rkstudio

I paid a visit to Worcester today where there is a nice Municipal Art Gallery sad bout the work they show though. The current show in the main gallery had the intriguing title of ‘Ellipsis’ – so I entered in a state of curious anticipation. The first exhibit in the gallery was a poster with the heading ‘Artists’ statement.’ It is always a bad sign when an artist feels the need to explain his work before you get a chance to look at it – it is an indication that it will be obscure and bad.

The gallery was lined with abstract daubs and scrapes applied to small panels of MDF about 30cm square. All showing dribbles of paint on the edges of the sub frames – lazy this even Howard Hodgkin who paints similar but more sensitive abstracts puts his work in a frame and then incorporates the painted frame as part of his picture. None of the works bore titles or prices.

The whole show was rather sad and meaningless. It seemed like the work of a recently graduated fine art student who had been badly let down by his course. I made this point to the lady at the information desk at the end of the gallery and received the surprising news that the artist was a college lecturer in his fifties. God help his students after all he is old enough to know better.