The New Situation - Art in London in the 60's

 In the summer I visited an exhibition called, 'The new situation - art in London in the sixties', initially I visited simply because I'm very interested in 60's social and political movements and thought that the art on display would be an interesting reflection of that, however as I was browsing I encountered a few works by an artist whom I had researched before we broke up for summer.

 Two of Howard Hodgkins works were on sale there, I obviously couldn't afford either however I didn't need money to

appreciate the sheer beauty of the pieces. It made me feel quite bad for Hodgkin as the images on the internet do not do his work the slightest bit of justice, whenever I viewed these pieces online I was always frightened of the level of abstraction and not overly interested, but upon seeing them in real life, and trying some actual paintings in response to my own memories, I am able to appreciate the conceptual and practical difficulty of Hodgkins work. Upon seeing them in real life the message became instantly more clear, and although it was very early stages, I knew that I wanted Hodgkin and his style to be a significant element of my work.

 The shapes in this are slightly less of a mystery than in his other work- I can see what appears to be someone standing, leaning back, this helps in giving some information back to the viewer- his use of colour is great in giving a feeling of mood in the piece as well 

 My response to a festival I attended incorporating his techniques.