This Friday night Test Pattern opens at Ryan Renshaw Gallery, showcasing NEW ART from NEW QUEENSLAND Artists.  This is a great follow on from The Young Collectors Exhibition as the artwork in this show is by emerging artists worth supporting.

Each year Ryan Renshaw curates a group show of what he sees to be the best of new art in Queensland. Comprising both recent graduates and unrepresented artists it showcases the next wave of emerging talent.

Ryan says “Compared to Melbourne and Sydney we have a lean number of commercial galleries up here in Brisbane.  This means there are limited opportunities for artists, particularly those who work in non-traditional mediums, to show in commercial contexts.

It’s also a great opportunity for collectors to buy into artists when they are still affordable.”

This years exhibition includes the work of:

Dana Lawrie

Hannah Piper

Yavuz Erkan

Caitlin Franzmann

Jared Worthington

Dord Burrough

Ryan “The nature of the exhibition encourages me to source artists who work in all kind of media.  For the first time video, installation, sculpture, photography and painting will be all accounted for.  But each year I select artists based around a given theme, and some artists in particular are asked to respond to this given topic.  This year’s theme is loosely based around notions of ‘anxiety.’ “ 

I recently visited PICASSO, Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso, Paris exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW and I was truly moved.

In Australia we don’t have the pleasure of seeing masterpieces from Europe very often due to our isolation and when traveling exhibitions from overseas are in town, we sometimes hold the attitude that it isn’t as good as exhibitions we have seen overseas.  BUT I am one of those lucky people, who has recently been to the Peggy Guggenheim in Venice and I can say that this exhibition at AGNSW was unbelievable.

As a regular art-viewer I have become somewhat immune to looking at art and it really takes something special for me to have an emotional response to.  What was so amazing about this exhibition is that these art works Picasso treasured so much that he never sold or gave them away. This is an exhibition of Picasso’s Picassos, a collection of his own works and in turn this exhibition invites us to see a personal insight into the man himself.

In the first room you walk into, the only thing on the walls is a quote that becomes the prologue to the exhibition that follows:

‘I paint the way some people write an autobiography. The paintings, finished or not, are the pages from my diary…’ Pablo Picasso.

Highlighting the fact that artists share a little piece of their soul when they make work; we as the viewer can look at their creations, see their brush strokes, their view of the world and their solutions.  Through art we are privy to see (if you look) a little of what another is thinking and this rare experience in life, should be cherished.

It is easy for viewers to read an exhibition and gain a coherent understanding when art works have been curated chronologically, as in this exhibition, where you start at the beginning of Picasso’s career and end at his end.

See the room layout below

1. From Spain to Paris 1895-1905
2. The enchantments of Oceania and Africa 1906-1909
3. Cubism, collage and constructions 1910-1915
4. A return to classicism 1916-1924
5. Brushes with surrealism 1925-1935
6. Anxieties of love and war 1936-1939
7. World War II to Korea 1940-1951
8. The joy of life 1952-1960
9. Continued The joy of life 1952-1960
10. Last decades 1961-1972

Picasso’s (1881-1973) career spanned over seven decades of the 20^th century and was an integral part of the birth and development of modern art.  He was deeply connected with art from the past and never abandoned the figure, which is seen throughout this exhibition.  During this exhibition I learned to look at art again, and continuously went back and forth throughout the whole show to try and soak up as much as I could. I found it very challenging to know when it was time to leave.

Some of the works that stood out, the works that I went back to look at again and again, were the portraits of his lovers and wives, where his love, passion and intimacy radiates from these works: Portrait of Dora Maar (1937) his muse and artistic equal, his wife Jacqueline with crossed hands (1954), Portrait of Olga in an armchair (1918) his earlier wife and his very young (pregnant) lover Marie-Thérèse Walter in The Reader (1932); other iconic works he made during his cubist period such as Homme a la guitare (1911); his mythological imagery with Centaurs and Gods.  I have never experienced or can imagine what it would have been like to live through World War I or II in Europe, but Picasso’s Death’s Head (1943) evoked deep remorse for those who died and experienced living hell during that time.

I learnt something new about Picasso from his own words ‘When I was a child, I could draw like Raphael, but it took me a lifetime to learn to draw like a child.’  This exhibition ends with an aged Picasso’s portrait of himself, the wide-eyed child artist with his palette in hand, a sweet reflection to leave the exhibition with his image of his beginnings at his end.

This collection was eventually donated by his family in lieu of taxes to the state of France, after his death in 1973.  Now we can all be privy to viewing Picasso’s collection, as he proclaimed ‘I am the greatest Picasso collector in the world’.

Exhibition runs until 25 March 2012 at the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney Australia.

Only just over a week now until The Young Collectors exhibition, getting a little nervous about my talk but I know that I could talk about art under water : )

To see the full invitation visit this link.

…you never know you could turn out like Herb and Dorothy Vogel…I think I am.

He was a postal clerk. She was a librarian. With modest means, this couple managed to build one of the most important modern art collections in history. Meet Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, whose shared passion and commitment defied stereotypes and redefined what it means to be an art collector.