Catherine Kurtz: Pinned

 

Catherine Kurtz - Pinned VII, 2020

 

 

"Drawing and paiting find me at my most alive. The prematurely dead forms of butterflies and birds force me to confront the brutality of loss, even while I observe their great beauty and charm." - Catherine Kurtz.

 

 

 

 

Pinned IV, 2017

 

I simply couldn't resist the chance to see this last exhibition of the year for this blog. I had to take the opportunity to see what another artist working with the butterfly motif as an important part of their oeuvre was creating, and how their vision and treatment of the subject matter differed from that of my own. I encountered the most enchantingly painted, small-scale studies of not only butterflies, but also birds and small samples of fabric arranged against a simple cream coloured ground. For her Pinned series of painted butterflies Kurtz states -

 

"I have always found specimen insects creepy, and felt uneasy about their suspended beauty. However when I came across some butterflies in an antique shop in France I suddenly saw a connection to an important memory of mine. I have been carrying around fragments of the TS Eliot poem The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock since my teens. My memory specifically involves this passage:

And I have known the eyes already, known them all - 

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

So the butterflies spoke to me both of the poem, which addresses mortality, but also of the plight of women, and myself as a woman. I chose to paint them in order to contemplate this, and to allow me to present the butterflies to th viewer through my own interpretation."

 

Pinned XIII, 2021 

Pinned XII, 2021

 

Pinned IX, 2020

 

 

Memento Mori VIII, 2017

 

Memento Mori VII, 2017

 

 

Memento Mori X, 2018

 Memento Mori III, 2015

 

 Memento Mori XV, 2020

 

 

 Memento Mori IV, 2017

 

Torn V, 2014

 

Torn VII, 2015

 

Torn XIV, 2016

 
 

 Pinned XII, 2021

 

Pinned II, 2016

 

Pinned III, 2016

 

Pinned I, 2016

 

Pinned VIII, 2020

 

Pinned X, 2020

 

Pinned XI, 2020

 

 Pinned VI, 2016

 

 

 Pinned V, 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catherine Kurtz: Pinned

until 21st December

Redfern Gallery

20 Cork Street

London

W1

Georges Braque: The Poetry of Things

 

Georges Braque - L'Oiseau volant vers son nid, 1955

 

 

"What greatly attracted me - and it was the main line of advance of Cubism - was how to give material expression to this new space of which I had an inkling. So I began to paint chiefly still lifes, because in nature there is a tactile, I would almost say a manual space... that was the earliest Cubist painting - the quest for space." - Georges Braque. 

 

With this being the first solo exhibition of Georges Braques's work in London for nearly 25 years I felt I had to make the effort to see it. The exhibition consisted of a series of Braque's still life paintings, many featuring the dark, muddy palette of browns and greys so redolent of paintings of the early and mid-twentieth century. Several display flashes of colour, mercifully enlivening the gloomy hues of these paintings which belie Braque's early, but brief association with the Fauve movement. Braque's main preoccupation with his art would become the depiction of space and perspective within the picture plane which of course led to the radical, groundbreaking development of Cubism in conjunction with Pablo Picasso. In his Cubist paintings Braque combined different views of his subject matter within the same canvas, which broke the traditional formal rules of European perspective. This resulted in paintings that appeared fragmented and abstracted, in which the illusion of space, and the flatness of the canvas were emphasised. Braque continued to explore spatial relationships in his artworks long after the end of Cubism. The results of these investigations can be seen in this enchanting exhibition at Bernard Jacobson with a series of domestic sized still life paintings in which Braque investigates the constant arrangements of objects, fruits and the spatial planes on which they sit.

 

 

 

Georges Braque - Nature morte à la grande cruche, 1955

 

Georges Braque - Verre et compotier, 1922

 

Georges Braque - Légumier, citron, oranges, 1924

 

Georges Braque - Cruche, cahier de musique, bouteille, 1924

 

Georges Braque - Corbeille de fleurs, 1925

 

Georges Braque - Nature morte: prunes, 1925

 

Georges Braque - Vase, prunes et couteau, 1925

 

Georges Braque - Pomme, verre et serviette, 1927

 

Georges Braque - La desserte I, 1941

 

Georges Braque - Les sterlitzies (Oiseaux de paradis), 1941

 

Georges Braque - Nature morte avec citron et verre, 1941

 

Georges Braque - La saucière, 1942

 

Georges Braque - Théière noire et deux citrons, 1948

 

Georges Braque - Nature morte à la pipe, 1942

 

Georges Braque - Théière et poisson, 1942

 

 

 Georges Braque - La théière grise, 1955

 

 Georges Braque - La caisse verte, 1952

Georges Braque: The Poetry of Things

until 23rd December

Bernard Jacobson Gallery

28 Duke Street

St James's

London

SW1

Richard Estes: Voyages

 

As a teenager I was fascinated by the work of Richard Estes and others of the American Photo-realist movement of the late 1960s. My favourite artist of the movement - although he rejected the photorealist label was Robert Cottingham - with his his focus on the typography of American cinema facades and store-fronts. Richard Estes was another, creating iconic images of the  photorealist movement based on the exterior reflections and gloss of American architecture. Estes's work is the latest to turn up in the surprising itinerary of Damian Hirst's Newport Street Gallery. Estes works speaks essentially of the American vernacular including imagery as iconic to that experience as Greyhound buses, diners, aluminium phone booths and the railway bridges supporting the transport infrastructure of the city. In this exhibition as the title - Voyages - suggests, Estes expands both his experience and visual vocabulary, travelling to a series of European destinations, inspired to capture in paint cities and landscapes on this side of the Atlantic. The strongest works here are the paintings in his signature style of various aspects of the city captured in the reflections of huge plate glass windows. The paintings appear to be all surface, with no underlying narrative or apparent meaning or significance apart from that imposed by the viewer or critic. Although one could argue for weight of meaning in the ambiguous dualities seen in the layering of reflected shopfront exteriors against their interior content, or the lives of the lonely looking individuals captured by Estes in his diners, or glimpsed through the windows of Greyhound buses. Walking through this exhibition I found that the paintings invited comparisons with other American (and European) artists. In the figures frozen in diners I saw comparisons with the existential loneliness of city life and the drudgery of the daily commute in those of Edward Hopper (here), and the produce laid out in a bakery store window with those luscious window-framed cakes of Wayne Thiebaud, and lastly in the view of Venice the Venetian cityscapes of Canaletto. It was the first time that I had seen Estes's landscape paintings, and I didn't think they were as successful as the cityscapes. They didn't have the huge sheets of glass to reflect back views, creating interest through the abstract refractions and repetitions of the imagery within the picture plane. The landscapes are interesting though in that they have made Estes' slightly adapt his painting style, adopting a slightly looser, perhaps more "painterly" style in his mark-making in certain artworks. Perhaps he could take this further and create more emotive landscapes like those of painter Harald Sohlberg (here), who adopted a more poetic approach in his landscapes. Estes, I guess though, has to remain true to his style. This photographic style does Estes a disservice at times with some paintings appearing so mundane at times that they resemble everyman's personal holiday snaps, or are reminiscent of pictures from brochures like those of the holiday company Saga, advertising cruise holidays. It is good however, that Estes has, albeit belatedly, at last scored his first major show in the UK. 

Richard Estes: Voyages

until 12th December

Newport Street Gallery

Newport Street

London

SE11