London Trip

The proverb says that every cloud has a silver lining, yet sometimes I feel it's the other way around. I was really looking forward to making the trip to London yesterday, until I was notified, rather late, that Chris Drury would be talking as part of a seminar at MMU. Needless to say I was pretty disappointed to miss his talk as I have been an admirer of his work for ages. Never-the-less I had a fabulous time in London and packed a lot into my day.

The reason I went on Thursday was to visit the Surface Design Show, but I'll discuss this exciting show in depth on Design Noticeboard.

Firstly I visited Kings Place Gallery to see Sophie Benson's Vanishing Points. Her landscape and seascape paintings have an eerie luminescence. I loved the blending of colour, which seems to make the surfaces pulse with light.

It was interesting to hear them compared to daguerreotypes. I loved the stilled, silenced quality of the images.

While there I also saw Ørnulf Opdahl's Mood Paintings of the North , which was an unexpected pleasure. Atmospheric paintings that are more about the feel of the place, the personal experience of place.

Afterwards I went on to Contemporary Applied Arts to see 'Intelligent Trouble: a curious exchange' a collaborative project by Helen Carnac, Lin Cheung, David Clarke and David Gates. The project explores making as a method of investigating ideas. Each maker created four identical works, which were then exchanged and re-worked, and exchanged again opening dialogues about shared practice.

Helen Carnac's work particularly appeals to me. Something about the way marks are made and elements placed together. However the format of the exhibition meant that none of the works were labelled and authorship was completely blurred. A fascinating exhibition and makes me feel the worth of taking risks with my own practice. I really hope the exhibition (and dialogue) will be recorded in some way, I'd love to see how it progresses.

And finally... some pure indulgence. A few moments spent in the Cloth House on Berwick Street.