An evening at the RA

I had the pleasure of attending the Artist Talk on Thursday evening for the exhibition 'Surface Cutting' running until the 20th February. Curated by Eileen Cooper RA the exhibition celebrates the medium of wood and linocut, known as block printing. It was both inspiring and fascinating to  listen to the 14 Artists talk about the journey they had taken to reach the final prints on display and the part process had played in there ideas and outcome. It was wonderful to see such a diverse range of works on display and I would highly recommend a visit. Personally it was wonderful to see some old RCA peers and tutors, the evening really took me back to my art school days!

 For further information on the Artists involved and how to purchase the works, please click here

Royal Academy of Art
The Keeper's House, Burlington House
Free

I recently went to the Hockney show at the RA, I have always been interested in his work particularly the photographic collages such as Pearblossom Highway, which is featured in the show and was intrigued to see his recent body of work which takes us back to his birthplace of Yorkshire. This show celebrates the artists depiction of landscape and most of the works were oil paintings, charcoal and ipad drawings between 2004-2011.

I enjoyed the show, this recent work does not have the same qualities of previous works that are closer to my own practice and interest but what was so inspiring to me is how Hockney throughout his career has embraced new technology, his thirst to continually work with a new process and try and perfect it , a constant self renewal. The number of works on show is a little overwhelming but what was fascinating to me was seeing the process behind them, the use of multiples, working with the ipad and video, this gave a real insight into Hockney’s practice and passion.