Queuing to visit Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art!

Last night was the Private View for the four new art exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

We were told that some 8,500 people had visited the Gallery last week and that at the weekend people were queuing to get in!

Rebecca Louise Law: Life in Death

The number of visitors and queues will be in no small part related to the Rebecca Louise Law: Life in Death exhibition which is quite unlike anything I've ever seen before. It's an experience!

Rebecca Louise Law with her exhibition Life in Death at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew Gardens

Her exhibition is an installation within the large central space within the Gallery and promotes her passion - the use of preserved plant material as art material.

Plants and flowers that she has collected over a ten year period, have been dried and strung on very thin copper wire garlands suspended from grids attached to the ceiling. There are 350,000 specimens strung on c.1,000 garlands spaced at intervals of around 12 inches.

Rebecca Louise Law: Life in Death #1

It seems as if the entire room is completely full of dried flowers and pods. However a wavy path cut through the middle allows visitors to start on one side and move through to an exit via a diagonal which takes you through an amazing range of plant material.

I'd seen the exhibition previously and kept feeling the need to spin round to look at the exhibit from every angle. Looking at the plant material and the disorientating effect of spinning around in part explains why people take quite a bit of time moving through....

Rebecca Louise Law: Life in Death #2

What was interesting yesterday was that there was a distinct aroma in the air which I hadn;t noticed previously. Almost like being in the centre of a giant pot-pourri.

This exhibition is supported by a separate exhibition (in Gallery 4) of the ancient Egyptian preserved funeral garlands of Ramesses II in Kew's own collection - which date back to 1300BC.  This is a very rare public display of the fragile and beautiful ancient Egyptian wreaths, which, draped over mummies and coffins, accompanied the dead to the afterlife.

Lindsay Sekulowicz: Plantae Amazonicae

This exhibition forms a portrait of the Brazilian Amazon, resulting from collaboration between the artist Lindsay Sekulowicz and Kew’s Science team.

Lindsay Sekulowicz: Plantae Amazonicae combines new artworks by Lindsay with items from the economic botany collection maintained by Kew.

International Watercolour Masters Exhibition at Weston Park in 2018

In recent years, I've been very interested in following the travels of a small number of watercolour artists to top watercolour competitions across the world which have attracted international submissions by the Masters of Watercolour Painting.

Now it seems it's the UK's turn - or rather it will be in 2018!

Never before has the UK staged such a prestigious exhibition featuring contemporary world Masters in watercolour painting - until now...

Next April, there is to be an exhibition I'd hoped we'd see in England but had rather lost hope of ever seeing. I'm sure it's an event which will warm the collective hearts of many a watercolour and art society member up and down the UK!

Here are the details

International Watercolour Masters Exhibition
Venue: Weston Park, Granary Gallery, Weston Park, TF11 8LE ENGLAND View Map
Dates: April 28-May 31 2018.
Admission: FREE
Eventbrite Page

J.M.W.Turner, David Cox, Walter Langley RI, George Sandby & other English Master artists of the 18th & 19th Centuries took water colour painting to the world. Now on 28 April 2018 to May 28 2018 the worlds leading water colour Masters come to England , for the first time, for a unique contemporary exhibition at historic Weston Park.

Never before has the UK staged such a prestigious exhibition featuring contemporary world Masters in watercolour painting. During the show several of the artists will lead guided tours, and also demonstrate their techniques. Watercolour workshops will also be arranged.

The exhibition has been organised by David Poxon (England) - who is one of the artists who has been travelling the world and picking up prizes as he did!

(He's also an artist whose work is much copied in terms of subject matter and technique - but never bettered. I keep seeing the work of those who try to emulate him and Angus McEwen at many exhibitions which include watercolour paintings!)

The special guest artists are listed below.

I'm very sure that some of the names will be recognised by those who follow the international watercolour competitions.

• Janine Gallizia (Australia) 
• John Salminen (USA) 
• Mark Mehaffey (USA) 
• Dean Mitchell (USA) 
• Konstantin Sterkhov (Russia) 
• Jasmine Huang (Taiwan) 
• Chien Chung-Wei (Taiwan) 
• Pasqualino Fracasso Watercolour (Italy) 
• Marvin Chew (Singapore) 
• Jayson Yeoh (Malaysia) 
• Ali Abbas Syed (Pakistan) 
• Liu Yi (China) 
• Alvaro Castagnet (Uruguay)

During the show

• Several of the artists will lead guided tours, and also demonstrate their techniques. 
• Watercolour workshops will also be arranged.

David Poxon (centre) with one of his paintings
and (left) Alvaro Castagnet (Uruguay) and (right) Liu Yi (China)

The exhibition started life as a solo show for David Poxon RI. David is very well known and appreciated around the world for his pure watercolour paintings. He travels extensively to exhibitions abroad. I'm forever seeing photos of him on Facebook at yet another one of the major competitions!

He is also an elected member of the prestigious R.I. (Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours) and the NWS (National Watercolour Society of America)

During David’s International travels he has exhibited with many of the worlds leading
water colour artists who have become close associates and friends. Having discussed his 2018 Weston Park show with Janine Gallizia (Australia) the concept of a larger structured exhibition was conceived. David extended his invitation, and after receiving an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response, the International Watercolour Masters exhibition was born.

I suggest watercolour painters make a note of the dates in their diaries!

(Note: This exhibition is not formally associated with or organised by any of the watercolour societies or competitions in the UK as I understand)

Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing

I posted a link on Facebook this morning about the links between art and health - and it obviously was something that lots of people identified with.

Why GPs prescribing arts activities to some patients could lead to a dramatic fall in hospital admissions and save the NHS money

So here is the link - plus

• the report which triggered this 
• other articles 
• some more links about how art interfaces with health and how arts activities arts can lead to better health

The Report

The report which triggered the articles is Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing | All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing

You can Download it

You can View online

Articles about Art and Health

The Guardian Articles

• Arts can help recovery from illness and keep people well, report says - All-party inquiry demonstrates benefits to health and wellbeing of the arts, leading to fall in hospital admissions
• 'It's time to recognise the contribution arts can make to health and wellbeing' - The arts help meet challenges in health and social care associated with ageing, loneliness, long-term conditions and mental health
• 'Creativity improves wellbeing': art transforms mental health ward - A psychiatric ward in London has been given a makeover, with work donated by artists and workshops for patients

Organisations about Art and Health

In the UK

• London Arts in Health Forum (LAHF) - a membership organisation which aims to develop the role of culture in wellbeing and to promote and support arts in health activity across London and nationally (Twitter account: Arts in Health Forum @LAHFArtsHealth )
• National Alliance for Arts Health and Wellbeing: a voice and resource for arts and health activity.
• The All Party Parliamentary Group for Arts, Health and Wellbeing

Interestingly I could fine very little about art and health outside the UK - and wnhat I found was on the Resources Page of the LAHF

Exhibiting Artists - ING Discerning Eye 2017

The artists whose work has been selected for the 2017 ING Discerning Eye Exhibition have been announced.

Ing Discerning Eye 2017 - The Exhibition

The exhibition will be open to the public from Thursday 16 November – Sunday 26 November, between 10am and 5pm daily at the Mall Galleries, The Mall London SW1. Admission will be free and all the works will be for sale.

See my previous blog post ING Discerning Eye 2017 - Call for Entries for more details about the submissions process and the hurdles that needed to be jumped!

ING Discerning Eye - Exhibiting Artists

Below is the list of exhibiting artists listed alphabetically by surname. I've also included images of some of the artwork selected.

I normally include a link to the artist's website but since this will take hours and hours for this number of artists, I'm putting up the list first and embedding links in an artist's name to his or her website later when I have the time. The names I recognise will be done first!

If people want to send me the best link to use so much the better!

Impressionists in London - a marketing own goal by Tate Britain!

I'm going to recommend the new EY Exhibition at Tate Britain as worth seeing.
HOWEVER, this comes with a MAJOR caveat which needs explaining at the beginning. It's all to do with the title of the exhibition.

Three paintings of the Houses of Parliament by Claude Monet
my favourite is the one in the middle from the Art Institute of Chicago

I wouldn't have an issue with the new exhibition at Tate Britain if the headline was "French Artists in London".

However my expectations about what I was going to see were heightened by the title they chose instead which was "Impressionists in London" - with a subtitle of "French artists in exile 1870-1904"

So what follows is:

• First the explanation of rather a lot problems associated with the title and 
• then my review of the exhibition. I'll not be commenting much on at least the two of the rooms as a result.

So why is the title a problem and a marketing 'own goal'?

View of Room 5 - London through outsiders' eyes

Here's my list:

• Only four of the eight rooms are given over to paintings by Impressionist painters
• Room 1 contains paintings by painters who became known as Impressionists AFTER the paintings were painted
• Room 5, 6 and 7 contain Impressionist paintings. 
• Room 8 is devoted to Derain who was a Fauvist and the paintings were painted AFTER 1904
• Room 1 is the introduction and focuses on why artists left France
• Three of the rooms and very substantial sections in the catalogue are given over to four artists who are NOT IMPRESSIONISTS!
• Room 2 is dedicated to James Tissot (1836-1902) who fought in the Franco-Prussian was and been a member of the Paris Commune and was definitely an artist in exile, However he was a painter of modern times and high society who had refused to exhibit with the Impressionists at their first exhibition in 1874. 
• Room 3 is devoted to Alphonse LeGros (1837-1911) and Jules Dalou (1838-1902). LeGros is a very boring, conservative and academic painter - who left France in 1863 (i.e. he was an immigrant not "in exile" and was naturalised British in 1888). He's a made out to be a central person for artists exiling to London following the Franci-Prussian war. In no way is he an Impressionist!  Dalou may have changed the way sculpture was done but this is wholly unrelated to Impressionism.
• Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1828-1875) is a French sculptor who to my mind only deserves to be a footnote in this exhibition but instead gets an entire room (Room 4) to himself! His visits to London don't merit a mention in either his entry in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History or Wikipedia. He's in because he sculpted Napolean III.
• A number of the artists were certainly NOT in exile at the time they were creating paintings in the exhibition.  They visited and revisited London - as painters - without any impulse or imperative to desert France!  The use of the word 'exile' strictly only relates to the period 1870-1880 for the Communards and a very much shorter period for everybody else. Thus the sub-title "French artists in exile 1870-1904" actually makes no sense to me at all. There was no exile after 1880.

exile - the state of being barred from one's native country, typically for political or punitive reasons.

• Two of the painters are not even French and were never in exile in London!
• James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) - who has three paintings in the exhibition is an American artist who was living and painting in London but was not in exile
• Giuseppe De Nittis (1846-1884) is an Italian painter who was never in exile and paid periodic visits to both Paris and London. However five of his paintings were included in the First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874. 

The reality is that major exhibitions these days probably need to be joint ventures and have multiple venues both to access works and defray costs. However that does not excuse sloppiness of focus in representing the exhibition to the paying customer.

One of the information articles on the Tate website refers to Eight things to know: Impressionists in London and while informative it fails to highlight that a number of the artists were NOT IMPRESSIONISTS! When educational material becomes misleading to this extent, this is really not good enough.

Bottom line - two points

1. This all makes for a very confusing exhibition. The actual Impressionist paintings don't even start until Room 5 of an 8 room exhibition
2. this exhibition is not a 2/5 stars exhibition - as suggested by Jonathan Jones in his Impressionists in London review – how not to tell the origin story of modern art however I entirely understand why he gave this review - based on the expectations created by the title and the marketing

This pea souper of a show nearly achieves the impossible feat of making Monet seem dull, while illuminating little about British links to impressionism

To my mind the Evening Standard in its review Impressionists in London, exhibition review: Inaccurate and dishonest does have a point...

The title of this show isn’t just inaccurate, it’s dishonest. It’s only partly about those very bankable artists connected to Impressionism.

All those responsible for marketing exhibitions for Tate Britain really need to pay a LOT MORE close attention to the detail of the Non-Broadcast Code of the Advertising Standards Authority - particularly Articles 1 and 3

The central principle for all marketing communications is that they should be legal, decent, honest and truthful. All marketing communications should be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and society and should reflect the spirit, not merely the letter, of the Code.

As one of my readers commented on my Facebook Page

The Royal Academy puts on crowd pleasing Impressionist related exhibitions whenever they feel hard up, looks like the Tate may be doing the same.

It's really not good enough. Inaccuracies have become industrial in this exhibition.

Review

That said, I'll now endeavour to highlight why it's an exhibition worth seeing.