“Veiled monument, Tarndanyangga, 2022” is one of a series of paintings depicting my immediate urban environment. As a daily habitual walker negotiating these spaces it is evident that they are in a process of continual change and disruption. I try within these paintings to utilise motifs as depicted here of a known/unknown monument undergoing restoration….
Category: review
An excellent cast powers ENO’s Tosca
English National Opera’s new season opened with Tosca which is always guaranteed to draw a crowd. Puccini’s opera has much to commend it, notably a lush and inventive musical score, unforgettable arias, and moments of sometimes shocking drama. There were problems on opening night at the Coliseum. When Annilese Miskimmons, ENO’s Artistic Director, announced that…
Picture This : Serge Bloch
Ce qui m’intéresse dans le collage, c’est le contraste, la rencontre entre le trait et l’objet que je colle ou l’élément graphique que je rapporte. C’est aussi la relation entre le temps de la collecte et le temps du dessin. Pour moi le collage, c’est l’humour, la poésie de ces associations, la complicité de ces…
Picture This : French Illustrator Serge Bloch ‘I Wear the Hat’
What I find interesting in collage, is the relationship between the glued object and the graphic line, and what transpires between the collection of the collage and the drawing. For me, collage is humour, the coming together of two artistic impulses. The titles to my drawings are often playful, made up of strands of poetry…
The japes of Roth: ‘Glass / Handel’ Prom, Printworks, London
The Proms have come to symbolise a lot of different things, some of which are seemingly contradictory. Famously inclusive in terms of relaxed approach and atmosphere, but potentially exclusive to anyone who isn’t alive to the odd arcane tradition or two. Brand new works rub shoulders with reliable old ‘warhorses’. And outreach: more and more,…
The Innocent Ear
The Innocent Ear was a radio programme, broadcast on the Third Programme (which became BBC Radio 3) in which listeners were invited to “preserve [their] ‘innocence’” by not trying to guess the composer, and by approaching the music with fresh judgment, freed from prejudice”. The music broadcast would be identified afterwards, thus freeing the listener’s…
Jollymath: Bill Bailey at the Royal Opera House
There is a huge range of skills at play here. And the way he weaves them all together into something resembling a whole is bewilderingly deft. But that said – you could probably describe Bill Bailey as having the one, key superpower: an ability to make a large group of strangers blissfully, almost deliriously happy…
UK Premiere of ‘Little Women’ at Opera Holland Park
‘Little Women’ at Opera Holland Park 2022. Back stage, Harry Thatcher and Kitty Whately as John Brooke and Meg March. Front stage, Frederick Jones and Charlotte Badham as Laurie and Jo March. Sisterly love has rarely been treated in opera, or in the arts in general, with the exception of Chekhov’s plays. Mark Adamo, composer…
Thrilling Staging of Puccini’s Le Villi at Opera Holland Park
Every year Opera Holland Park presents a new double bill of short opera. It’s a neat endeavour as it introduces audiences to opera that might not otherwise have seen the light of performance. In the hands of new creatives, singers and musicians, the bite-size works, lasting no more than forty-five minutes, give interesting insights into…
Picture This : Featuring Artist Oliver Merrington
The original idea for this painting, which is part of a series, started with images of polluted skies and landscapes blacked by industrial waste. The bright colours of chemicals being poured into rivers and streams for example. When I start painting, I have these images in my head, that evolve very quickly and become something…
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