Recent History - An exhibition by current and past WSA students in The Brooks Shopping Centre, Winchester

Back in the summer I visited Winchester and saw a small show in The Brooks Shopping Centre. It was a show of work by students of Winchester School of Art and as always I took a few pictures. I don't know who all the work is by but will add names if I find any of the artists.

Kerri Pratt : Urban Trace

I've been looking for local galleries to visit and had heard of the New Ashgate gallery in Farnham. I went for the first time a few weeks ago. There was a lot of work on display, but upstairs was a show by Kerri Pratt, and of all the work in the gallery, I found hers the most interesting. It reminded me a bit of the work of a friend of mine, Tessa Gray

http://www.axisweb.org/p/kerripratt

http://www.newashgate.org.uk/pages/biography/8909.html

Saatchi Gallery.

I recently visited the Saatchi and saw their latest exhibition: Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union. I went with Olga who is Ukrainian, which shed a different light to if i'd been on my own, as she recognised places and translated Russian text in some of the images.

There was a large variety of work, so I took pictures of the things I liked and tried to capture as much as possible.

Gerhard Richter: Panorama

On Saturday I went to see Gerhard Richter: Panorama at the Tate Modern.
I have to say, it was one of the most interesting exhibitions of painting I have ever seen, Richter really tests the medium of paint, from painting freely and abstractly to painting highly detailed photographic imitations, like that above.

Richter uses photographs to paint from, but unlike many other artists, he paints them as photographs, keeping the focusing point of the original focus. This works well as it draws your focus to the main subject within the painting, however you can tell it was painted from a photograph. Richter likes to use photography in his work, painting over photographs as well as painting from them.

I think the fact that some of the paintings were from photographs creates more of a narrative, it makes them fact and it makes them a memory, a static slice of a life. He is looking at his personal history and choosing significant moments from it to paint. Because of this some of his work can be compared to that of Emin, whose work is hugely biographical. The difference is that Emin's work is about herself and is hugely open, whereas Richters work is more private, like stolen moments we never seem to get to know the whole story.

I enjoyed the show but I wish I could have seen more of the process of his work, where everything came from. I guess that's the danger of seeing an art exhibition as an artist, you really want to get inside their mind and find out what their process is.