Saturday 15 November 2014

'Not Much Good Painting' -The West Midlands Open 2014

'The Gaze', oil on canvas, 210 x 150cms, in The West Midlands Open 2014, Gas Hall, Birmingham


It’s been a few weeks now since it opened and from when I went to the Private View, but I’m pleased with how my large painting ‘The Gaze’ looks in the ‘West Midlands Open 2014’ exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery’s Gas Hall. It looks great against this green wall, and it’s so nice to see it with some space around it as it hangs on a wall on it’s own. In fact, it’s the biggest painting in the show, which is a bit of a surprise in some respects, but in others it’s not. There does seem a current vogue for more modestly scaled painting, which I also felt when I exhibited in the ‘Worcester Open’ last year. My painting in that show, although at only five feet across and so not terribly large, was the biggest painting there too. It seemed to sit very awkwardly in that particularly show, like how I often feel at parties, and I didn’t like how it looked. I’m much more pleased with this representation of my work in the Gas Hall. 

Digging that green wall....

I just wished some of the punters visiting the exhibition felt the same. The comments book, although full of many complimentary things to say about the show, also has it’s fair share of, often quite outrageously rude, condemnatory comments too. I don’t know, as it is with these things, it’s a mixed bag, but I thought a good mixture of things if you are willing to look a bit harder than the feeling I got from some of the said commentators. Oh well. Each to their own.  Apparently there is ‘not much good painting’ in the show. Well, I didn’t notice that. Instead, here are some rather good examples that caught my eye…
Paul Newman, 'The Fly', mixed media on canvas
Angela Maloney, 'Danny Boy', oil and acrylic on canvas
Celia De Serra, 'Isabella', pencil on paper

The show runs until February 2015. I think it's well worth a visit. 

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