We discussed the exhibition title today in my group at Morley Collège, London. And Scarlet and Simone was the winner. I am happy that it made sense to people. Now to find ways to incorporate a little more of de Beauvoir’s words into the work...
Looking out. Acrylic on paper, lynne Cameron, 2017.
When I read Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, my world shifted a little on its axis. I was 62 years old, not 18 - how I wish I had read it as a teenager! I might have understood my being-a-woman so much more clearly. Anyway, I didn’t - I worked on making sense of my life as it happened, in my journals and, later, in art. Now, having read it, the influence of de Beauvoir’s thinking keeps me company, prodding me every now and then to question what I am choosing to do.
Film collage: Jezebel. 30 x 30 cm. Lynne Cameron, 2016
The most recent prod reminded me that I put together the book of painting~poem artworks because they mattered to me as art, and that it matters to share this work through exhibitions. So I’ve started drafting an exhibition proposal, and will blog here about the process.
At the moment there are two titles:
Scarlet and Simone
Disturbing the Silence
Scarlet is the red-haired woman who appeared in some of the paintings. I love the idea of her in dialogue with the spirit of Simone de B.
But which title to choose?
Who’s making me up? acrylic on paper, 41 x 63 cm, Lynne Cameron, 2015.
My paintings offer spaces for wandering, and finding questions. And sometimes beauty.
Silks in Mumbai
texture in Tottenham Court Road
sand and shadows in Scotland
And out of these, sometimes a painting
untitled, acrylic on paper, 61 x 83 cm, Lynne Cameron, 2017
Once, in Berlin I picked up the biography of Charlotte Salomon in a second-hand bookshop. I found an artist who inspired me to keep painting my life, and whose technique pointed my work in new directions. This year is the centenary of her birth and I found this article from the New Yorker with news of a film and other events coming up, and a shocking revelation.
One of the key paintings by Charlotte Salomon in her collection Leben? oder Theater?
She escaped from Berlin to the south of France where she made over 1200 gouache paintings. The words were sometimes in the paintings and sometimes added on transparent overlays. It's good to hear that her work will be more widely known.
Charlotte Salomon was 26 years old when she was killed at Auschwitz.
Here is the link for the Amsterdam exhibition: https://jck.nl/en/exhibition/charlotte-salomon
The 25% 'birthday month' discount on my book finishes at midnight tonight. So be sure to order your copy before then - go to this page and enter the code SCARLET at checkout. Some people have found it challenging in parts; it responds to the pain of lived experience, as well as the joy.
And here is a final glimpse of the artwork
This painting and poem appeared out of the blue a couple of years ago. We have waited long enough for our turn on the stage!
This is a page from my new book I paint... To buy your own copy (or one for a friend), go to BUY THE BOOK page of the website. For a 25% discount, for one more week, use the code SCARLET at checkout.
Today the geese are flying in ~ I read that antelopes are nearly extinct. Today the blackberries are ripe in the hedgerows ~ the fruit in the supermarket is clothed in plastic. Today the seals were diving and playing in the bay ~ grey warships sailed past.
Today I chose this painting~poem artwork from my book to share with you.
To buy a copy of the book, go to BUY THE BOOK page of the website. For a 25% discount, this month only, use the code SCARLET at checkout.
From the book I paint... , I have chosen today's artwork to fit how it feels after the long drive from Berlin to Bute. The car is unpacked, paintings stacked in the spare room, and we are recovering our energy.
To buy a copy of the book, go to BUY THE BOOK page of the website. For a 25% discount, this month only, use the code SCARLET at checkout.
I painted this image before leaving England for Berlin. Now, two years later, I am packing for the journey back. Another threshold to cross. Excitement, logistics, and a little fear. Onwards!
This is a page from my new book I paint... To buy your own copy (or one for a friend), go to BUY THE BOOK page of the website. For a 25% discount, this month only, use the code SCARLET at checkout.
Here is another page from my book to share with you. The writing emerged during the painting process. I wrote it down and later shaped the writing into poetry. Most of them have some reference to the painting process and the colours chosen.
You can buy the book on the Shop page of the website and there's 25% off if you use the code SCARLET at checkout.
To mark my birthday month, I will be posting painting~poem artworks from the collection in my book here on the blog. I hope you enjoy them! If you would like to buy the book, there is a discount available throughout September. Just go over here and at the checkout enter SCARLET to save 25%.
I love the title of this first one - it came to me early in my exploration of intuitive painting. And I used it to title and frame my Berlin residency that is now nearly over. It was nearly the book title too, but I found that the poem on the front looked so striking that I went with that.
I painted a woman -
not an angel
- green and pink
and she flew through the sky
blue-black
yellow stars
over a church and a cottage
a red hill
and an inky black path.
She moved the sky by her flight.
And underneath
in dissolving darkness,
watching from the cottage,
someone sees
the sky shifted.
I filled the sky around the stars with blue.
I carved the cradling moon.
Pink trails behind the flying.
I enhanced the stars with yellow and white
until they become
flowers
dropping
petals
earthwards.
She flies,
shaping the sky.
Today I was walking and thinking about some of the things I love about Berlin.
I love the way people adopt bits of the street to grow flowers
I love how motorists take care to stop for pedestrians and cyclists.
I love how people trust each other enough to leave their phones on cafe tables.
I love the quiet of public places.
I love the reliable grumpiness of my local shopkeeper.
I love the roses in unexpected places.
I love the high ceilings in old apartments.
I love the sense that a good life is worth the effort.
Sea Edges, Summer (2) photocollage, déchirage, acrylic paint on canvas panel, 20 x 20 cm
I'm back in New Zealand for a few weeks to meet my new granddaughter. And, as always seems to happen here, there's plenty in the streets to catch my artist's eye:
Across the road - the sea and the sky:
Too many ferries
acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm
It all began with a conversation about the Cook Strait ferries between North and South Islands in New Zealand. -How come there are just two companies and one route?
Probably lack of people to ride on them, we decided.
Later, making images from cut-out and exploded flower arrangements, this idea floated back into my mind. And I drew (too many) ferry lines for an imagined coastline.
The image sat in the sketchbook a long time. One day in the studio, it connected with a painting in progress.
To produce this, on which we tried out lines...
and then added another paint layer...
until it was finished, keeping its name and reminding me of all the stages in between.
The Isle of Bute. My calm place.
The exhibition "Our flying shapes the sky" opened yesterday and will close this evening. Its primary purpose was to say thank you to Cinepoetics at the Freie Universität Berlin for my fellowship and artist residency. It was a lovely afternoon - I'll miss the people there so much. And the ideas.
display of work from our Studio Interludes
New paintings on canvas
Adding colour to the conference room
When all the paintings for today's exhibition were packed into the car, I walked through the apartment. It's beginning to look vast and empty like it did when I arrived eighteen months ago. There was one painting left, leaning against the wall of the study. It had come from UK to be finished and then I decided, after discussing with an artist friend, that it was indeed finished.
The painting seemed to ask why it had been left while the others went to have fun at the ball/exhibition.
"You will go to the ball!"
So the Cinderella painting went too. It's at the end of the corridor, inviting guests to come inside and explore.
I don't mind (detail) acrylic on canvas 100 x 150 cm. Lynne Cameron
So all the new paintings are varnished. One of them needed some last minute attention this morning. Then they were all packed up ready for moving. Corners protected.
My lovely assistants arrived to help pack the paintings into the car. Later we will unwrap and start to hang the work in the corridors and conference room of Cinepoetics.
Here's a glimpse of one of the new paintings I'll be showing for the first time:
Speech flower fragment (detail) acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm. Lynne Cameron, 2017
Getting ready for the exhibition at the end of this week. It's shaping up nicely, with new paintings on large canvases and paper. And exploratory work with film stills and collage. And today, a brand new song arrived from a talented colleague - more later about how we're using it.
Detail from Speech Flowers, acrylic on canvas.
It's somehow reassuring that, as the residency comes to a close, I'm seeing so many new possibilities for future artworks.
From the series Notes in the Dark, viewing the film 'Carol'
We open on Thursday at 13.00 in the Freie Universität Berlin. Details on the Exhibitions page of this website.