he etched and combusted wood, ignited cellophane etc. In the series "Cretti" he explored the texture of dry clay grounds.

The latest works have a smooth surface and are more about design and interaction of shapes and colours.

Burri has two dedicated museums in Citta' di Castello. One is in town housed in the historical Palazzo Albizzini.
The Albizzini family had a dedicated chapel in the church of San Francesco. It is here where the Sposalizio della Vergine by Raffaello was originally located. Raffaello's painting is now in the core room of the Accademia di Brera in Milan, where it hangs literally side to side with Piero's Madonna and Child with Saints ( I was there earlier this year).

The first museum holds a selection of pieces by Burri displayed chronologically.
The most striking place to visit though is the second center belonging to the Fondazione Burri. The building is a former tobacco drying plant. I think it is the largest space ever dedicated to a single artist in the world: 7500 sqm, it is simply huge. A part was given to Burri for free in 1978, and it is now completely occupied by his work.
His paintings, seen in the monumental and austere industrial setting, acquire an impressive status and a strong spirituality.

Somehow the visit to Burri's museums fit in with Piero. His geometry, his attention to the design and partition of the canvas, his earthy colours, golds and vivid reds resonate of Piero's works.

Next stop, Urbino.

Featured Artist at Empty Easel

2009-09-14T01:40:00.000-07:00

During my long summer holiday in Italy I had very bad internet connection. I briefly accessed my web traffic statistic and marveled at the amount of traffic my website was receiving.
It is just now that, reading older posts of my favorite blogs, I spotted a review of my work on Empty Easel.com.
Lisa Orgler, an award winning artist and designer, has written a very insightful article on my paintings by the title of "Everyday Objects, Exceptional Paintings".
Please do visit her various blogs to see examples or her delightful illustration work and Empty Easel for invaluable advice on being a visual artist.

Following Piero della Francesca

2009-09-09T05:03:00.000-07:00

This summer I had the chance to go on a two days trip to see Piero's works. Many of them are condensed in a small area in the center of Italy, around his birthplace, Sansepolcro.
I started from Arezzo, where I visited the frescos from the Legend of the Cross and the Santa Maria Maddalena in the Duomo.

I love this small fresco, and since I first saw it I always thought she is a very good depiction of modern Italy. There's the beauty, that special italian light and the melancholic feeling when we remember of what our nation was and could have been if it wasn't inhabited by so may hopelessly inadequate people. Not to speak about Maddalena's former job.

After Arezzo we went to Monterchi, birthplace of Piero's mother, where we admired the Madonna del Parto. After the ambitious monumentality of the frescos this tender and smaller work set in the tiniest village is heart breaking. I love the recycling of the cartoon: use it once, then turn it round and trace the other angel ! Oh, and remember to shift the colours. It's so wonderfully naive and yet the result is elegant and balanced.

The next stop was Sansepolcro, a small town at the bottom of the Tiber valley. Piero's house is here ( it now houses a foundation in his name). Luca Pacioli, an important mathematician, was also born here. Piero was his first teacher.

"The majority of the second volume of Pacioli's Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita was a slightly rewritten version of one of Piero della Francesca's works. The third volume of Pacioli's De divina proportione was an Italian translation of Piero della Francesca's Latin writings On [the] Five Regular Solids. In neither case, did Pacioli include an attribution to Piero. He was severely criticized for this and accused of plagiarism by sixteenth-century art historian and biographer Giorgio Vasari. R. Emmett Taylor (1889–1956) said that Pacioli may have had nothing to do with the translated volume De divina proportione, and that it may just have been appended to his work. However, no such defence can be presented concerning the inclusion of Piero della Francesca's material in Pacioli's Summa."

In the Museo Civico of Sansepolcro I saw four works by Pietro. The Polittico della Madonna, San Giuliano, San Lodovico and the Resurrection. There also is the polyptic in which the National Gallery's Baptism of Christ was originally placed.
I cannot say how many layers the Resurrection is made of. The composition, the expression of Christ, the landscape. It is a painting you can watch for ever and find new meanings every time.
The philosopher Massimo Cacciari wrote a short essay on it where he makes some very deep consideration. He points out how there is a division between the divine world and the mortal world, crammed with the soldiers' figures. There is no reference to death in this painting, but nothing points to life either. The land is hard, no flowers or signs of spring, but a land on which foundations can be laid. Christ is logos, his name has to be spoken with sobriety, with clarity of design, a purity of form and a direct, unflinching look. Christ is alone, he is wearing the red cloak of victory, but seems ready to take on other burdens. Never has the Verbum been preached more strongly than by this silent figure, says Cacciari.

In the next post my travel continues to Urbino and Perugia, passing by Citta' di Castello.

O3 Gallery Show - Oxford

2009-09-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

My painting "Mangetout" is going to be shown at the O3 Gallery in Oxford.
From the gallery's website: housed in an old stone circular building, the O3 Gallery forms part of the old Oxford Prison C-Wing.
The O3 Gallery was founded as a unique partnership between Oxford Castle Ltd, and OVADA (Oxfordshire's Visual Arts Development Agency) and was opened by Her Majesty The Queen in May 2006. Named ‘O3’ (the third ‘O’ after Oxford Castle and OVADA) the gallery is believed to be the first of its kind – the first partnership between a public agency and private developer, to create a gallery that will generate opportunities and funding for the visual arts in Oxfordshire.

The Show
Artists & Illustrators’ annual search for their Artist of the Year is one of the most prestigious open art competitions in the UK and we are pleased to announce it will be brought to you in association with the O3 Gallery.

This exhibition will display the winning entries and runners up in three categories: Still Life, Landscapes and Portraits. The overall winner of this years competition was That Certain Smile, an oil on canvas portrait of original composition by Alan Stratford.

Portraits: Winner: Alan Stratford. Runners Up: Sam Walker, Edward Ofuso. Landscapes: Winner: Derek Dohren. Runners Up: Maggie Tredwell, Janette Summerfield. Still Life: Winner: David Mitchell. Runners Up: Anthony S Jones, Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco.

2009 Judges: Paul Dobson (MD – The Chelsea Magazine Company), Lyn Parr (Editor – Artists & Illustrators), Steve Pill (Deputy Editor – Artists & Illustrators), Craig Wylie (Artist – 2008 BP Portrait Prize Winner), Sophie Egleton (O3 Gallery Manager).

The show will run from the 2nd to the 13th of September
Opening times: Tue-Fri 12-5pm; Sat & Sun 11am -4pm;
Closed Monday

2009-07-19T09:11:00.000-07:00

ART IN ACTION 2009

Yesterday I had a chance to pay a short visit to Art in Action, a very large event/fair that showcases the work of artists and craftsman.
I must say I hadn't heard of this event in the previous years ( organizers, this is a sign you should be improving advertising ) although many others had: it took exactly one hour and ten minutes queuing to drive the last five km from the M40 to the site.
Art in action is held on the grounds of Waterperry House -note to self, next year remember wellies - and it looked to me as a very well organized event. Although I arrived at peak time on Saturday, parking was easy, the ticketing fast and my dog was allowed in.

Unfortunately I didn't have much time, and only walked about in all the different sections, but next year I definitely want to to go back and try some classes.
I also enjoyed very much looking at demonstrating artists. In the painting section I found Toby Ward painting a large beachscape, Charles Hardaker working on a portrait and Nicholas Archer just chatting along.

My painting "Mangetout" was rather tucked away in a corner at the Artists & Illustrators stand, but still looked nice. Perhaps I shouldn't say so but I thought it was a better work than the winner, a very large painting of a pair of black boots. The new issue of the magazine with images of the winning works will come out n the 24th of July.

Opposite from the A&I stands I had the chance to buy some very honestly priced brushes from Rosemary & Co. I can't wait to try them. Rosemary gave me a copy of her new catalogue. She has just introduced a new line of long filbert brushes which I want to buy next. I saw Richard Schmid using this kind of shape in a DVD, and I like the lack of control they seem to yield.

There were more interesting sections: sculpture, drawing and printmaking, weaving and many more, and the food available was very good and varied, including the Pimm's tent. I wish I had more time to chat with artists, as networking is quite rare for painters.
A great day out, I think it will become a permanent date on my calendar.

Artists and Illustrators Art Competition

2009-06-30T06:48:00.000-07:00

I just received a call from A & I magazine.
My painting "Mangetout", which was recently shown at the Chelsea Art Society Annual Show, is a runner up in their Artist of the Year competition, for the still-life category.
I have been told that the number of entries for the competition was very high. There was no application fee and multiple entries were welcomed from each artist, therefore I am proud that "Mangetout" made it to the last lot, even if it didn't win. The judging panel included Craig Wylie, Lynn Parr ( A & I magazine) and Sophie Egleton ( manager of O3 Gallery).
The painting started out as an obvious son of William Nicholson's "The Lustre Bowl", translated into my world.

I was originally fascinated by the simple colour scheme of Nicholson's painting. The picture has been, worked, reworked, cut and reworked again before I was happy with it. It is in this painting that for the first time I used straight lines even in round objects (see the shadows on the white bowl and front left edge of the plate) and it is a feature that comes back often in subsequent paintings.
I consider this a bit of a number zero work for the development of my still-lifes and I am glad it has received recogntion.
"Mangetout" will be on show at the "Art in Action" in Oxfordshire next month, and afterwords at the O3 gallery in Oxford in September.

A must see show : Gennadii Gogoliuk at John Martin Gallery

2009-06-23T14:11:00.000-07:00

Today walking back from the Royal Academy Summer Show and the National Portrait Gallery BP Show I had this strong feeling of having seen too many artworks by too many artists. I felt uninspired and confused, after all, one thinks, is there any need for more paintings ?
Meandering around the West End galleries I was attracted by a painting in a gallery window. I did not know the painter, Gennadii Gogoliuk, but I was fascinated by his works. They are lyrical and have a complex simplicity to them. The colour is wonderfully layered, the surface delicately treated.
The theme of the show is One Thousand and One Morning, and is populated by an ensemble of creatures who just stayed with me.

I wonder how I could have missed four previous exhibition by this artist. Perhaps I have seen one or two of his paintings at ArtLondon but it wasn't until today when I entered into his world (46 paintings !) that I could really appreciate the poetry of his vision.

Book review: Portraiture in Russia XX Century

2009-06-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

The other day my eyes fell on this large volume in Waterstone and I just could not resist buying it.
It is a rich collection of works (460 illustrations !) from State Russian Museum in St Petersburg.
From Feshin and Repin to Makarevich's conceptualism ( 1988), the quality of the works is outstanding.
I recognized some of them from the recent Russia! show at the Royal Academy.

Pyotr Miturich's portrait of Arthur Lourie and Leo Tolstoy Barefoot by Ilya Repin were both in that show.

The book though contains many more treasures and it is particularly interesting to look at the development of portraiture throughout the century, from traditional russian realism, and how paintings from the twenties seem far more modern that other works from 1959.
An very good source of inspiration for portraitists.

Chelsea Art Society Show

2009-06-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

I had three paintings at the annual show of the society, held during the Chelsea Art Festival.
Congratulations to Roy Connelly, with whom I had a one to one landscape painting session last year ( I recommend him if you want to brave out of your studios),who won the main prize with his painting of Mont Saint-Michael.
Other works I liked in the show were by Lucinda Stephens, Luke Martineau, Richard Foster, Ken Howard, Maryam Foroozanfar. With the presence of many prestigious names, I wish next year the show would loose some of its "amateur" nature as not all the work was of a good standard.

2009-05-21T15:39:00.001-07:00

Look for my son's curly hair in the trailer.

Diarmuid Kelley's new show at Offer Waterman Gallery

2009-05-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I saw a show of new works By Diarmuid Kelley in his gallery in Chelsea.
I have been aware of Kelley's work for a while, and I especially liked his portrait at the BP show two of years ago (this is an account of the sittings for that painting by his model).
I enjoyed the show very much. I found every picture beautifully painted, the unfinished areas well integrated in the composition, the wide tonal range and narrow colour range extremely appealing.

My favourite painting was probably this one, called "Justus Van Meestraeten (Uglow your way and I'll go mine)".

I liked the simple symmetrical composition, the grey-green-pink harmony, the pencil marks. I think many painters who have studied in London in the past thirty years have to take into account Uglow's legacy, and this is Kelley's response.

Here is the "Portrait of Justus van Meestraeten" by Anthony Van Dyck which provided the main title of the work. I have read on this article how Van Dyck is one of Kelley's favorite artists for the elegance of his paintings.

Congratulations to Diarmuid for his sales: yesterday twelve of the sixteen paintings were already sold, with price tags above ten thousand pounds.

Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Show 2009/2

2009-05-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

Today I went to see the show again and I again enjoyed the variety and admired the quality of this year's show.
I took some pictures before realizing that perhaps I wasn't allowed. Anyway I hope that the artists won't be upset at me publishing them here.
Here are some of the "stolen" images

This is a portrait by Aldo Balding. Balding is an English born painter but lives in France. I saw many of his delicate children paintings at the RSPP show in the past years. He showed his work at the Catto Gallery in London last year.
I like this painting also because I have got the same dog :-)

This is a self portrait by Luis Morris Aroi that hung right next to Balding's one. I think that he was at Heatherley's too some time ago, anyway his paintings are very atmospheric and have dreamy colours.

Daniel Shadbolt is the recipient of last years Bulldog Bursary (RP members were actually judging this year's applications today). I really like his work and I plan to go see his work next week as he is holding an open studio.

I thought Ken Howard self portrait was exceptional and strangely hidden in a corner.

A very good drawing by Neal Helyard, winner of the Prince of Wales Award. It's a small jewel.

Another jewel is the chalk pencil drawing by Martin Yeoman which for scale and quality of the marks made me think of Rembrandt's etchings.

Sally Cutler's linocuts were delightful.
More beautiful works were Benjamin Sullivan's "Virginia", Ken Paine's "Day Dreaming", Luke Martineau's "Grace at the piano".

Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Show 2009

2009-05-06T06:25:00.000-07:00

I am just back from the opening of the show at the Mall Galleries which I found truly excellent. I must say that the quality improves each year round.

The opening was very crowded and all the big shots of the Society were there. It's also always fun when one recognizes faces from the portraits hanging on the wall.
What I like about the show is that there is an incredible variety of works. Some very traditional, some "freudy" some "slady" ( this is London portrait slang ), some hyper realist. This year there also were more drawings than ever, and excellent ones.

This is a view of the right hand side room. On the far wall the painting of King Abdullah of Jordan by Sergei Pavlenko, and a reclining nude by John Wonnacott.

The painting on the left is a stunning portrait by John Ward, who passed away in 2007.
Please excuse the glare in the photos.

Paintings by members and non members were equally stunning, this one is by a friend from art school, Yasunobu Shidami, whose work gets better and better each time I see it.

A portrait by Minna Stevens, who has been my very supportive tutor for two years.

The fully deserving winner of the Ondaatje prize for Portraiture was Anastasia Pollard with her Portrait of Valentina. I love everything she does, her subtle darks, her unusual models.

This is a detail of a portrait by Peter Kuhfield which I thought was incredibly delicately painted.

And now to yours truly: this is my little painting, done over one session. The model is a russian lady with a very intense expression.
Well the good news is that the painting sold straight away. I actually am pretty sure that it was the first painting to sell. There was a red dot just half an hour after the opening. It is hanging in one of the back rooms ( when am I ever going to make the large hall?) above the most beautiful etching by Stephen Teeuw which also sold just after mine.

I am planning more visits and more posts with links to my favourite exhibitors, so remember to come back ( or subscribe !)

Book review: anatomy book for artists

2009-05-05T00:45:00.001-07:00

A couple of days ago I stumbled upon a book which I then found very useful.
I own several texts on anatomy for artists, including Bridgman's Constructive Anatomy, which is probably one of the best around.

This other book is called Anatomy Lessons From The Great Masters, it's by Robert Hale and Terence Coyle. Finally I found a book that explains clearly what to look for when attempting a life drawing or painting.
Hale takes examples from masters such as Pontormo, Raphael, Durer and many others.He points out clues to what lies beneath the skin. These clues can be a tiny ink line or a gentle shading but still locate precisely muscles bones or tendons.I particularly enjoyed the explanation of a quick Rembrandt sketch which seemed so naturally executed but betrays a very deep knowledge of anatomy.

There is not too much emphasis on anatomical terms, and every master drawing is accompanied by a labeled graphic scheme.
I think the book is also a wonderful catalogue of drawing languages, how artists have managed to describe human form convincingly using a variety of marks.

I am slowly going through the sections of the book and it clarifies concepts which of which I had a very nebulous grasp. I am definitely going to bring it along on Thursday's life session !

Coraggio !

2009-04-25T02:30:00.000-07:00

I have recently decided to venture out of the studio from times to times and try some landscape painting.
This week I had to drive my kids to Arundel for a cricket training day, and I set up my easel on the grounds, everything was scarily green. This is the result. No wind, great weather, and a woodpecker working just behind me, ratatata ratatata.

MILAN SHOW

2009-03-27T08:04:00.002-07:00

The opening of my show "Studio e Cucina" in Milano was very successful. About 300 people showed up and enjoyed the fantastic location and warm weather.

ROYAL SOCIETY OF PORTRAIT PAINTERS

2009-03-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

My painting " The Russian Woman" has been selected for the annual show of the RSPP at Mall Galleries, the Mall, London.

It is the third time I make the selection and I am very happy to be there again. It says in the acceptance letter that this year they had more entries than ever.

The show will run from the 7th to the 23rd of May, showing more than 200 portraits by some 100 artists.

June Mendoza is exhibiting her painting of sir Mark Elder, Sergei Pavlenko the portraits of King Abdullah II and Prince Michael of Kent.

I am looking forward to May!

Dal catalogo della mostra "Studio e Cucina.

2009-02-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

Il progetto di "Studio e Cucina" è nato un anno fa, quando ho accettato con entusiasmo l'invito di Galdina ad esporre i miei lavori in questo piccolo paradiso urbano.

I soggetti dei quadri arrivano dalla mia cucina; non hanno valore, importanza nè carica simbolica. Eppure quando si spostano dalla cucina nello studio acquistano una loro identità, se ne può indagare la forma e la relazione con altri oggetti e con lo spazio circostante.

Da ultima è la pittura a prendere la scena; la realtà viene distillata e trasposta sulla superficie piatta della tela, semplicemente organizzata in un sistema di segni e macchie di colore che la rappresentano con infedeltà.

SAVE THE DAY

2009-01-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

I finally have a date for the show in Milan: March the 23rd in via Terraggio, 9.

I am showing 16 paintings, on which I have been working during the last year.

There will be a catalogue that I'll be happy to send to anyone interested.

C'e' finalmente una data per l'inaugurazione della mostra a Milano: 23 Marzo, dalle 18.30 in via Terraggio 9.

Espongo 16 quadri con soggetto culinario ( la mostra si svolge in una bellissima pasticceria), il risultato di un anno di lavoro. Ci sara' un catalogo che saro' contenta di spedire a chi ne fara' richiesta.

Sneak preview

2008-12-08T10:30:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd upload a trailer of my upcoming show in Milan.

I have been working on these paintings for the whole of last year and am very happy with the progress.

Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize Opening

2008-11-18T01:01:00.000-08:00

The show opened yesterday in a very crowded Painters' Hall. The winner and runners up were announced by Ken Howard in a brilliant and funny speech. I spotted several painters, like Paul Brason and Susan Wilson, but for me the real excitement was seeing Sargy Mann with his beautiful wife. His painting in the show is beautifully intense, I couldn't stop looking at it.

Among the portraits I liked Tai-Shan Shierenberg's "Young RE teacher" and Judith Green's

"Unexpected Mrs K "

The first prize went to Melissa Scott Miller; she was there with her children ( overheard saying they couldn't wait to go home and watch EE on telly ) who often feature in her paintings.

Runners up were Peter Clossick, Jennifer McRae, Wladyslaw Mirecki and Simon Turvey. The Young Artist prize went to Stefan Orlowski.

I recommend to go see the show (Painters' Hall is just about fifty meters from Mansion House tube station) especially for the diversity of works selected. I am proud to belong to this crowd !

UPDATE 25/11 : I have been told that my painting has been among the first ones which were sold !

Urban Sketchers

2008-10-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

I LOVE this fantastic idea of setting up a blog with drawings from the cities we live in.

Thanks as usual to the great Katherine Tyrrell, I read her blog first thing every day and she is part of the sketchers. For a studio rat like myself the posts are a great inspiration to go out. I obviously bought a little moleskin straight away.

ROI Show

2008-10-04T15:57:00.000-07:00

Two of my paintings have been selected for the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Show at the Mall Galleries.
The show will take place form the 29th of October to the 9th of November at the Mall Galleries, London.

Updated website

2008-09-28T15:55:00.000-07:00

I have updated my website to improve the way it can be navigated, I hope visitors will enjoy it !

Lynn Painter-Stainers prize

2008-09-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

One of my paintings has been selected for the Lynn Painter-Stainers prize. Here you can find the list of artists accepted for the 2008 edition.

THE LYNN PAINTER-STAINERS PRIZE

This is the fourth year of the Prize. The purpose of the Prize is to encourage creative representational painting and promote the skill of draughtsmanship, organized by Parker Harris.
The 2007 Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize attracted nearly 800 entries from all over the UK, from which 66 paintings were selected for an exhibition held at Painters’ Hall, City of London in
November 2007.
Benjamin Sullivan received £15,000 and an engraved gold medal as Winner of the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize for his painting NewLife, and Poppy Jones received £2,500 as winner of the Young Artist Award for her work These Screens.
The runners-up, who each received £1,000, were Dick French, Jennifer McRae, Antony Williams, Susan Wilson and Neale
Worley.
Paintings to the value of £35,000 were sold during the exhibition.
THE PAINTER-STAINERS’ COMPANY
Formed in 1502 by the amalgamation of companies in existence before 1283, the Worshipful Company of Painter- Stainers is actively engaged in supporting the art and craft of painting. With a strong commitment to fine art, the Painters’ Company
Charity is delighted to sponsor this annual prize in conjunction with the Lynn Foundation.

Chelsea Art Society

2008-07-01T03:28:00.000-07:00

I have three paintings on show at the Chelsea Art Society Annual Exhibition.
It is open from the 2nd to the 6th of July at Chelsea Town Hall, Kings Road, daily from 10am to 7pm.

End of year show at Heatherley's

2008-06-06T04:10:00.000-07:00

I have two small paintings on show at Heatherley's on Lots Road from the 24th of June.
The school has just moved to this new building which is really worth a visit.

I am part of Heatherley's tutorial scheme. It is a very good program as it gives me the chance to look at my work every six weeks in a different environment and talk about it with a tutor. I would definetely recommend it to practicing artists.

New Youtube video

2008-06-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

After the small success of "GUIDO", my first short video on Youtube which is now past 5000 views, I have posted another small production featuring progressive states of a self portrait.
This painting was definetely a challenge: obtaining a likeness in a self portrait painted from the mirror is much harder than looking at someone else's head.
From the mirror one cannot measure or step back while looking simultaneously both at the painting and the subject.There is also the issue of movement: I found myself concentrating on a feature without reealising I was turning my head around a lot.
More than a "how to" video, this is a record of the effort, the frustration, the disappointment, the relief involved in every painting, however small.

A Sale

2008-05-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

The painting "The Chef and his Shadow" has been sold at the RP show.
This is excellent, since the show is mainly held for the purpose of commissioning portraits.
The painting has been bought by someone who is both a pastry chef and an art student !

RSPP Show

2008-03-08T03:58:00.000-08:00

I have just received confirmation that my painting "The chef and his shadow" has been accepted to the annual exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, which will open at the Mall Galleries in London on the 23rd of April until the 11th of May.
A high resolution image of the painting can be found here.

This work was the result of two lucky sessions,during which I painted this subject twice and I like both works very much. This one is painted on panel with gesso priming ( rsg, gesso, linseed oil, titanium pigment and egg, traditional recipe ). I was particularly interested in the unusual format for a portrait and tried to make the most of it.

In the morning there was this stronger light from his left and in the afternoon, when I was working on a half figure version on canvas, a warmer light came in from his right, changing all the colours.

I had lots of fun, nothing beats the excitement of working from life.

Youtube video

2008-02-29T01:31:00.000-08:00

Cool!
My little video on youtube (also visible on the website ) has reached 3000 views.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GoPzBqW_BI

Book cover

2008-01-31T10:44:00.000-08:00

I have recently painted a portrait of Bianca Shaftesbury.
Bianca is a lovely lady in her eighties who has had a wonderful and interesting life. She has recently written her memoirs and has asked me to paint a portrait for the book cover.
Luckily the publisher, Rosellina Archinto Editore, has approved my work; the book will be released this spring.

Islington show

2008-01-31T10:40:00.001-08:00

I will have a small show at Candid Arts Gallery in Islington.
It will run from the 29th February to the 2nd of March, and I will be showing together with eleven very talented artists.
Please come and see my work !