Mobiles and a Spoon Woman: The RA

Two days ago i went to the exhibition now on at the Royal Academy called Miro, Calder, Giacometti, Braque: Aime Maeght and his masters. The exhibition consisted of 4 densely hung rooms with everything from sketches, paintings, prints and sculpture to mobiles, ceramics and metalwork. One of the things that really made the exhibition hang well together was Maeght's insisting on his artists to expand their work through a variety of mediums. It was this guidance that gives the exhibition today such a wide spectrum of interest, probably the most exciting, if not the most impressive being the extraordinary mobiles and stabiles created by Miro and Calder. Their delicacy and ability to change form through spinning gives them a fleeting quality that makes viewing them a unique experience depending on their position.

It was great to see such  diversity within the show, and i especially enjoyed discovering a painting i had never before seen, Personage (1946) by Alexander Calder. The painting has about it a hallucinatory effect, the proportions of the limbs on the two figures warped to an almost disturbing degree. The most enticing thing about the picture for me was the warm and earthy palette - even the blue of the sky seems to be covered in some sort of humid, misty haze. I found the totemic figures in the piece fantastically shaped, one with a head so swelled his only two facial features - his circular eyes - were pushed right up. It was through these figures that I saw in the piece a distinct influence of African art, one so common among artists of Calder's time and before, and quite literally displayed in Giacometti's Spoon Woman of 1926, which is a quite literal combination of the female form and a collected African ceremonial grain spoon.

In room three you are confronted with the stark, withered form of Giacometti's Walking man I (1960) which sets the tone for a room of less colour and a much more sombre atmosphere. Famous cubist Braque works are hung around Giacometti's sculptures and wonderfully sketchy drawings, where on close inspection seem careless, however when standing back from the piece, all the scratchily laid down marks seem to fuse into an energetic and uniquely styled representation of the subject.

The final room contains prints from Aime Maeght and some of Calder's later, simple works which were my favourite of the show. Works like Two Spirals (1974) are so elegant and beautiful in their control and simplicity i was drawn to them more strongly than anything else in the exhibition. Perhaps the most memorable part was though a video shot by Aime Maeght of Henri Matisse drawing a portrait of Marguerite Maeght which was really great to see. His light and quick moving hand can be seen to adorn the paper with energetic, wavy wisps as he composes the hair of Aime's wife. I really enjoyed the exhibition and came away with a few ideas of my own, which i have recorded down in my sketchbook for later use.

Memory documents: José Parlá

A little while ago i came across an interview with Cuban artist Jose Parla on the American art website www.fecalface.com, which pointed me in the direction of Elms Lester's Painting rooms in London, where he happened to have a show on at the time. I visited Adaption / Translation a while back with a friend and was seriously set aback with the sheer energy and depth all of the paintings had. Walking round the exhibition for the first time, i felt it hard to visually analyse all the paintings fully, simply because i felt no need - it was a satisfying experience just exploring the paintings casually. I ended up visiting the exhibition a further 2 times in order to fully solidify a true and personal understanding of the work.

Through plentiful background reading into the work ethic of Parla i have expanded my understanding of the meaning of his painting. Aesthetically the work can be described as densely layered compilations of a huge variety of mixed media which build up a deep ground upon which his rolling layers of calligraphic / graffiti style scribblings can be inscribed upon. Images such as Dance, Dance, Dance (2008), pictured above, is a prime example of such a work. Featured in the Adaption / Translation exhibition, it recalled the worn and eroded walls of urban environments, with the distinct influence of graffiti emerging in the work as a series of downward bending layers of writing.

The writing itself, which the artist describes as 'calligraphy,' is used as a form of drawing, with which he records observations. Compositions are derived from the observations of deteriorated walls in the cities visited on Parla's travels. Photography of such influences can be found in the exhibition catalogue. I drew heavy inspiration from the exhibition, now incorporating huge sections of newspaper headlines to add drama and bold visual interest to my work. I will undoubtedly write more on this fascinating painter in months to come...