The Road to Abstraction; the Chris Ingram collection at The Lightbox, Woking.

We had a trip out to Woking and I certainly enjoyed watching some local lads doing Parkour over the flower beds on the High Street;

But we were there to pay a visit to 'The Lightbox' to see the new exhibition of artworks from The Chris Ingram Collection.

There were some real treats - here's a few of my highlights.

This is one of Barbara Hepworth's famous series of drawings of surgeons and nurses at work in the early days of the NHS.

Celebrating free treatment for all, based on need rather than ability to pay, Hepworth spent long periods in operating theatres, drawing people working in life or death situations.

The drawings concentrate on faces and hands;

There is also a small but spectacular example of her abstract sculpture, which I love.

'Colour and strings';

There's a couple of Ben Nicholson's, her friend and collaborator and a few Terry Frosts, another fellow resident of the artists colony in St. Ives.

This is typical of his later years, large expanses of colour;

There are a series of Eduardo Paolozzi collages from the 1940's;

There are some nice 'realist' paintings, I liked Edward Burra's "Seamen Ashore";

I can't help but post this George Large painting of workers at Smithfield market in the 1990's, not so very long after I worked in the meat trade;

Out of the series, Robyn preferred 'Cleaning St. Pauls', stonemasons balancing high above London on the scaffolding around the cathedral;

I have to show you this Bridget Reilly - you would normally expect to see the abstract optical illusion paintings that she is famous for.

This is much more imtimate;

All of these pictures and others can be seen for the next couple of months and form part of the Chris Ingrams Collection - a local communications businessman who has made his collection available to the gallery. All the exhibitions can be accessed for the £5 pass that lasts for a year - I'm hoping to return in a few months time for a different selection that will follow on after this one.

Meanwhile here's a mobile from the stairwell;

And this is a 'Harris', you can create your own sculpture from these shapes. I had to have a go and mine probably lasted for about half a day, until some else had a go, I hope;

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Parkour and Venetians on my mind.

I've been having a miserable couple of days and spent this afternoon making an exhibition of myself in Caffé Nero while I was plundering the free WiFi.

This photo is from The Wicked Venetians Hobgoblin launch party for their excellent recent ep; they've also just released a new video which is good (if relatively restrained compared to their live peformances), here's the link - check it out;

Horrified

They also have a couple of old videos on Youtube (Wicked Venetians TV) which use news video footage to make some good points.

But I was attracting an audience over my shoulder because I was wasting time watching 'Parkour' or 'freerunning' videos.

Works for me.

Mostly filmed in the red suburbs of Paris or down in sunny Marseilles, these are kids doing stunts on the roofs, balconies, staircases and public statues of decaying 1960's French housing estates.

Sommersaults, diving from roof to roof, jumping off buildings, leaping over moving cars; they are breathtaking and for me its an out of body experience.

Some videos are filmed at night with the free runners wearing suits lit up by LED's, in one case a free runner is covered in flames (its FX but hey).

Sometimes you watch the stunt filmed through a camera on the free runners head. Wow!

Whenever I watch them, I attract a stunned semi circle of people behind me trying to look as if they aren't interested and when I finish I feel better.

Check out 'Parkour' on Youtube....the police chases are good too - the ones that aren't staged.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)