Whitespace Exhibition

My recent exhibition at the Whitespace Gallery was a show involving myself and Roz McKenzie. The work was a mixture of drawings, painting and contemporary stained glass. To see more of Roz's work click on the link above.. 

Roz's stained glass panels were in lightboxes which we built ourselves and hung on a particular wall of the gallery to get the right level of light (direct light from strip lights on the panels would have ruined the effect).

                                     

My work mostly involved drawings but included the watercolours and oil painting hung on this particular wall. The big painting is titled 'Arsenic Mine' and is based on drawings and photographs I took in Cornwall of abandoned arsenic mines which ran down to the cliff edges. I have previous posts on this blog and my other website. The watercolours were looking at 10 Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament. I was interested in the odd way in which these places represented the heart of our 'democracy' while at the same time looking like a cage. I found the image of tourists staring at fairly mundane scenes through bars at the police officers within like some sort of bizarre zoo. 

More hanging Roz's stained glass panels.

These small drawings took up the last wall of the gallery, they were all drawings I have done in-situ. They are mostly from the various places I have been in the previous year - Wells, Erfurt and paderborn. These drawings represent a sort of travelogue of my travels.

Downing Street/Parliament watercolours with reflections.

Public Art Erfurt

Here's some pics of public art from Erfurt, Germany

A pretty excellent use of a tree I'd say and rather witty too!

More Sketches From Erfurt

Some more of the sketches I made whilst in Germany,

This is the view from our window in our tower block in Erfurt. It did however feel cosy and I enjoyed drawing this view from the window on the hot and sunny days.

A quick drawing of the Krämer bridge in Erfurt across the Gera. In German its called the Krämerbrücke and means 'Merchants Bridge'. It has houses across the entire length of the bridge and has shops etc. on the bridge itself. It is a very interesting example of what no doubt many ancient bridges might have looked like.

A very quick sketch I made whilst in Gotha (mentioned in an earlier post about Lucas Cranach) of the view down into the old looking town centre. The architecture was sort of reminiscent of the architecture of the old town/royal mile edinburgh. The shapes were not perfect and parts of buildings bulged as if they were full of rice and ready to explode. The view interested me because of the large fountain in the foreground, the huge (it was really huge) crane in the middle ground wrapping wreath around the May pole, the old town hall and of in the distance the huge numbers of wind turbines.

Sketchbook Erfurt Cont.

Another page of drawings I made while in Erfurt. I worked on these using a mechanical pencil with small lead width.

This is a drawing I did directly after the last one in which I drew Roz sleeping. The odd shape of the tree intrigued me as its small branches all pointed vertically upwards towards the sun like an anemone. This was also drawn in the Ega park Erfurt.

This is a sketch of the view from the steps of the cathedral of the Domplatz. I just roughly drew in a couple of the timber framed buildings to give myself an idea of scale in comparison to the massive obelisk in the centre of the square. The oddly shaped roofs of differing sizes and heights is a good example of the older architecture of the city. The outlined building on the far left is a more modern building and marks the passage through to the Rathaus (town hall).

Sketchbook Erfurt

I have been doing some sketching in Germany, which with the photos I have taken and the various mental notes in my head will become paintings when I get back to Scotland. This is the first page of sketches I did in Erfurt in the first week we were staying there.

This image is a view from the Schlösserstraße across the Gera towards the Anger. The mixture of traditional buildings and newer ones interested me. We were told by people we befriended from Erfurt that much of the city was quite run down until recently and that when unified with the West the city had been refurbished. I also found out that it was largely because of being in East Germany that Erfurt has so much historical and ancient buildings in it. In the west they would have sold the land to developers.. surprise, surprise and they would have been knocked down.

I used pencil and watercolour for this, drawing it out in pencil first and colouring in details with the watercolour before adding more pencil in top.

This is a drawing I did of Roz sleeping in the 'Ega Park' a large botanic gardens in the city. The weather was so hot we sat out most days in the parks or drank beer in the beer gardens.

Lucas Cranach and Erfurt cathedral

From a post on a the evil atheist Socialism.. I thought I might smoothly transition to a post on a catholic cathedral. Perhaps it is part of my upbringing (a granny who constantly told me from as young as I can remember not to trust anyone religious, or men with beards) but I am scared to enter churches or cathedral. Scared is maybe too strong a word, unworthy? Being not a religious type in the slightest I often think that the folks in these churches, being nutters as my granny hath made me believe, will smell my unreligiousness like animals smell fear and send me out to the devil with the rest (Also on a another level I don't want to offend anyone). Clearly this is stupid and my interest in art usually overrides my fear of being burnt as a heretic.

In Erfurt there was a very beautiful cathedral called the Domberg St. Marien. It set a great scene, sitting on a hill in all it's gothic spikey towers. This was the cathedral where Martin Luther was ordained, so lots o' history too.

Inside was a lot of stained glass which was our reason for being there, however it was covered with scaffolding. What a disappointment, however, there was paintings there for me to look at. In particular a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder. Having seen a few of his paintings of weird naked women in the national gallery I quite liked his style and was interested to see such a famous 'name' in the painting world with their work in-situ (much like the last post the work makes more sense in a cathedral, rather than in a gallery)

'The Maddona and Child with SS Catherine and Barbara'

By Lucas Cranach the Elder

The painting was interesting, although impossible to see up close as there was ropes in front. It shows the typical style of his workshop and I believe is one of only a few that he is known to have definitively done himself. The figures with oddly elongated proportions reminded me of his painting 'Venus in a Landscape'. I also went to the town of Gotha, near Erfurt, home of the founding of the German Socialist party (in yet another nod to the last post) and of the British royal family. The city centre is dominated by Schloss Friedenstein a former palace which housed King Albert of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in his days as a Prince. Later changed to Windsor during the War.. Anyway the castle inside had a pretty impressive collection of paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Younger. The paintings were very beautiful and I recommend anyone interested should go and see them.

Another cool piece of art in Erfurt Cathedral was this Bronze cast made in c. 1160 of 'Wolfram'. At 850 years old it looks remarkably modern in design, when I first saw it I thought it could have been made today.

There was also a painting donated to to the cathedral by a local family I thought was quite cool. The perspective tile element I always appreciate in an old painting, I also liked the architectural elements the artist has employed. I don't know who painted it and couldn't find any info in the church.