Vertical light - Horizontal darkness

Top: Forgotten Angle - Ancient 200 x 100 cm - this one really spoke to me. It made me catch my breath with sadness. Unforgiving burnt oranges and deep blues.

Below: Invisible Filter - Illusion 112 x 284 cm - conversely, this lit up the room, as its impressive scale dominated one wall at the end of the gallery. It glowed and radiated freshness and joy.


The Falle Fine Art Gallery, Jersey recently hosted an exhibition of the British Post-war Abstract painter Paul John Kilshaw.

my opinion.
Following the celebration of perspective in traditional realism of the >16th century, Modernism rejected perspective and progressed to flatten images into basic compositions across two dimensions, for example in the work of Mondrian's De Stijl and Matisse's abstracts and collage. Gaining experience from the post-war anxiety and cultural liberation of American Abstract Expressionism and British Expressionists such as Bacon, British abstract painters began to regain a more painterly fashion in order to eradicate the restrictions of pretentiously clinical avant-garde of the early 20th century.

And now, as a new dawn of British Abstraction draws, perspective is making an unexpected return to our anarchist abstract. Seen in Kilshaw's work, the abstract curves of Picasso and Hepworth slide past one another like transparent filters - creating a new dimension that can be reached into. Explored. This is new abstract. Where Classicism and Modernism collide. Juxtaposing rigidity with weightlessness; expressive marks with solid objectivity. Nothing, and everything, makes sense. Every element of Kilshaw's work is informed, and refined. This is the true British Abstract of the Postmodern age.

Postmodernism has progressed by recessing into the history it came from, selectively. This meant that Postmodern dramatists could take the rationality of realist drama and combine it with the rejection of standards that the Absurdists embraced in order to customise a dramatic movement in which there was a new sense of freedom, liberation and acceptance.

Alright, Treacle?

I attended my first ever piece of Performance Art last week.

Treacle, by Robert J. Anderson, performed at St James - a performance space that was once a church, owned by the Jersey Arts Centre.

In one sense it was everything and nothing I expected from the genre. It was closer to a piece of abstract theatre that I would have studied in Performance Studies than a piece of live art that I would have investigated in Fine Art - but the cross-genre postmodernism of the piece was warmly accepted by myself and (a majority of) the audience. The OAP's beside me disagreed.

At a memorable climax of Avant Gardism, I found myself watching a naked man standing on a step ladder being painted by four members of the audience in treacle whilst a young man (also from the audience) recorded the process with a disposable camera. Church-like music played as four more members of the audience were invited to wipe the performer clean whilst a man shouted crude remarks. Admittedly, the man was not part of the performance, which added to the spontaneity of the genre.

In short, I was left moved by the piece. The bellowing vocals of the artist as he attacked his piano in a way that crossed Patti Smith (I must broaden my music knowledge) with Henry Cowell and Florence 'and the Machine' Wells was deeply emotive, whilst the image of him straining to push the piano across the space as he played proved both comedic and powerful. In hindsight, there was a careful balance of lightheartedness (when Anderson stripped on an elevated stage to pop music, dollar bills thrusted into his underwear and socks) and more enigmatic content that could have been mistaken for pretentiousness.

The religious imagery of the cleansing was sufficiently mirrored by the performance space, which still had church pillars, arched windows and an altar clearly visible behind the stage lighting and stripped-down vacuum of performance space. The religious connotations also reminded me of a recorded dance piece I viewed entitled Flesh and Blood, choreographed by Lea Anderson.

This is a very brief evaluation of the piece, and I would go further into detail if I felt that anybody would enjoy reading it at all.

Miraslaw Balka: How It Is

Walking into the familiar turbine hall at Tate Modern, London, visitors are recently greeted by what appears to be an impressively large (yet not imposing - perhaps due to its 5 ft elevation from the ground) shipping container. Quite simply, the latest cross-genre minimalist-installation-sculpture by Polish artist Miraslaw Balka is designed to fit into its surrounding seamlessly and craftily.

However, walking up the ramp that leads into the dark abyss is simply magical. Greeted with your own fears, the moment when you reach out in front of you to mind your step - only to find that you can't see your hands in front of your face - is the moment that you understand the darkness in Balka's How It Is.

Mesmerising and poignant, the exciting venture into the unknown makes you appreciate what you can see in your life, and what there is to be unseen. This being said, the installation is not about blindness, but perhaps taking from granted everything you understand to be rational and explanatory in your own life. Furthermore, it is only when you are placed in an environment where everyone is blind, that you can bump into a complete stranger and share a special moment of apologetic sympathy and do nothing but laugh and move on. An experience shared.