Shattering…

I’ve been suffering for over a week with yet another bad cold…and nowadays I find it pretty shattering.  Even though I’m (hopefully) the right side of it getting on with work (certainly in the manner I’m accustomed to) is hard going.  I find myself shattered and have to take a rest for forty minutes or so during the day.  This is something I never used to do at all and whether its simply because I can or whether it is just a fact of my advancing years I don’t know…but it’s debilitating and frustrating.

Not least because I want to finish my Winter Cycle and move onto other pieces, to get started on the detailed plan for the show I’m planning for the autumn at Deda in Derby.  The painting above is one of those I’m hoping to show – its by the marvellous sculptor Richard Perry.  Richard is an artist I’ve known since the very early 1980’s and I’m excited to be able to exhibit these terrific paintings he’s been making recently alongside his exquisite carved stone sculptures (for which he is justly highly regarded).  The show is titled Geometry: Wonky & Otherwise and takes as its loose premise the idea of a certain regard for geometric forms in contemporary painting, be they situated within a strong conceptual and systemic framework or more openly and loosely articulated within open and fluid painterly framework.  I got excited about a show of this kind a year or so back when I realised that I knew half a dozen or so painters, ranging in ages over three or four decades were playing with these ideas again.  Anyway today I’ve been feeling a little more energised and have started detailed planning for the show having settled on the participating cast in the last few weeks.  I’ve had to reign in my ambitions a little but am still confident it will hang together coherently and, its good to be back curating after a self imposed seven or eight month layoff!