And flow ...

Low-resolution picture taken on a phone camera.

This beautiful image was painted by Mary Kinsella.

Paintings don't move (usually), nor does the paint (after a decent interval), but occasionally one comes across an image which clearly conveys movement. This what I find in Mary's work, and especially this canvas. She has achieved this without making her picture of anything which might suggest drift or flow. That would be so distracting. So how has she done it? Perhaps the shading and moulding make us think of clouds or steam. Perhaps the progression of colours, leading upwards towards brightness gives us a sense of ascending, a sense of transition.

One of the things I love about work like this is that it makes explicit the joint task of the artist and the viewer. The artist has created the image, and now over to us. What will we do with it? We could project on to it all manner of emotion, experience and story out of our own heads. But that wouldn't take the image seriously; it wouldn't allow the painting to be what it is. Or we could ask the artist to explain it, and understand it through what she brought to the canvas. But that's not always possible and, anyway, it will only ever be a secondhand understanding of the work.

No, the genius of work like this is that it invites us to do something both easy and subtle. We are asked first to spend time with the image appreciating, valuing, its colours and forms, its balance and movement. And slowly, as we stay with the image, to consider how we are responding to it. How does it make us feel? What do we find stirring within us? Does this painting express something which I have felt or experienced? This is tricky because we will always be tempted to start making our own picture or story out of the painting in front of us. But if we can hold back, it becomes a genuine encounter with the artwork; something on a par with a meeting or a conversation.

Enough of the hard work. If you have a chance to see this canvas in the flesh, give yourself some time simply to digest it: the sensuous shapes, the vivid colours, the movement ... and enjoy.

Encore: Dianna Jazwinski

On Dianna Jazwinski's first appearance on this website, I made the case that some photography can justifiably be called art.

That's most certainly true of the images which Dianna produces.

Here we have a piece of her recent work: Dahlia Garden.

When I first saw this, I simply wanted to be quiet in front of it.

But that would make for a poor review, so some words...

Dianna puts these dark backgrounds to very effective use. They highlight and isolate her subject, and lend an almost hyper-real appearance to the image. The limitations of online reproduction mean that some of that sharpness is lost. All the more reason for seeing her work in the flesh.

A lot of people will be put in mind of Dutch floral still-lifes from the seventeenth century: contrived fantasies in ornate containers. But look again. This is something else entirely. If we were a group discussing this, I would ask "And why do you think the artist has framed this image the way she has?" I would ask partly because I'm not sure, but it's intriguing. Another artist would have shown us the stalks neatly tied with twine or thrust into a container. Nothing wrong with that, but it has a neatness about it which closes down the imagination. But not here. For me, what Dianna has done creates a sense that we are being shown something which will disappear in a moment or two; something we are fortunate to have caught at the right moment. It's as though she has photographed a ripple on the surface of a pond.

And I love the to-ing and fro-ing my mind does with this picture. We know that studio work like this is carefully staged and arranged, yet I still find myself caught up with the illusion of movement and depth. Have those loose petals and berries really just sprung off the arrangement? No, of course they haven't; and yet ... And somehow, just for a moment, the whole image flicks from two dimensions to three.

This picture is quietly alive.

Go to see Dianna's work if you can:

7 March The Makers Fair St Augustine's, Stanford Road, Brighton

Weekends in May 'For the Man I Love' Malden Road, Brighton (part of BAOH)

30-31 May The Floral Fringe Fair Leonardslee Gardens

13-14, 20-21, 27-28 June Moth Studios 77 Westcourt Rd, Worthing (part of WAOH)

https://diannajazwinski.co.uk/

Dynamic water(colour)

Wow!

This powerful watercolour is the work of Penny Mechen.

It’s full of energy and dynamism, and despite the cool blue tones we find ourselves caught up in it.

Penny is one of those lovely artists who has never lost her fascination for the way blobs and washes of colour resolve themselves inside the eye of the viewer.

I expect many people will look at this image and easily think ’water’, ’sky’, ‘speed’, and ‘spray’. And yet Penny’s work darts about along that line which divides figurative and abstract art. We can see all sorts of things here – sails, the sea, and so on. And many viewers will not only settle for that, they will rejoice in it. What a wonderful and evocative depiction of, say, a dinghy race in the Channel!

But without too much effort we can find ourselves surrounded and embraced by a field of colour and forms. This is the kind of painting which doesn’t have to be anything, except what it is. We don’t have to feel as though we were watching an imagined boat race. We can enjoy instead the beauty of the colour and shapes. I mean, just look at what those touches of ochre or pink achieve alongside the blues.

If this were on my wall – and Penny runs fine prints and projections from this original watercolour – I would soon stop seeing anything in it. I think it would become a constant source of delight and stimulation.

Penny’s work can be found at the Montague Gallery and at

www.pennymechen.art

www.instagram.com/pennybythesea