Skip to main content

Harry Potter and the Abstract Danish Artist

.


I had a day out at Tate Modern today. The weather was very blustery, just the sort of British summer day I like, which made the sky look very dramatic. The Millennium Bridge which links St Paul's and the Tate is in the new Harry Potter film and is shown in trailers being attacked by Voldemort's forces. I didn't see any Death Eaters or Dementors, just tourists enjoying London, although maybe there were evil forces at work and I didn't see them as I am a Muggle.

Anyway, back to the serious art. I first went to see the Per Kirkeby exhibition. I'd not heard of him however I have Tate membership so will go and see nearly all their exhibitions so I'll get my monies worth. I'm often pleasantly surprised and will find a new artist I like. This happened with Per Kirkeby.

The first few rooms were abstract nonsense which I like to think I could paint, however moving further into the exhibition I was treated to huge canvasses of colour which are brilliant for imagining things in. One room was full of forest colours which reminded me of rainforest, outback gorges and birdwatching. I went to see the exhibition with my friend Claire, who has years of artistic training and qualifications under her hand crocheted belt. It was interesting to see how we saw different things in the paintings. I was spotting animals and shapes and Claire was picking out colour highlights and brushtrokes.



I must have Harry Potter on the brain at the moment as the painting reminded me of a scene from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. It's hard to capture on the internet but see if you can work out which bit I mean. I'll give you a clue, the actual painting had more grey around the edges, as if set in a cave.

After a spot of lunch we went to the Futurism exhibiton. I might have to see this one again as there was lots to take in, including manifestos, war propaganda and a tiny angular drawing of a knitter. The British artist Wyndham Lewis stood out in the exhibition whose work still looks contemporary today.



The internet really doesn't do art justice so I'd recommend going to see these two exhibitions if you can. just watch out if you see odd looking people wearing robes and funny hats...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Lashing and lashings...

As well as talk of Clementine Cake on twitter there has been talk of brewing Ginger Beer. Ginger beer is my drink of choice and I'm always in search of a good one. I find many commercial ones too sweet. Once on holiday in Brasil I had a ginger beer made with freshly squeezed ginger which is the gold standard at the moment and a tough act to live up to. @eskimimi (who has a lovely blog ) linked to this River Cottage recipe last week . I had to hunt around for brewers yeast as the brewer's yeast you can buy in chemists and health food shops is deactivated so won't work for brewing, despite the name. (trade descriptions act anyone?). I ended up buying my yeast online after consulting my brewing guru Bioniclaura . As well as knitting Laura brews her own beer, which I got sample when I stayed with her and her lovely dog and husband in Dublin when I went over at the end of October. More on that later. I couldn't wait to get started but had to wait til we returned from Hasti

Donegal Aran Socks

When Bioniclaura came to stay for KnitNation she very kindly gave me some Donegal Aran Tweed Yarn . The yarn is made in Ireland in a mill in Kilcar, County Donegal and I bought a little more of it when I visited the Knitting & Stitching show in Dublin with p/hop in October. As I'm supposed to be making 52 pairs of socks this year of course I made socks. The yarn is lovely to work with and though it feels a little rough at first after a gentle wash in some soak it softens up beautifully. I made these socks toe up, using Judy's Magic cast on for the toes. I cast on 18 stitches and increased every other round using YOs knitted through the back loop to 36 stitches on 3.75mm needles. They have a standard heel flap and gusset and were very quick to knit, taking one evening per sock. I gave this pair to my Mother in Law for Christmas and she is very happy with them. Though she loves all my knitting and often contemplates nicking things I have made for other people like some yarny

Ceilings

Over Easter we went to Istanbul. It's one of those cities that's been lurking in the corners of my mind, from tales of Roman Constantinople, to bordering Europe and Asia with its dreaming mosque minarets. So I booked a bargain of a city break two days before we left, chucked some clothes in a bag, picked up a guidebook and off we went. There are more blog posts and photos on the way, as we had an excellent time there, but as you can see I was quite taken with ceilings and spent most of our four days there looking up.