Coastal Gallery Blog

Claire Wiltsher – Royal Society of Marine Artists

Claire works from a wonderful garden studio, and is one of our most popular contemporary landscape artists. We love Claire’s subtly evocative colour palette and painterly treatment of stormy Dorset skies, reminiscent of J W Turner’s paintings. When not painting, Claire runs art workshops from the studio, encouraging local people of all ages and abilities to develop their artistic ideas and skills.
Inspired by the Hampshire and Dorset coast, and the New Forest, Claire’s distinctive square, semi-abstract canvases subtly combine layers of oil paint with fragments of collage. She scratches through the layers of paint to reveal the colours and textures hidden beneath.
‘I want to create evocative paintings of land and sea that show a sense of place; different weather conditions are key elements’
Claire’s work is widely collected, including two contemporary landscapes selected for the House of Lords’ permanent art collection. As a landscape artist she has achieved national and international recognition, and Coastal Gallery is delighted to feature Claire’s work.
Claire is featured in the February Issue of HAMPSHIRE LIFE

Hayward Gallery – Bridget Riley until January 26 2020

Bridget Riley review ArtHayward Gallery<www.timeout.com/london/art/hayward-gallery> , South Bank Wednesday January 8 2020 – Sunday January 26 2020 4 out of 5 stars [Bridget Riley review] Bridget Riley ‘Blaze 1’ National Galleries of Scotland. Long loan in 2017. © Bridget Riley (2016) All Rights Reserved. Image courtesy of Karsten Schubert, London. Time Out says 4 out of 5 stars
Bridget Riley will make your eyes hurt and your brain ache. With her perception-altering lines and colours, it’s like the octogenarian grand dame of op art is reaching into your skull, grabbing a fistful of your optic nerves and twisting, pulling and yanking them in a million different directions.
Art, at its most basic level, is about looking. An artist uses pigments and shapes to create images which trigger recognition in your brain. ‘That’s a bowl of fruit,’ your brain says while looking at a drawing of a bowl of fruit. But Bridget Riley wanted to push that much, much further. What if the image didn’t just enter your brain, but messed with it, affected it, manipulated it. In the op art (short for optical art) movement she helped pioneer, paintings and viewers weren’t placed in a passive, one-way relationship, but in an undulating dialogue where the more you look the more you see, and the more you see the more you question what you’re seeing.
The best room in this show is filled with early black and white paintings and works on plexiglass. They’re the purest and most extreme expressions of Riley’s ideas. Thick squares squash down into little rectangles, sucking you into an infinite horizon. Circles fade into nothingness, straight lines curve into waves that your eyes just can’t latch on to. Everything tingles and wobbles, drifts in and out of focus, the picture planes jiggle and reform. It’s art as non-Newtonian fluid. Solid then liquid and back again.
It’s all about contrast. Riley messes with the space between the colours and the lines until the paintings come alive with vibration.
That’s the trick she’s pulled throughout her career. In the late 1960s, she created massive panels of straight lines of contrasting colour. Without curvature, it’s the clashing hues that set your eyes thrumming.
Upstairs, she combines colour and curve to even greater effect, creating these terrifying images that seem like they’re bulging out at you.
A lot of the more recent work is painfully dull – the colours and curves replaced by muted tones and ultra-formal composition – but after decades of innovation you can forgive her for slackening the pace a little. At its best, though, this is a beautiful show of stunning art by a vital figure in art history. It’s a celebration of perception, a chance to totally lose yourself in the act of looking, and the perfect opportunity to let Bridget Riley take your eyeballs for her ride. It’s more than worth the headache.

Shop Local for Christmas !

Visa have launched a Christmas shopping campaign this Christmas.
The campaign encourages people to switch their focus from what they are buying to where they are buying, urging shoppers to show their local high streets some love this Christmas and beyond.
The TV advert features 13 real shopkeepers and will put the spotlight on over 150 independent retailers nationwide, featuring them in personalised adverts on prime city-centre billboards, as well as geo-targeted ads on social media.
The campaign also features a nationwide competition inviting shopkeepers to recreate Visa’s Christmas advert. The winning retailer will see their advert air during a prime-time advertising slot in the run-up to Christmas for millions to see.
Research commissioned by Visa found that 73% of consumers say that shopping locally makes them feel happy, with 42% citing supporting local shops and knowing where their money is going as the main reason. Spending time with friends and family (22%) and offering a sense of community (21%) were other reasons cited for why high streets make people happier. The research also reveals that half of consumers (50%) feel that their high street gives them a sense of pride in their local community. Independent retailers echo this positive sentiment with 73% optimistic about the future of their high street, up from 52% in 2018.
Jeni Mundy, managing director for UK & Ireland at Visa, said: “High streets and independent retailers are at the heart of communities across the UK, providing employment and acting as the driving force behind local economies. That’s why, through our Christmas campaign, we want to inspire people to visit and support their high streets, not just over the crucial festive period, but throughout the year.”

TUTANKHAMUN – SAATCHI GALLERY

Saatchi Gallery
Duke of York’s HQ King’s Road Chelsea London SW3 4RY
Saturday 2 November 2019 to Sunday 3 May 2020
________________________________

Tickets are on sale from 9am today for the upcoming TUTANKHAMUN: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh presented by Viking Cruises. Produced by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and IMG, this exhibition of Tutankhamun’s treasures will be at the Saatchi Gallery from Saturday 2 November 2019 – Sunday 3 May 2020.
Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the tomb, this is the final chance to see these glittering world heritage artefacts before they return to Egypt forever. Visitors will explore the life of King Tutankhamun, and the storied discovery that captivated the world, through more than 150 authentic pieces from the tomb – three times the quantity that has travelled in previous exhibitions – more than 60 of which are travelling outside of Egypt for the first time. At the conclusion of the tour, the artefacts will go on permanent display at the Grand Egyptian Museum. World renowned archaeologist Dr. Zahi Hawass said: “The exhibition is the biggest and most beautiful exhibition of King Tutankhamun’s treasures ever to travel, and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity no one should miss. This exhibition contains unimaginable ancient treasures you have to see to believe, and celebrates the enduring legacy of the beloved boy king and the story of his discovery. This is the last time King Tutankhamun’s treasures will leave Egypt — see them before they return to Egypt forever.”
Tutankhamun’s legacy has been celebrated in the UK throughout the decades with more than 1.6 million people attending the 1972 show at the British Museum.
The third of 10 cities to host TUTANKHAMUN: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh, London is the last European destination currently planned for this final world tour and follows record-setting stops in Los Angeles and Paris. In Los Angeles the exhibition was among the most successful in the history of the California Science Centre, while in Paris it has continued to sell out far in advance. With 630,000 tickets being purchased from before opening on 23 March until now the Paris show is on pace to eclipse the 1967 exhibition ‘Tutankhamun and his Time’ which was attended by 1.2 million people.
TUTANKHAMUN: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh will be on view from Saturday 2 November 2019 – Sunday 3 May 2020 at the Saatchi Gallery in London. “We are absolutely delighted to have the privilege of hosting this exhibition, one that not only showcases some of the most significant artefacts in the world but also tells a time enduring narrative,” says Philippa Adams, Director, Saatchi Gallery.
To mark tickets going on sale, two striking recreations of the Wooden Guardian Statue of the King were seen watching over London today, signalling the imminent arrival of the exhibition. The London engagement of TUTANKHAMUN: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh is presented by Viking Cruises; known for destination focused cruising and culturally enriching experiences including its popular ‘Pharaohs & Pyramids’ itinerary on the Nile. The exhibition is supported by Official Real Estate Partner CBRE.

FRIEZE ART FAIR 3-6 October 2019

Tickets for Frieze London and Frieze Masters are now on sale. Tickets are limited and available to purchase online, book yours now so you do not miss out.
Thursday Preview (12-8pm): Be the first to see the fairs with our Preview tickets which include early access to both Frieze London and Frieze Masters along with a copy of frieze magazine in a limited-edition tote bag.
Thursday Private View (5-8pm): Enjoy access to either Frieze London or Frieze Masters Private View.
Combined entry (Frieze London & Frieze Masters): Enjoy access to both fairs on the same day, tickets are day-specific and available Friday – Sunday.
Afterwork (Friday 5-7pm): Enjoy access to either Frieze London or Frieze Masters after work on Friday for £27.
Timed entry (Frieze London Saturday & Sunday): Entry tickets to Frieze London over the weekend will be timed. Tickets are available for entry at 12-2pm and 3pm.
Student/Youth (13-18yrs): Starting at £26, tickets are available for full-time students with a current NUS/ISIC card and children from 13 to 18 years old. Children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult at all times.
Child (2-12yrs): Tickets for children from 2 to 12 years old. For security reasons, children must be accompanied by an adult at all times and will require a white wristband to enter the fair, which will be issued by the ticketing office. The parent’s/guardian’s name and their phone number should be written on the wristband.

Royal Academy of Arts – Tracey Emin & Edvard Munch

An exhibition pairing the British artist Tracey Emin with her “hero” Edvard Munch will travel to the Royal Academy of Arts in London in November 2020 after first opening at Oslo’s new Munch Museum next spring.
Emin says she “never imagined” she would have a show at the Royal Academy “and not in a million years did I ever think that I’d show with my hero Munch… I’m lucky!”
Details of the exhibition are still largely under wraps, but it is expected to draw on the parallels between the two artists’ work—both are masters at expressing the human condition, often agonisingly so. Emin has said she first fell in love with Munch’s work because he made a painting called Jealousy that was about himself. “I thought it was an incredibly open, self-effacing and defiant thing for a man in the early 20th century to do,” she told the Independent newspaper in 2009.
If Emin herself is to select works by Munch for the show, as she did in 2015 for an exhibition with Egon Schiele at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, there are rich pickings at the Munch Museum. It owns 45,000 objects bequeathed to Oslo by the artist on his death in 1944, including 1,100 paintings, 6,800 drawings and 18,200 works of graphic art.
The Royal Academy show will be a homecoming in many ways for Emin, who became a Royal Academician in 2007 and was the Royal Academy Schools’ professor of drawing between 2011 and 2013. The Royal Academy is also where Emin first rose to prominence in 1997, exhibiting her appliquéd tent, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995 (1995), in Charles Saatchi’s Sensation exhibition, which garnered tabloid headlines and cemented many of the YBAs in the public consciousness.
Over the past few years, Emin has eschewed the controversy of her earlier work in favour of painting and—most recently—bronze sculptures, a monumental example of which will be permanently installed outside the Munch Museum on Museum Island in September 2020. The Mother, a nine-metre sculpture of a kneeling woman, which Emin says could be her mum, beat six other proposals by artists including Olafur Eliasson and Ragnar Kjartansson to be awarded the prestigious commission. Emin’s mother Pam died in 2016.
“I can’t believe it, it sounds so untrue. I am having my mum, a giant bronze, The Mother, in front of the Munch Museum at the same time [as being the] opening show at the Munch Museum,” Emin told The Art Newspaper Podcast <www.theartnewspaper.com/podcast/tracey-emin-on-mourning-and-metoo-george-shaw-on-realism-and-rembrandt> in February at the launch of her exhibition, A Fortnight of Tears, at White Cube Bermondsey. The show included a smaller, three-metre version of The Mother.
“It’s going to be fantastic, this giant bronze of my mum, this older woman, this old lady, taking root in front of the Munch Museum, protecting Munch’s work, legs open towards the fjord, welcoming travellers. I’m so happy about it, I never thought I’d get it,” Emin says.
Describing being paired with Munch for the exhibition as “like a dream”, Emin says: “It’s everything I ever wanted as an artist. It’s unbelievable. And it’s partly because I am doing the right thing. I’m going towards the direction of what I really love, not what people think I should be doing. I think that’s what was recognised when I won the commission for The Mother. My love for Edvard Munch shone and shone and shone.”
The Munch Museum’s recent exhibition programme has mostly focused on pairing Munch with artists who have explored similar themes in their art, including Vincent van Gogh, Jasper Johns, Robert Mapplethorpe and Marlene Dumas. The institution’s new building is due to open next May in Bjorvika, a waterside area in central Oslo, and will join the Norwegian capital’s Snøhetta-designed Opera House and a new public library also due to open next year that will house a work by the British artist Katie Patterson.<www.theartnewspaper.com/news/how-to-future-proof-a-work-of-art-that-will-not-be-completed-for-100-years>
Emin’s last major institutional exhibition in London was a mid-career retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in 2011, although it did not include her two most famous works: the tent—which was destroyed in the 2004 Momart warehouse fire—and My Bed (1998). She is currently the subject of a show at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, for which she has selected rarely seen drawings from the museum’s collection to hang alongside her own (until 29 September).
More News<www.theartnewspaper.com/news>TopicsTracey Emin<www.theartnewspaper.com/tracey-emin>London<www.theartnewspaper.com/london>Edvard Munch<www.theartnewspaper.com/edvard-munch>Norway<www.theartnewspaper.com/norway>Royal Academy of Arts<www.theartnewspaper.com/royal-academy-of-arts>OsloThe Munch Museum <www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://theartnewspaper.com/news/tracey-emin-and-edvard-munch-joint-show-on-its-way-to-london-s-royal-academy-of-arts> <twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://theartnewspaper.com/news/tracey-emin-and-edvard-munch-joint-show-on-its-way-to-london-s-royal-academy-of-arts&text=Tracey%20Emin%20and%20Edvard%20Munch%20joint%2…> <mailto:?subject=Tracey%20Emin%20and%20Edvard%20Munch%20joint%20show%20on%20its%20way%20to%20London%E2%80%99s%20Royal%20Academy%20of%20Arts&body=http://theartnewspaper.com/news/tracey-emin-and-edvar…>

LONDON ART NEWS – SAATCHI GALLERY

BRITISH AIRWAYS PRESENTS: BA 2119: FLIGHT OF THE FUTURE 1st August 2019 / All<www.londonartnews.co.uk/category/all/>, Event<www.londonartnews.co.uk/category/event/>, Talks<www.londonartnews.co.uk/category/talks/>, Visual Arts<www.londonartnews.co.uk/category/visual-arts/>
Saatchi Gallery Duke of York’s HQ King’s Rd Chelsea London SW3 4RY
August 1 to August 26, 2019
________________________________

BRITISH AIRWAYS PRESENTS: BA 2119: FLIGHT OF THE FUTURE; AN EXHIBITION EXPLORING AVIATION OVER THE NEXT 100 YEARS AT LONDON’S SAATCHI GALLERY
• British Airways collaborates with Royal College of Art for a first-of-its-kind exhibition • The exhibition follows global research identifying what aviation could look like over the next 100 years • An immersive, full motion, virtual reality experience, Fly, will be available for gallery visitors to experience humankind’s relationship with flight • A panel event to launch the exhibition will see leading futurists, designers and aviation specialists explore the research and discuss the travel experience of the next 100 years
To celebrate its centenary British Airways is launching BA 2119: Flight of the Future, a first-of-its-kind exhibition looking ahead to the next 100 years of flying and imagining what that may look like.
The exhibition will open throughout August, British Airways’ birthday month, and is based on in-depth global research commissioned by the airline to identify what aviation could look like in 20 years, 40 years, 60 years and beyond.
BA 2119: Flight of the Future, in collaboration with the Royal College of Art, seeks to push the boundaries of imagination and explore how future generations will circumvent the globe in a world of advanced jet propulsion, hyper personalisation, automation, AI, modular transport, sustainability, health and entertainment.
Set to take place at the Saatchi Gallery in London, forty postgraduate students from the Royal College of Art have been working on the project to imagine the future of flight in both digital and physical form. Exploring trends and drivers from the research commissioned by British Airways through respected insights organisation, Foresight Factory, the students are looking at the future through three lenses; aircraft, experience and people. The exhibition acknowledges that the desire and ability to travel is set to grow and focuses on sustainability and technology to drive change.
Alongside the installations will be a one-of-a-kind, full motion, virtual reality experience charting the history of flying and looking forward to the future for visitors who purchase tickets in advance.

Metropolitan Museum of Art – New York

This is not the Met of Philippe de Montebello, someone remarked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual spring media press breakfast today, referencing the institution’s venerable former director from 1977-2008. And about nine months since he took over as director<www.theartnewspaper.com/news/max-hollein-is-the-next-director-of-new-york-s-metropolitan-museum-of-art>, Max Hollein is indeed making his mark at the New York institution.
Hollein’s commitment to integrating Modern and contemporary art at the Met’s Fifth Avenue building is evident in the upcoming exhibition programme, most notably, the fulfilment of his promise of new annual commissions for two public spaces. The Cree Canadian artist Kent Monkman, whose practice is “a new idea of modern history painting”, Hollein said, will make monumental paintings for the Great Hall (19 December-12 February 2020). And the Kenya-born artist Wangechi Mutu, who makes pieces with “fantastic otherworldly narratives”, Hollein said, has been chosen for the first ever project for the empty sculptural niches on the Fifth Avenue façade. She is creating sculptures—already being cast, Hollein said—based on works in the Met’s collection (9 September-12 January 2020).
While Mutu’s sculptures are the first site-specific pieces, Hollein was careful to point out that one of the niches had been “used” before—by the beloved children’s television character Big Bird, who posed playfully in them for a 1983 Sesame Street special titled Don’t Eat the Pictures (a museum etiquette tip from his friend Cookie Monster).
The packed line-up presented by Hollein and the Met’s deputy director for exhibitions, Quincy Houghton, also includes several solo artist presentations, such as this month’s premiere of the Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s seven-screen video installation Death Is Elsewhere (30 May-2 September); a retrospective of the late Indian sculptor Mrinalini Mukherjee (4 June-29 September) at the Met Breuer (although further plans for the Met outpost<www.theartnewspaper.com/news/met-to-leave-breuer-building-making-way-for-the-frick> were not discussed); and a survey of the Swiss-French Modern artist Félix Vallotton (29 October-26 January 2020), which will pair his portrait of Gertrude Stein along with Picasso’s, one of the centerpieces of the Met’s Modern collection. The omnipresent Leonardo will be represented in a single-work display of Saint Jerome in the Wilderness (around 1480), which might have belonged to the 18th-century Swiss painter Angelika Kauffmann, on loan from the Vatican Museums (15 July-6 October).
Meanwhile, marking “a very important milestone”, the Met’s president and chief executive Daniel Weiss presented a balanced budget for the first time in three years. (The museum ended the 2016 fiscal year with a deficit of $8m, down from a potential $40m. Its current annual operating budget is $350m.) The Met’s controversial change<www.theartnewspaper.com/news/new-york-s-metropolitan-museum-to-charge-out-of-town-visitors> last year to scrap its pay-what-you-wish admissions policy for non-New Yorkers “helped us with our finances, but didn’t affect access or feeling of welcome” to the museum, Weiss said, and there was “no negative effect” on attendance among any measured group.
Weiss also discussed multiple building and renovation projects, including the ongoing $150m European Paintings Skylights Project, launched last summer and due to be completed in 2022—which he said “is not especially glorious, but it’s really important”. While Weiss generally discussed the need for an overhaul of the Lila Acheson Wallace wing for Modern and contemporary art—which “looks a little bit like a prison” from Central Park, he said—he did not give an updated timeline for the planned Chipperfield-designed Modern and contemporary addition, which is expected to cost $500m and was put on hold in 2017.

White Cube – Sarah Morris – until 30th June

White Cube Bermondsey presents Sarah Morris’s first solo show in the UK in six years. Featuring paintings, films, a site-specific wall painting as well as the artist’s first sculptural work, the exhibition reflects Morris’s interest in networks, typologies, architecture and the city, articulated through colour and geometric abstraction.
Throughout her career, Morris has been drawn on a wide range of subjects, from American corporate identities and graphics to GPS technologies, mapping and psychology. In her work, she explores systems of flow within cities, whether that be production, commuters, pedestrians, vehicles or currencies.
In this exhibition, Morris presents new works from her ‘Sound Graph’ series. Using coordinates of audio recordings as the basis for the works’ structure, the resulting rigorous compositions consist of hard-edged, colourful shapes, bars and dots, to create a rhythmic flow which together draws the eye across the surface of the canvas. Words are presented as visual information and speech is transformed into image, evoking volume, movement and encoded data.
Morris also debuts a large-scale wall painting titled Ataraxia, the title of which alludes to a state of extreme calm and tranquillity. This notion is in contrast to the highly anticipatory and adrenaline-fuelled momentum of Morris’s films, including Abu Dhabi (2017) which was commissioned by the Guggenheim, alongside Finite and Infinite Games (2017).
In a departure for the artist, large sculptural work is displayed in the 9 × 9 × 9 gallery. Made with lacquered modular scientific glass, the work serves to conjure both interior and exterior landscapes, articulating the exhibition space and challenging the perception of the viewer.
Duration 17 April 2019 – 30 June 2019 Times Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 6pm Sunday 12pm – 6pm Cost Free

London Art Exhibitions

Henry Moore: The Helmet Heads The Wallace Collection 6 March – 23 June 2019
This ground-breaking exhibition reveals the untold story of Henry Moore’s lifelong fascination with armour at the Wallace Collection, inspiring the creation of his celebrated Helmet Head series. see website for prices
Visit Here for more info<www.wallacecollection.org/> www.wallacecollection.org
Hito Steyerl Serpentine Sackler Gallery 6 March – 6 May 2019 Actual Reality OS (Digital Commission) – Launches 6 March 2019. The Serpentine presents a new project by Hito Steyerl, German filmmaker, visual artist, writer and innovator of the essay documentary
Visit Here for more info<www.serpentinegalleries.org/>
Only Human: Photographs by Martin Parr National Portrait Gallery 7 March – 27 May 2019
A major new exhibition of works by Martin Parr, one of Britain’s best-known and most widely celebrated photographers.