Tate Modern, London

Tate Modern

Last week, during my break in London, Rosy and I went along to the Tate Modern. This is an amazing gallery, and it was free entry so i was stoked.

Some works that caught my eye:

Melancholy of Departure 1916, Georgio de Chirico: I really like the style of this painting, and im really interested in the ideas that it explores - ideas of travel and escape suggested by the map, and escaping from a cluttered, claustrophobic like environment. Which is similar to the ideas that i have been exploring about travelling being an escape from a mundane, repeditive, structured lifestyle where every day is the same.

Autumno from Quattro Stagioni 93-4, Cy Twombly: this painting was part of four paintings showing the four seasons. I really liked them for their expressive markmaking so suited to each season, but mostly for the sheer giant size of them. The dimensions were the following: support: 3136 x 2150 x 35 mm frame: 3230 x 2254 x 67 mm. Honestly huge and very overwhelming. Id love to make images that big! Very inspiring!

Night Vision 1998, Fiona Rae: I really liked this painting, despite a negative article that i just read about her work. What interests me about this painting is the bridges between both geometric and gestural abstraction, figuration and abstraction. The bright colours sitting amongst a void of black. It interested me because the work i am doing is also dealing between geometric like, tight patterned imagery amongst a spacious gestural background.

Shooting Picture1961, Niki de Saint Phalle: What interested me about this work was the way it was made. Silicon bags were filled with paint, and Niki invited other people to shoot at the painting so that the paint would dribble out. This interests me, because she gave up control over her imagery to other people. This interests me in terms of how much im in control of my imagery. Maybe it would be interesting to give up some of it to someone else and see what happened. For example, let some friends of mine create a sky, for me to draw my imagery into. There would be an unknown, unpredictable, unplanned factor to it that could be interesting.

Hip, Hip, Hoorah 1949, Karen Appel: I was interested in a comment that accompanied this painting that said "The child in man is all thats strongest, most receptive, most open and unpredictable". It kind of reminded me of my brief interest in learning to use my left hand..because the images were so child like and unpredictable. The imagery is obviously very childlike. She was part of a group called CObrA that celebrated childlike, spontaneous painting such as this. The CObrA group had a huge influence on modern art. The goal of the Cobra group was to free art from the norms and art movements of Western art. The group wanted liberation from the emphasis on form and intellect and instead encourage spontaneous painting. Strong colouring was typical for the artists of the group. They were influenced by fairy tales and myths, drawings made by children, primitive art, and by the art of their contemporaries Jean Dubuffet, Paul Klee, Joan Miró and others. Impressions from these different fields made it possible for the artists to encorporate a variety of symbols and images from fantastical and humorous to grotesque, absurd forms. (reference : http://www.didrichsenmuseum.fi/cobra/englanti/cobra_tietoa.html)