Day out at Hastings: Gary Hume at Jerwood, Victoria Kiff and Alistair Kendry at Hastings Arts Forum & Robert's Curios

What a day I had, beautiful weather, art and people.  Only the night before I realised I had left it to a bad time.  We have a week of sunshine and high twenties temperatures, I could have gone Monday or Tuesday but, I left it till Wednesday, the day all the Olympic lanes came into operation.  I check the BBC traffic cameras at 8.30 in the morning and the traffic looked not too bad but I still expected it to be worse.  In fact, the roads were almost empty - the warning have been very effective - everyone's left town.  It was only on the way back when I was only 5 minutes from home, near the Olympics, that I spent 1/2 an hour trying to get round the home traffic dealing with less lanes on the A12 near the grounds.

1. Gary Hume At the new Jerwood in Hastings
  Gary Hume is another YBA that I didn't know about.  Simple shapes, glossy paint in colours you just want to eat.   The first one, 'four feet in the garden', is like many of them, pretty big and when you first look at it you see it as a black abstract shape till you get closer and you start to see feet and the subtle details of indented outlines of toe nanils etc, and, it's very shiny - bling bling, I can't resist.  These are works you definitely need to see in a gallery to get the full effect.   Often I see paintings, especially the old masters in dimly lit galleries for their protection and I just can't wait to get back to google to see up close clear images of them.  The images below just don't capture it for Hume's work - it just looks illustrative here.  There was a great 1/2 video of the artist talking about his work and this was really inspiring - especially the bit about the temptation to add more which ruins your first pure simple idea.  I can really learn from this, especially in some of the very closeup portraits of parts of faces I want to do and in some of my very closeup flower paintings experiments I want to develop.

Click here for more about Hume.

Gary Hume - Feet in the Garden (on the left)

I had afternoon tea in the Jerwood Cafe - looked nice but took a long time to come and had some stale edges on the little morsels.

Afternoon tea at the Jerwood

And the building itself sits right on the seafront amongst the old black fishermens' sheds.

2. Victoria Kiff & Alistair Kendry at Hastings Arts Forum Gallery - The Sea and It's Creature/Gilt
I met the lovely Victoria and she showed me around her new studio overlooking the sea.  It's a very exciting time for her with lots of exhibitions coming up over the coming year.  Definitely one to watch and perhaps invest in now before the prices skyrocket and they're just so lovely and full of feeling.   Alistair had taught me some wonderful freeing art techniques in a few classes I did with him - a great teacher as well as artist.   His sumptuous gold leaf, new super greens, textures and free strokes were wonderful too.  His huge gold leaf picture at the other end of the gallery as you enter deserves a place in a very large open space.   At £800 surely someone will snap it up - oh if only I had the money and the space.

 I have bought a few of theirs works (there goes the holiday but I couldn't stop myself) and will post them when I pick them up - can't wait.

Victoria Kiff- Portrait

Alistair Kendry - Red boat storm 2

click here for their artist statements and details of the forum's other exhibitions:
 hastingsartsforum-alstair-kendry-and-victoria-kiff

Keep an eye on Victoria's site for her upcoming exhibitions:  www.victoriakiff.net




3. Robert's Rummage
I couldn't go to Hastings without dropping into Robert's Rumage shop for a good natter (he's an interesting man who's done a lot) and to pick up more things I never knew I needed.  He once made me up a lovely box of broken china that had some beautiful bits in it.  This time I bought some old French envelopes to draw on and for £5, a Windsor and Newton portable oil painting kit with the paints still soft.   Anyone you see, especially mixed media artists,  know and love his shop of treasures.  He also owns Robert's Curios across the road with good China and curios at reasonable prices.  I bought some huge Indian wood fabric pattern stamps for about £9 each.

More details:  roberts curios and roberts rummage

Love it - don't know whether to use it or frame it.