The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

I'm trying without much success - and the summer is running away with me... to settle on my concept for next years college work and I have so many ideas I'm finding it difficult to commit - It needs to be something I can work with throughout the whole year, something I can get me teeth into - and develop - and lose myself to ....

I think may be I need a little bit of space and a bit of R&R before I make a decision that my whole years work may be based on so in the meantime I shall just wander and sketch and hope the idea evolves so with this in mind I headed to the Royal Academy for further inspiration.  I went to the Summer Exhibition a long time ago and for some reason never quite got round to revisiting.  I decided to make it my mission this year having seen the variety at New Designers I felt that the variety presented at the Summer Exhibition 2019 would really complement my summer culture fix!

I wasn't wrong!  the 2019 summer exhibition was an eclectic mix of every conceivable art form and some of it was stunning.   I particularly like some of the sculptural exhibits - two very different pieces stood out for me.

I loved the tunnocks tiger - Easy Tiger - Mach Brothers by David Mach RA (£57,000 if you are interested)

I used some tunnocks wrappers in a piece I did a couple of years ago but with nothing like the impact this marvelous beast had!

There were over 1500 pieces of art on display (chosen from 16000 entries) and the other sculpture presentation I liked was Parliament - The Voices In Your Head by Tim Shaw, this piece was made from straw and black plastic - very effective as it whispered at you....

made from Black bin liners and straw - sums up our current government!!!

There were a lot of paintings and mixed media showing that I really liked, some more contemporary than others - some more political than I might want hanging in my actual house but with strong messages and inspiring content.  (Jeremy Deller - we are all Immigrant scum..)

There were gentler examples of art appealing in a completely different way - more subtle statements and some of it was just probably art for pleasure - I liked the way I had to keep looking at this one to decided quite what it was and what it was made up of...  its called Isabella Bird by James Fisher. 

I still haven't entirely got my ideas together - but this plan of searching all avenues will continue through the summer - its a busy one as always and I'm sure something will emerge and become the right path.. eternally optimistic ha ha ... something to do with natural patterns and layers and mixed media is calling from a distance - next stop the Natural History Museum to see what happens there!!!