Not that I go around photographing toilets, you understand, but on entering these chambers in the bowels of the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh last week, I couldn’t help but notice their colourful decor!
Elaine and I had gone down to see the BP Portraits exhibition and visit the Modern Art Gallery’s 50th Anniversary exhibition across the road.
I must admit I thought there were far too many photo realist paintings on show for my liking and not enough painterly paintings. What’s the point, I ask, in people STILL trying to imitate the camera by using oils and a brush when the camera does it so much better … and quicker! One artist admitted that his realistic egg tempera painting of his teenage son had taken him four years to complete! – Why bother? And some of these artists were bold enough to tell us that these were done from real life in a studio! No, I’m sorry I don’t believe you. The human eye just doesn’t perceive depth of field as shown on your ’so real’ painting. Even the poster for this painting exhibition featured an image that looked like a photograph! Why?
Oh get off your high horse, Chic! You’re just jealous because you haven’t put paint to canvas as you have been intending to do since 2004!
The 50th Anniversary exhibition was a bit of a mixed bag too, in my opinion. Some very nice stuff, some just a waste of space – like a room of white paintings and a room of black paintings!
Having tea and scones in the Dean Gallery cafe, it was great to bump into photographer Douglas Corrance after so many years. Douglas used to work for the Scottish Tourist Board and supplied Baillie Marshall with many great shots for numerous tourist board publications. He doesn’t know it (yet), but he was an inspiration to me and my snap taking by the way he would frame his wide angle shots with foreground objects, giving them extra depth and perspective. Thanks Douglas.