Tag Archives: Mary Fletcher

Mary Fletcher This exhibition covers Laura Knight’s art from her early studies at Nottingham Art College to her work as a war artist. What a remarkable career she had and what a wide range of work. The book published to accompany the show has further pictures and essays and is edited by Elizabeth Knowles. We can see her colours brighten …

Features: Cleveland, ohio and the industrial artland Darren Jones Continues His Series On Art Scenes Across America State of Art Steven Litt’s Survey of the Ohio Art Scene Amanda D. King In Conversation With Darren Jones A hot take on ohio With Cleveland Newcomer Tizziana Baldenebro Cultural conflicts in the visual arts David Carrier The inward eye Colin Fell Writes …

Mary Fletcher   The AUE Union was started in 2014. It now has over 500 members and is aiming to be affiliated to the TUC – Trades Union Congress, whose headquarters are in London. It’s therefore a very new and so far a very small trade union. I recently attended the online AGM (Annual General Meeting), participating in a discussion …

Mary Fletcher How has the past Covid year been? I am surprised how quickly I have got used to such a restricted life. I loved dancing and going to St Ives jazz club, meeting other NAE writers, seeing exhibitions, putting my art into shows, mooching about in shops, wondering if I could visit Greece again. But now I get by …

Mary Fletcher The regrettable title of this book, which I deplore, is taken from a remark by Georg Baselitz. At the start of the first chapter Gorrill refers to “masculinities and femininities in contemporary art” that I see as perpetuating unhelpful stereotypes. There is a continued muddle about these terms in the book, which would have been better if it …

Mary Fletcher This is as close as I can get to holding Kahlo’s actual diary. Most of it is written in Spanish in a very legible rounded script, helpfully translated at the back of the book with black and white reproductions of the pages so that you don’t get confused, despite the lack of page numbers. The diary has drawings …

Mary Fletcher I had not thought there was a connection between the work of Doig and Munch, but it seems Peter Doig consciously gave his picture Echo Lake similarities to the background in Edvard Munch’s Ashes. There is a similar use of swishy shapes of paint and horizontal bands of composition. There’s a similar sort of intensity and memorable imagery. …

Mary Fletcher I am watching Question Time, which during the Covid crisis presents us with a wall of zoomed members of the public. I am trying to draw the speakers. What strikes me is how very different men and women look. The men all wear a uniform of suit, shirt and tie if on the panel; those in the audience …

Mary Fletcher These six large tapestries show the Hogarthian progress of a male character on a ‘Class Journey’, using research the artist carried out when he developed his 2012 TV series All in the Best Possible Taste. There were more people in the gallery than I have ever seen there apart from pre-covid-19 opening parties. All were masked and spaced …

Mary Fletcher   Why does Mark Jenkin use black and white film which he develops himself? Is it because it looks old or suggests a shoestring budget or for aesthetic reasons? This is a film set in Newlyn, Cornwall – a fishing town where tourism has grown. The Cornish characters have authentic accents and are local people, not professional actors. …

Mary Fletcher Mierle Laderman Ukeles mentions names familiar from the avant garde of the 1960s – Pollock, Duchamp and Rothko – pointing out that that they didn’t change diapers and that when she had a baby daughter she was suddenly in a world of maintenance, involving both mind-bending boredom and the rediscovery of the world as her baby did. In …

Mary Fletcher This film is about Barbara, a young secondary school attender, constructing an elaborate fantasy that helps her deal with an unbearable situation. We see people trying to help her and some girls being nasty to her in the general odious ways of school bullies. I would have liked to have seen the narrative without having absorbed the inevitable …

Features: 6 An American Child and the Victorian Radicals – James Cassell 9 Intimate Art – Daniel Nanavati 11 Utah can be the Art Scene of the West – Alexander Stanfield 13 In response to Darren Jones on the Whitney Biennial – Al Jirikowic 15 Chairs, Tables and Sex – Frances Oliver 16 Defund the Police, Refund the Arts – …

Years ago I started to keep a note on the details in artists’ biographies recording who their parents were, their wealth, etc. Most were well off and many had a parent or spouse who was already an artist. Others married their success. Anna Boghiguian, who had a big solo show at Tate St Ives, was described by The Telegraph (a …

by Mary Fletcher Three artists go round the potential client’s house, as they put it, ‘snooping’. They meet the buyers and pitch for a commission. One is thrown out. The remaining two make some art. The buyers choose between the results. Most of the art is absolutely dreadful and so is the rest of the encounter. The presenter says things …