There’s a magic about drawing that I will never tire of experiencing. Both the making and the looking give me such pleasure so the annual Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, organised by Parker Harris, is a feast. It’s the foremost drawing exhibition in the UK with an extremely high standard of work. This blog post […]
Places
Bandaloop: Resurgum at St Paul’s Cathedral. GDIF.
Part of the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival (GDIF) this year, aerial dance company Bandaloop performed Resurgam (latin for I shall rise) on the South side of St Paul’s Cathedral. Look at the bird carved in stone. I think the phoenix rising from the fire refers to the rebuilding of the cathedral after the Great […]
Visiting Strawberry Hill. Post 2 of 2
As I said in my previous post on Strawberry Hill, things began to get more interesting for me upstairs. This stained glass alcove in the Round Room beyond the Gallery is called the Henrys window and continues the stylistic evolution of the building. The same room contains the most expensive single item commissioned for the […]
Strawberry Hill. Post 1 of 2
Strawberry Hill in Twickenham, Surrey, the first Neo-Gothic building, is the product of Horace Walpole‘s imagination. Built from a pair of small cottages then developed over 40 years, it is a fantasy drawn on his deep knowledge and love of history and art. I had visited the exhibition “Horace Walpole & Strawberry Hill” at the […]
Public art by Veronica Ryan OBE at Hackney Central, London
These sculptures were unveiled a couple of years ago to honour the Windrush generation but this was the first time I’d had a proper look at them in situ. Custard Apple, Breadfruit and Soursop are typical Caribbean fruit remembered from Veronica Ryan OBE‘s childhood visits to Ridley Road Market in Dalston, London. These are accessible […]
At Somerset House
Ooh, things have changed since I was last here and what a delight – the roadworks outside Somerset House have finally ended to reveal a new pedestrian area (East Strand). It’s larger than I expected, stretching from the previously isolated St. Mary le Strand through to Aldwych. You now move from open to narrow (Somerset […]