Between: s. nolan

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Monday, 31 March 2025

Artlyst: The Art Diary April 2025

My April Art Diary for Artlyst has been published today:

"Easter regularly brings exhibitions exploring themes drawn from Christianity; this year is no exception. For the April 2025 Diary, I highlight exhibitions that include work from Mainie Jellett, Evie Hone, Francis Hoyland, Nic Fiddian-Green, Gert Swart, and Stanley Spencer. I also highlight exhibitions exploring aspects of mythology that feature work by Tunga, Sidney Nolan and Anselm Keifer, and exhibitions on social action including the latest Human Atlas exhibition by Marcus Lyon and a fundraiser for War Child. I finish up with two exhibitions on the theme of colour in art: Richard Kenton Webb’s Manifesto of Painting and Colour at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton."

For more on Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone see here, here, here, here, and here; Richard Kenton Webb see here, here, and here; Marcus Lyon see here and here; Sidney Nolan see here and here; and Stanley Spencer, see here, here and here.

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -

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Josh Garrels - White Owl.

Saturday, 21 September 2013

Struggles to contend with the Australian landscape

Australia is "the first major survey of Australian art in the UK for 50 years, this exhibition spans more than 200 years from 1800 to the present day and seeks to uncover the fascinating social and cultural evolution of a nation through its art. Two hundred works including painting, drawing, photography, watercolours and multimedia will shed light on a period of rapid and intense change; from the impact of colonisation on an indigenous people, to the pioneering nation building of the 19th century through to the enterprising urbanisation of the last 100 years."

Anthony Gormley comments: "When I think of Sidney Nolan, Fred Williams or Arthur Boyd, I think of harsh earth and fierce sunlight. Through its new occupiers, somehow Australia produced modernist vigour ... There is a directness in the Indigenous traditions, whether the dots of the Western Desert or the colour field paintings of the Great Sandy Desert, where pigment is used to carry mineral truth as well as lived feeling."

Leading Australian contemporary landscape painter Idris Murphy has said:

"I’m not interested in negotiating my way around Indigenous painting. I think it is going to be a problem – can the Western tradition sustain a view of the world? I mean, Peter Fuller used to talk about this when he came to Australia very briefly; he saw in Fred Williams and Sidney Nolan the potential for the ‘last great hurrah’ of the Northern Romantic tradition and I think there’s a lot of truth in what he said. I think it’s going to be a problem – it’s not a problem for me – I’m just lapping it up! Of course I’m not Indigenous but I love the idea of this great wonderful European tradition, which I belong to, fusing with Indigenous art – happening right under my nose, in my lifetime! And I can see that as a whole new sort of language base for contemporary painting."

It will be interesting to see if this show gives any sense of this new sort of language base that Murphy sees in contemporary Australian art. By contrast Adrian Searle has suggested that the show is strong on Aboriginal art and full of classics – but loses its way in modern times:

"The show peters out in a parade of examples, a checklist of single works hung cheek by jowl with no real coherence. There is too much that feels secondary, or like retreads of flavour-of-the-month international fashions.

I am certainly no expert on Australian art, but even I can tell that, however enlightening parts of the earlier sections are, the show fails to give a sense of any of the more recent art except in a tokenistic way."

The Guardian does have a helpful timeline of Australian art, however: A history of Australian art – interactive timeline.

Back at the RA, author Tim Winton will explore his belief that ‘Australia the place is constantly overshadowed by Australia the national idea. Undoubtedly the nation and its projects have shaped my education and my prospects, but the degree to which geography, distance and weather have moulded my sensory palate, my imagination and expectations is substantial. Landscape has exerted a kind of force upon me that is every bit as geological as family.’

In today's Guardian, Winton selects Fred Williams's Yellow Landscape, 1968-9 as his favourite artwork from his homeland:

"he renders the scale and mystery of the physical world by tiny marks. The forms and figures are like scars in the hide of a beast too big to properly conceive of, let alone see entire. All these wens and divots are without pattern and yet they bring to mind calligraphy. These are the marks, the messy, chaotic texture that even the practised eye struggles to contend with in the Australian landscape. Whether you're seeing it from the air or at ground level, this is what your senses struggle with in the open country, such flat planes worked over with hieroglyphics born of fire, erosion, meteor showers, drought and epochal passages of time. Here humans might seem incidental."

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Midnight Oil - Dreamworld.

Friday, 11 January 2013

Mexico and Australia: Revolution and Land

I'm looking forward to two exhibitions at the Royal Academy in the Autumn. The first is Mexico: A Revolution in Art, 1910 – 1940, (The Sackler Wing of Galleries, 6 July – 29 September 2013) which "will examine the intense thirty year period of artistic creativity that took place in Mexico at the beginning of the twentieth century. The turmoil of the revolution between 1910 and 1920 ushered in a period of profound political change in which the arts were placed centre stage. Often referred to as a cultural renaissance, artists were employed by the Ministry of Public Education on ambitious public arts projects designed to promote the principles of the revolution.

The exhibition will explore this period both in terms of national and international artists. Work by
significant Mexican artists, such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros,
will be placed alongside that of individuals who were affected by their experiences in Mexico. These
include Josef Albers, Edward Burra, Philip Guston, Marsden Hartley, Paul Strand, Henri Cartier-
Bresson, Henrietta Shore, Leon Underwood, Tina Modotti and Edward Weston. Mexico: A Revolution
in Art, 1910 – 1940 will reveal a dynamic and often turbulent cultural environment that included some
seminal figures of the twentieth century reflecting on their interaction with each other and their
differing responses to the same subject: Mexico."

The San Bernadino County Museum describes the Mexican Mural Movement as follows: "The Mexican Mural Movement began about 1913 when Mexican President Victoriano Huerta appointed Alfredo Martinez as director of the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas. Gerardo Murillo (who called himself Dr. Alt) of Guadalajara painted the first modern mural in Mexico, and pioneered the idea that Mexican art should reflect Mexican life. After the revolution, the new government commissioned works of public art that supported and affirmed the values of the revolution and the Mexican identity: a broader knowledge of revolutionary history and the Mexican people’s pre-Columbian past.

Three muralists—“los tres grandes,” José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros—became the internationally-known leaders of the mural movement. All believed that art, the highest form of human expression, was a key force in social revolution. Together, they created the Labor Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors and devoted themselves to large-scale murals illustrating the history of Mexico, its people, its society, and the revolution. Their work was not always received positively. All spent some time in the United States creating works of art."

Rivera "did not represent religious images unless they were useful as social observations ... The most that he came close to portray religious messages was at the murals in Chapingo, where his images functioned as a catechism exhorting a new generation of Mexican farm workers and agricultural planners to uphold a modern nationally, constructive, self-respecting way of life, based on the credo "exploitation of the land, not of man."" Nevertheless, it has been noted that his Detroit Industry Murals "are rife with Christian themes and utopian symbolism."

Orozco "painted the theme, Cristo destruye su cruz, three times in his life, twice as murals — one of which still survives at Dartmouth College — and once on a 4’ x 3’ canvas." The image has been understood both as saying “It is finished!” to the violence that destroys and oppresses and as a denial of "the sacrificial destiny meant for him."

"Siqueiros painted some fifteen portraits of Christ ... on August 2, 1963, he inscribed the following quote from the most devout of Italian painters, Fra Angelico, in the back of his painting Cristo del Pueblo: "May only he who believes in Christ paint Christ." And in another occasion, during his imprisonment, he declared: "Was Jesus Christ not, like me, a victim of social dissolution, a persecuted man?" On August 9, 1963, from his cell at a crime prevention facility, Siqueiros inscribed the following words regarding the Via Crucis on the back of his painting, Mutilated Christ: "First, his enemies crucified him 2000 years ago. Then, they mutilated him from the Middle Ages on, and today, their new and true friends restore him under the political pressure of communism post-Ecumenical Council. This small work is dedicated to the latter."

The second exhibition is Australia (Main Galleries, 21 September – 8 December 2013), "the first survey of Australian art in the UK in over 50 years. The exhibition will reveal the development of Australian art through over 180 paintings, prints and drawings, watercolours, photographs and multimedia works, incorporating
settlers’ images of the land from the beginning of the nineteenth century to today, together with art by
Aboriginal Australians. The exhibition will consider the tensions both real and imagined between the
landscape as a source of production, enjoyment, relaxation and inspiration, and conversely as a
place loaded with mystery and danger.

The exhibition will include works by Aboriginal artists such as Albert Namatjira, Rover Thomas, Emily
Kame Kngwarreye and Fiona Foley. Nineteenth century European immigrants such as John Glover
and Eugene von Guerard will also feature, as well as the Australian Impressionists whose paintings
relied heavily on the mythology of the Australian bush: Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts (a student of
the Royal Academy Schools), Charles Conder and Frederick McCubbin. Early Modernists such as
Margaret Preston, Grace Cossington Smith and Roy de Maistre will hang alongside the leading
twentieth century painters: Arthur Boyd, Rosalie Gascoigne, Fred Williams, Brett Whiteley and
Sidney Nolan RA, with the exhibition ending in the twenty-first century with internationally recognised
artists such as Shaun Gladwell, Bill Henson and Tracey Moffatt."

Margaret M. Manion has written that "for a surprisingly large number of gifted Australian artists, the relationship between art and religion has continued to provide a creative challenge." Robert Hughes suggested in The Art of Australia that Justin O'Brien "was the first Australian painter to concentrate on religious imagery" but that religious painting in Australia was "quickened" by Eric Smith and Leonard French. Rosemary Crumlin writes in Images of Religion in Australian Art that with "the founding of the Blake Prize for Religious Art in 1950, many artists turned to the Scriptures for subject matter in their paintings, some of them for the first time":

"Roy de Maistre, reconverted to Catholicism in London, worked often from the Bible and became associated with the Sacred Art Renewal Movement in England. In Melbourne, Russian immigrant Danila Vassilieff used religious subjects, often ironically, sometimes humourously and with zest. In Melbourne also, the Boyd family, always deeply religious, provided its younger generation, including Arthur Boyd and his brother-in-law John Perceval, with an easy familiarity with the Scriptures as texts of faith and guidance for living."

In The Blake Book: Art, religion and spirituality in Australia, Crumlin continues the story providing "a fascinating visual social history of Australia and an astute, well-documented history of The Blake Prize from 1951 - 2011. The book traces many significant changes in art and art movements, both within and beyond Australia. Through their work and words, the artists have room to speak of what has influenced them and found expression in their Blake entries. The influences they name range widely. Choices often surprise.
Among the winning artists presented in the book are Donald Friend, John Coburn, Stanislaus Rapotec, Roger Kemp, Ken Whisson, Maryanne Coutts, George Gittoes and Euan Macleod. Space is given to indigenous art and the many exhibited artists other than the winners."

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Midnight Oil - My Country.

Tuesday, 15 February 2011

Saving Goodmayes Library

TASK has been active over the past month in generating a community campaign which has resulted in Redbridge Council withdrawing its controversial plan to close Goodmayes Library. This is how the story was reported by Sarah Cosgrove of the Ilford Recorder:

'Cabinet Member for Leisure, Sue Nolan told The Recorder she has decided to withdraw the budget option to close Goodmayes Library, in Goodmayes Lane.

"I have attended a number of meetings to discuss our budget proposals and as with last year I have listened to the community, I believe that there are alternative ways of providing the services in Goodmayes Library and I now look to the community to help deliver this valued service," she said.

"There has been much talk about how we should provide the service in a different way and we are talking to other neighbouring Boroughs in relation to shared services but would welcome any initiatives that the community would also like me to consider."'

The fact that Cllr Sue Nolan has withdrawn her proposal to close Goodmayes Library is important but it was also important not count our chickens yet, so a group opposing the closure still handed in to tonight's Cabinet meeting a massive petition, tallying nearly 6,000 signatures as a record of our strength of opposition. Speeches made by our group covered the personal and community benefits of the current services, inadequacies in the closure case, and, in my remarks, proposals for a more strategic and engaged approach to involving the voluntary and community sector in future.

I said:

"It is excellent news that the proposal to close Goodmayes Library has been withdrawn and that Councillor Nolan is now looking to look to the community to help deliver this valued service. However, that, by itself, is not sufficient if we are to learn lessons from the way in which the process of reviewing the budget proposals has been handled to date. Simply to wait for community proposals and initiatives is insufficient because it results in a piecemeal approach to the issues and their solutions.

What is needed is a strategic approach to engaging with and involving the voluntary and community sector as part of a positive approach to the Government’s Big Society agenda, which can also encompass the immediate issue of how to find savings in the Council’s overall budget.

I suggest that taking a strategic approach to the issue would involve a comprehensive and detailed consultation with all voluntary and community sector organisations in the borough to audit their facilities and services and to seek ideas on the types and forms of community involvement which could preserve services and deliver cost savings. In addition to the possibility of services run by voluntary and community organisations, options could also include location of services in existing community building and increased use of volunteers, among other options. To undertake this kind of consultation would result in far more useful outcomes for addressing the current budget challenges than the pseudo-consultation which is the Redbridge Conversation and which tells the Council nothing substantial in terms of how to address the issue practically and creatively.

Such a strategic approach would also identify the real impacts of the cuts proposed. Cuts proposed by one Council department regularly impact on the work of other departments without these effects being identified and the real cost of the proposals is therefore not considered in decisions made. One example is the decision to close the Aldborough Road South toilets which impact on the playscheme in Seven Kings Park and on use of the playscheme by children from Downshall Primary School. The playscheme is a wonderful addition to the Park and the children at Downshall School have been consulted in its design but if the toilets are closed Downshall School will be unable to take groups of children to the Park and playscheme. This is a hidden impact as far as the paper assessing the budget proposals has been concerned because the proposals have not been developed or assessed strategically.

The strategic review, for which I am calling, will result in a more informed set of proposals and should become a standard part of the proposal development process in future."

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The Style Council - Walls Come Tumbling Down!

Tuesday, 25 January 2011

TASK Newsletter 24

It has been a busy start to the year for TASK, to say the least, as we discovered that the Council member for Culture Cllr Suzanne Nolan has earmarked Goodmayes Library as the single branch site for closure across the whole borough. Meaning that if her plan goes through, the staff working there will lose their jobs, the site will almost certainly be sold to a property developer for more high density housing and the community will lose a vital facility. For ever.

And where will the 100,000 annual users of Goodmayes Library be expected to go under Nolan's masterplan? You guessed it. Seven Kings Library, the small and temporary shopfront on the High Road which barely accommodates 20 people in a single sitting. At every level, it is a plan with fundamental flaws which seems to operate against the Council's own mantra of protecting frontline services.

Unsurprisingly, it has generated shock and outrage and anger, which is now being focused around a huge campaign of opposition involving every section of the local community. For more details, please see the brand new Save Goodmayes Library website and sign up for its dedicated facebook page.

TASK is clearly concerned about the loss of amenity in Goodmayes and the pressure on services in Seven Kings, and frankly worried that if Goodmayes goes, the way is still open for Cllr Nolan to close Seven Kings in future rounds of cuts. Leading to a cruel double whammy of closures in the south of the borough.

Council leader Cllr Keith Prince- the man whose intervention was decisive getting our new Seven Kings branch open- was at last night's area 5 meeting at Barley Lane school from 715pm , when we made our case against closure and offered some fresh thoughts. Thanks to everyone who turned up to support the Save Goodmayes Library campaign, momentum behind which grows daily. We are confident the case for keeping it open was well made and will be maintaining the pressure over the weeks up until the budget is decided in early March.

If you have yet to do so please go to the dedicated website and sign the petition online - http://www.savegoodmayeslibrary.org/ - and remember that the politicians told us we would never have a new Seven Kings library, which we do only because of the huge public support last time. We need to mobilise that level of support again now to Save Goodmayes Library.

We will be holding our first TASK meeting of 2011 on Tuesday February 1 from 7-8pm at a new venue, Gizem Bakers on the High Road Seven Kings- near the junction with St. Alban's Road. We are grateful to the owners for their generous support.

Hope to see many of you there,

Chris Connelley

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Stiff Little Fingers - At The Edge.