Canadian residency at Dulwich Picture Gallery
The other day I went to an open day held at Dulwich Picture Gallery to showcase the work of their artist in residence, Liz Charsley-Jory. She is a Canadian-born artist who has a residency at the Gallery, originally arising out of last year's wildly successful Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven exhibition. The works were mostly landscapes of British Columbia where she spends part of the year, plus some depicting scenes in Dulwich where she lives the rest of the time. The pictures are very engaging (one was used for the most successful Christmas card the Gallery has ever produced) and unsurprisingly make good use of the influence of Tom Thomson while retaining her own take on landscape, but what intrigued me most was to discover that she uses oil pastel, a medium new to me. A distant cousin of children's crayons, oil pastels consist of pigment mixed with oil and a wax binder; they are relatively easy to use and convenient to carry, which makes them good for outdoor work. Liz now takes classes at the Museum, and the students' work on show and her own work were a convincing advertisement for this medium.
Open day at Forest Hill
Liz gave me a copy of the brochure listing open days by local artists being organised by the Dulwich Festival - even I was surprised how many professional artists there are in a relatively small part of south east London. I had a look at the open day being held in Havelock Walk, a cobbled alley in Forest Hill which originally housed Victorian workshops but for the past fifteen years has contained studio space for local artists. The space connects with a recently opened project called "Canvas and Cream" which combines a very successful cafe with yet more studios and an exhibition space for hire - all this in an area no-one would describe as "arty" (not yet, anyway). The artists taking part worked in the usual variety of media these days: charcoal to mixed-media, traditional photography to manipulated digital photography, three dimensional work using found objects to conventional easel painting. I was pleased to see the event was well attended when I was there.
Amazingly enough (well, maybe it's not so amazing), the visit resulted in the discovery of another technique new to me - jelly printing. This is based on an old reprographic method, and can be used for a variety of images - the artist I spoke to who used the method mainly produced colourful abstracts but also had an image of a rather spooky-looking feather. Like oil pastels, this is a technique which is cheap and accessible enough to be used by amateurs but also versatile enough for professionals.
One of the exhibitors, Lesley Middleton, has also had a museum residency, at the nearby Horniman Museum and Gardens - her paintings of the grounds are on display in the Museum cafe. These are more muted and misty than the boldly coloured flower paintings on show at the open day.
These events got me thinking about the mass of relatively unsung artists who provide the necessary background from which the big names emerge, and do much to support the art education, interest and buzz which connects the public with the arts. The fact that this public interest then allows them to pursue something they love completes a happy circle which benefits us all (or those of us in Dulwich and Forest Hill at least).
