This was a valuable visit to three west end galleries. Starting off at the church located right in the centre of chinatown (the most bizarre that I never noticed its presence, like it was hidden by some magical force), the atmosphere there was completely serene and sacred. There were people praying, sleeping there as a shelter. The ceiling was so high up, and the tapestry beautiful on the central wall. Orchestral music echoed off the golden-greyness of the sanctuary, as if it was played in a distance. We were very quietly led to an altar on the side, where _____ worked on those very walls years before. The work was very delicate so we were stepping delicately around the scene. Nicholas gave us fantastic texts and was reading them out while we looked at the work. To be very honest, it was hard to process the dense text (about apparatus) while being on the move. However, I did appreciate it a lot. Next, we went to the next small gallery space, with Frieda toranzo jeager’s first solo presentation in the UK. I remember very intriguing mixtures of the female body and automata. Walking to Danh vo’s exhibition of the long-term collaboration at Marian goodman gallery (where we got a great introduction about the gallery itself, how they show the wide range of artists there etc. and their history) and this was where I found the great appreciation of long term, large scale work. The ground floor was treated like a warehouse for the wood - upstairs is the construction from these materials. He did not care for the aesthetics of the wood, placing them in the way they are usually stacked in a common warehouse. I really enjoyed how raw the show was. The final exhibition was Peter doig, and it is funny because I was just looking at that very lion painting online a few days before and loved it immensely. Seeing it in person was unreal. I asked the curator (?) about the lion paintings - and he was explaining to me how the bright yellow was really how the prisons in Trinidad are painted, and the stone wall acted as a sort of diorama as well. I got excited as I am looking at the diorama in my MCP. Anyway, I was very inspired y his paintings, the rich use of colour and composition, and on the ground floor, the fancis bacon-esque fat and figure in the foreground, made me want to paint more figures. It was also mentioned how doig paints really, really slow, which I found really interesting. How I wish I could take my time with paintings as well. In the third year, it seems like there is no time to stand back and breathe. I hope I survive. Overall, these visits were really valuable and I am really glad I went. I was shocked that only four people including me showed up - they really should be attended more as Nicholas put so much effort in putting the texts and visits together.
