It’s A Frame Up
Gerhard Richter Abstraktes Bild. £21,000,000
I am very lucky to know some very talented people. Last night I went to an art exhibition featuring the work of the Hampshire artist Sara Barnes. I often wonder what it would have been like to meet artists like Monet or Turner. Would they have reflected their rainbow of genius as they spoke of ART through the prisms of their isms? Maybe Monet would have said “What d’ya think of these blue ones I did out in the back garden mon ami?” Turner might have quipped “I’m trying out a few blurry ones for a change”. The living Gerhard Richter might sidle up and confide “I was doing a job round the corner and I had a few odd bits of paint left…”
What I do know is that Sara paints because she loves what she does and she loves what she sees. The result is a range of pictures that ooze and proclaim the soul of the thing itself. Trees reach up until their tiptoes ache. Poppies bawl out their redness against cornfields. Billowing cumulus cloud pile and pile in a summer afternoon ecstasy of sun warmed human juice. I have previously described her work as poetry for the eyes and her latest show marches on down that road.
She takes on the female nude, sea-scape, landscape, collage and the odd coke can. She is a painter because she loves to paint and wants you to love it too. You can check out her gallery here. In a week when a Gerhard Richter painting Abstraktes Bild sold for £21million it was a good time to reflect on how we value art. Here are three of Sara’s paintings with haikus arising from my own responses to them.
Ground rooted longing
a calling sky infinite
soul lifts on sap wings
Warmth flowing to cold
horizon sea edge defines
thought kiss beyond mind
A wave break of sun
open yell of heat buzz joy
pulse defies harvest.
Tomorrow I’m meeting the poet Paul Tobin who is one of the star contributors to the forthcoming Gallo-Romano text/audio anthology “Freezing The Frame”. Over the next couple of weeks there will be interviews with all of the poets involved. Since I’m the editor it is all getting rather exciting…
