The Extricate Blog Spot

Wednesday, 21 June 2023

Marcus Cope: Always On My Mind

Always On My Mind (Part 2) opens Thursday 31st of August 2023 and features the work of 16 artists including:

Marcus Cope

Q) What’s always on your mind these days and is it having an impact on your art work?

Marcus Cope: "There are so many things on my mind at the moment, they range from the daily duties and responsibilities that come from having a family and pets, to memories, particularly the trauma of my childhood, to my hopes and aspirations for the future for myself, my loved ones and society as a whole. One word that often comes to mind when thinking about this stuff is chaos, and that word definitely has an impact on my work, I fill the works with chaos of my own making."

2) Can you name an art exhibition, art book or artist that changed the way you think?

"Daniel Richter's solo exhibition Lonely Old Slogans at Camden Arts Centre in 2017."

3) What work(s) are you thinking of putting in the "Always On My Mind Part 2" exhibition?

"I may include the painting Dead Man's Coat, which is a work that depicts me wearing a coat that a friend passed on to me that had belonged to an artist who I admired who had recently died. The scene is set in winter, taken from a photo my daughter took of me in our local park in the snow. In the foreground is a body under a white blanket."

www.marcuscope.co.uk

The opening party for Always on my Mind Part 2 is Thursday 31st August 6pm till 9pm at Fitzrovia Gallery, 139 Whitfield Street W1T 5EN

Bruce McLean: Always On My Mind

Always On My Mind (Part 2) opens Thursday 31st of August 2023 and features the work of 16 artists including:

Bruce Mclean

Instagram

Q1) What’s always on your mind these days and is it having an impact on your art work?

Bruce McLean: "The political situation, work not ART work."

Q2) Can you name an art exhibition, art book or artist that changed the way you think?

"Strategy Get. Arts" was an exhibition that took place in the Summer of 1970 at Edinburgh Collegel of Art. It was organised by Richard Demarco. One artist in that show who changed the way I think was Sigmar. Polke"

Q3) The critic Jerry Saltz said what he's looking for in art is "a sense of necessity, someone eorking in their own voice, doing what they can't not do" - Do you relate to his way of thinking and do you think your own artwork is something you just can't not do?"

"No to both questions."

The opening party for Always on my Mind Part 2 is Thursday 31st August 6pm till 9pm at Fitzrovia Gallery, 139 Whitfield Street W1T 5EN

Above painting by Bruce that's now sold.

Monday, 19 June 2023

John Peter Askew: Always On My Mind

Always On My Mind (Part 2) opens Thursday 31st of August 2023 and features the work of 16 artists including:
John Peter Askew
Instagram

Q1) What’s always on your mind these days and is it having an impact on your art work?

“To build a better world. I am interested in representing peoples’ better selves, in the belief that we have the ability to become better too.”

Image above: 'Swans' by John Peter Askew

Q2) Q) The National Brain Appeal provide much-needed funds to support The National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery and the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology – together known as Queen Square. This is one of the world’s leading centres for the diagnosis, treatment and care of patients with neurological and neuromuscular conditions. These include stroke, multiple sclerosis, brain cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. Have you or your loved ones ever suffered with any of these things?

“My father suffered from Parkinson’s and it was massively debilitating in very painful ways. It is not an exaggeration to say that the last eighteen months of his life were a living nightmare for him.”

Q3) When the critic Jerry Saltz was recently asked what it is he’s looking for in art he answered “A sense of necessity, someone working in their own voice, doing what they can’t not do.” Do you relate to his way of thinking and do you think your own work is something you just can’t not do?

“The ultimate goal of my art is the exploration of beauty which is essential for my own wellbeing”

The opening party for Always on my Mind Part 2 is Thursday 31st August 6pm till 9pm at Fitzrovia Gallery, 139 Whitfield Street W1T 5EN

Sunday, 18 June 2023

Russell Herron: Always On My Mind

Always On My Mind (Part 2) opens Thursday 31st of August 2023 and features the work of 16 artists including:

Russell Herron

Instagram

Q1) Can you name an art exhibition, art book or artist that changed the way you think?

"Every exhibition, book and artist changes the way I think."

Q2) What work(s) are you thinking of putting in the "Always On My Mind Part 2" exhibition?

"I’ll be putting in some small pencil drawings of faces made from cardboard. These are portraits of the most basic kind – eyes, a mouth, sometimes a nose. I’ve been drawing these small portraits for the last few years. Much of my work is about identity or how we fit into, or find, the roles in our lives. These small portraits are trying to find their own way in the world."

Image above: HISTORY DRAWING 2 (2022) Pencil on paper Mounted in black wood frame, low reflection glass, split batten fixing to rear DIMENSIONS: (FRAMED) 48 x 35cm

Q3) Q) The National Brain Appeal provide much-needed funds to support The National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery and the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology – together known as Queen Square. This is one of the world’s leading centres for the diagnosis, treatment and care of patients with neurological and neuromuscular conditions. These include stroke, multiple sclerosis, brain cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. Have you or your loved ones ever suffered with any of these things?

"My mum died last September having slowly deteriorated over a number of years with Alzheimer’s. It’s a cruel disease that takes the person – their personality, their thoughts, memories, beliefs – but leaves their body. It dismantles who they are. It scoops them out of themselves. It’s as though they die before they are gone. There is an agonising path they walk towards the end, where you can’t reach them, but must still watch them, helpless, as they move further and further away. My mum died in a bed she hadn’t left for months, unable to really speak or communicate with anyone. When she died - physically died - it was a release."

The opening party for Always on my Mind Part 2 is Thursday 31st August 6pm till 9pm at Fitzrovia Gallery, 139 Whitfield Street W1T 5EN

Monday, 5 June 2023

Jonathan Jones reviews The Royal Academy's Summer Show

Jonathan Jones gives the 2023 RA Summer Show: 3 out of 5

Read his review: HERE

Quote: "Why do they do it? Walking around the Royal Academy’s summer show – “the world’s largest open submission exhibition”, an immense gathering of good, bad and (mostly) mediocre art by amateurs and professionals, the famous and forgettable – you have to wonder, what is that urge to put pencil to paper?"

Jonathan Jones gives the 2022 RA Summer Show: 2 out of 5

Read his review: HERE

Quote: "Wilting flowers, soppy woodlands … this climate kitsch is about as concerned about the environment as Boris and Carrie Johnson."

Jonathan Jones gives the 2021 RA Summer Show: 5 out of 5

Read his review: HERE

Quote: "Yinka Shonibare has turned this annual event into a thrilling, thoughtful showcase boasting giant fruit and Colston in chains."

Jonathan Jones gives the 2020 RA Summer Show: 3 out of 5

Read his review: HERE

Quote: "Amid a sea of tasteful landscapes, only the BLM room and apocalyptic works by Tracey Emin and Anselm Kiefer are in tune with our troubled times."

Jonathan Jones gives the 2019 Summer Show: 1 out of 5

Quote: "I wish I had a time machine so I could go back to the moment before I entered the Royal Academy’s 2019 Summer Exhibition, and then turn away. This is a memory I don’t need. Since seeing this sprawling dustbin of has-beens and never-will-be’s I have been weighed down by its depressing dullness. It was like being locked for days in a garden centre."

Read his review: HERE

Jonathan Jones gives the 2018 Summer Show 5 out of 5

Read his review: HERE

Quote: "There’s an orgy going on at the Royal Academy. People are tumbling over each other, cavorting in ecstasy, revealing all. Who knew the summer show could be so subversive?"

Wednesday, 24 May 2023

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2023: Only Connect

The R.A Summer Show has taken place annually since 1769 – the year after the RA was founded with Joshua Reynolds as its President. David Remfry’s theme for the exhibition, which consists variously of works by Royal Academicians, invited artists and the public, is ‘Only Connect’. The famous phrase comes from E.M. Forster’s 1910 novel Howards End, at the moment when the protagonist Margaret Schlegel resolves to replenish the soul of the conservative, complacent Henry Wilcox (a man “afraid of emotion”), whom she has settled to marry. “Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.”

The R.A received more than 15,000 entries, below are 6 of the artists who were selected...