I am Ashley Elsdon

someone who's doing some things

Tag: National Portrait Gallery

One of my favourite places

William Morris at the National Portrait Gallery

Posted by on in ExhibitionsLeave a comment

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I visited this exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery a couple of weeks ago. Whilst I don’t know a lot about Morris I do like the work I’ve seen so I was really looking forward to seeing something more and learning about him. However, I was a bit disappointed really. Firstly it was quite a small exhibition, and for £12 I did expect a bit more. Secondly, the exhibition was much more about his influence in political and artistic circles rather than being about him.

Don’t get me wrong, it was good, for what it was, but it wasn’t really what I had expected or envisaged. A bit of a shame really.

BP Portrait Award

Posted by on in Exhibitions

I do like the National Portrait Gallery. They have some really excellent pieces and they put on interesting exhibitions. The BP Portrait Award is just one. I went this year and on the whole really liked the entries although I’m not sure I completely agreed with the ones that won, but that is of course just a matter of opinion.

I do like portraiture, but often I prefer prefer portraits which don’t immediately seem to be portraits. Some of the paintings in the BP Award were like that, and those were the ones I enjoyed the most.

It’s interesting to see how the idea of the portrait is developing and moving forward, not that I know a huge amount about art or art theory or stuff like that. But I do know that I’ve seen a change in this sort of award / exhibition over the time I’ve been going to the National Portrait Gallery, which is more than 20 years now. As with all art forms it’s evolving and changing, and that’s to be expected.

I wonder what it will be like next year.

New friends and art at the weekend

Posted by on in Exhibitions, Friends, Places
A truly awesome exhibition
Great art with great company
Man Ray at the NPG

Last Saturday was an awesome day for a wide variety of reasons. The company of Mr Miki Strange. It was great to meet him after all these years online and equally great to share two exhibitions I really wanted to see with him.

Miki has posted his views of the day here and here, and I don’t think I can put down my thoughts in a more concise manner than that to be honest.