Sunday, November 05, 2006


Carol Archer, Work of Macao Hands #1, 2006,
watercolour on paper, 59 x 42 cm.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations.
The scans look lovely, slightly frustrating, the surcae doesn’t always look liek watercolour, you want to see them in the flesh. Not what I expected at all – always exciting.

Made me think of Dutch still lives, now much ignored, c 17th C, how they always feel a vanitas, no matter if all the flowers are in perfect bloom. But strangely a favourite is 1888c Cezanne, Pot of flowers and Pears at the Courtauld, simple still life, casual but pears so lovely, and a picture frame from the back of a paining in the background. [I love his landscapes but have tried and failed to appreciate his bathers].

I suppose I am thinking of #9, that studied casualness but the first I saw was 5# with its deliberate attention to details that echoes Shklovsky’s idea of the nature of art as "defamiliarization – but so naturalistic! A very even illumination, otherwise the tessellated wall – almost a mosaic- would have had a de Hooch echo for me (I prefer him (Delft, pre Amsterdam period) to Vermeer actually).

What’s odd is how odd these paintings would have looked pre- Dutch 17th C and how odd they would have looked to the Dutch. They show the bricolage nature of making do – behind the scenes, or rather everything been seen and of value (almost a natural theology)

Congrats again on the show

Cheers