This summer, I visited the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London, where many different paintings, sculptures, architecture plans and photography are displayed over the course of June, July and August. Michael Craig-Martin was the curator of the exhibition this year, and from previous years, the arrangement of the exhibition looked very different. The walls were painted with bright and bold colours, which frequently feature in his own work. The rooms were packed with the different art forms as mentioned above, however some stood out for me more than others.
There were around 4 of Michael Craig- Martin’s pieces displayed this year. His work stands apart from the other art work, as he has a very distinct style. He uses bright, block colours in his art and paints zoomed in images of everyday objects. I think that the simplicity of this particular painting is effective with unusual colour combinations. His work has a similar effect to Julian Opie’s prints, that were also displayed, as he also has a highly distinguishable style. Although they both have a similar technique of using line, I could easily identify which piece of work was their own. However, the magnifying of objects is my favourite element of his artwork that I would like to further try to explore in my own work.
Grayson Perry, who was also involved in curating the exhibition, had work that was displayed at the exhibition. His tapestry, ‘Julie and Rob’, was enormous and took up an entire wall. When I first saw the piece, I was drawn to the fact that the portrait was made with textiles and it provoked me to think about using different materials in my work and to maybe stitch into pieces I have already done. Initially, I thought that he had produced the piece hand made, however after researching into his work, he designs his pieces on the computer and sends off his piece to a company which produce the tapestry for him. This changed my feelings about the piece because I was mainly impressed by the actual tapestry element rather than the picture. However, now I am interested in how he uses graphic design to create the picture, as I have previously used photoshop and enjoy using the computer in art.
review by Katie Weitzman
Sources:
Grayson perry image: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03328/grayson_3328475b.jpg
Michael Craig-Martin image- https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-michael-craig-martin-s-world-in-color-the