These are images I took of Jean Cocteau's 1960 mural depicting The Annunciation, The Assumption, and the Crucifixion of Christ.  

The mural can be seen in a little cavern in a rather strange and unassuming French Roman-Catholic church off a busy street in Soho. On a Wednesday lunchtime there were people sleeping everywhere across the pews and floor. Having a midday rest, and snoring pretty loudly too, which echoed through the church. Being surrounded by sleep and snoring contributed to my dreamlike encounter with Cocteau's unexpected mural. I have never encountered figures as engaging as Cocteau's in a church before. Cocteau mentioned that the process of painting the mural "has drawn me into another world". His self portrait can be seen on the lower centre in the first image, looking pensive toward the viewer and away from The Crucifixion scene.

The scarf that my Mum knitted for me, using wool that we chose together back in Melbourne, arrived in London by post the other day (refer to this blog post from last September).  I wore it on a trip out to Canterbury today.  Here it is on the table on the high-speed train there.

The 2019 Summer Bushfires felt from a distance

 

I feel utterly useless reading the news coverage on the bushfires raging through NSW and Western Victoria from here in London. Earlier in the year I took a trip along the South Coast of NSW, where the fires are currently burning, to spend some time with a photographer friend. I had made my way way up there alone on a VLine bus that drove along a continuously windy road. The road cut through tall gums and eventually opened up to the divine coast. I remember the town centres and the trees and the beautiful untouched beaches that we'd walk down to swim at everyday.

On our last day on the coast we had lunch sitting under an oak tree in the town centre of Cobargo before we headed home. It was a perfectly clear day and the hills were green on the drive in to town. I've seen pictures of the now fire ravished Cobargo town centre. It's an incredibly strange and inarticulate feeling seeing somewhere familiar in a state of crisis. It's even more strange being on the other side of the world where the climate is consistently cold and damp at this time of year.

For this last post of the year I've attached an image of a print by my neighbour back in Melbourne, Ros Atkins.

Guardian, 2001, Rosalind Atkins

Culinary Christmas memory

For Christmas lunch Janet and I cooked a whole Sea Bass that we got at the market the other day and we had it with roast winter vegetables. I worked on and improvised a salad of scallops, lettuce, fennel, little radishes, avocado and blood orange. Mid way through cooking the scallops on the stove- and at the crucial point- the stove turned itself off and we couldn't work out a way of turning it back on. All hell let loose as we frantically flipped through manuals and angrily slammed kitchen drawers. Was a refreshing and delicious salad in the end nonetheless.

We had a quince crumble dessert too, so all was very seasonal to winter. My first cold Christmas as well.

Autumn to winter

Winter begins in a week here. It's definitely feeling winterish. I still see cars driving around the streets with autumn leaves stuck to the bonnet. 

Post-Dorsky viewing 

I've been thinking about the textures of plants, and of natural light hitting plants in various ways after having the privilege of viewing all six films in Nathaniel Dorsky's Arboretum Cycle. These films, as Dorsky has described them, are plants in themselves, filled with light. 

These pictures I've taken here can in no way be associated with the intense poetry of Dorsky's work.  Instead they're evidence that, after seeing the films, I have been inspired to see light in new and different ways. 

The first few pictures were taken in rare afternoon light in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, that made everything glow for a brief window of time:

Arboretum Cycle

Arboretum Cycle

This is the view looking out from a window in the flat.  It has a great, vast view of the neighbourhood.  I look out here every morning as I'm huddled by the heater and can see the world opening up for the day ahead: I see steam rising from houses, trains zooming passed, and this big blocky building that sticks out like a sore thumb. 

On birds

I watched a woman trying to quietly take a picture of a swallow on the train station platform this morning. The bird flew away before she'd got her desired shot and she turned to look at me in disappointment.

On the same day, while resting on a bench at the Royal Academy forecourt, I watched a little girl chase after some pigeons. She was carefully measuring her footsteps and pace so they wouldn't fly away. She then took one step too far and they all flew away.

Three portraits 

The first painting, by Meredith Frampton, reminded me of my Aunt (who I am living with here). I think it's the woman's tall build that resembles my Aunt's figure, her thinking expression and also the objects that surround this woman in Frampton's painting. My Aunt's small flat has ceramic vases on display, piles of books and sheet music and a harpsichord that she plays every morning. I suppose these objects tell you something about her; interests and so forth. 

Thinking about these objects and speculating on my Aunt's connection to them is particularly significant to how I'm beginning to spend my time here and getting used to being in my Aunt's company. I think that the woman's violin and the vase in Frampton's painting suggests a lot about the kind of person this woman is. 

Portrait of a Young Woman, 
Meredith Frampton

Lucy McKenzie from a great show at
Cabinet, Vauxhall

Isabella of France, 
Walter Richard Sickert

The second painting, by Lucy McKenzie, depicts a woman (a little mannequin-like) in relation to the city (Glasgow) and her accompanying objects. This woman and this map of central Glasgow were repeated images throughout her exhibition at Cabinet, Vauxhall as were the objects that appear beside her in this painting, such as the red chair with the curved back and the red silk she is gently holding.

The third, a painting of actress Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Queen Isabella of France in Marlowe's Edward II, is a depiction of the actress on stage. I'm not quite sure why I picked this one out, but I presume I was thinking of Derek Jarman's film adaptation of the play. Thinking of the comparison between this 1932 painting by Sickert and Jarman's queer interpretation of the play. This painting seems to remain as a souvenir of this particular production, while I'm still searching for remnants of Jarman's work around London. Apparently Sickert became a good friend of the actress after writing her a fan letter in the 1930s. Being in London for me is, to an extent, about my love for Jarman's work and the passionate life that is recorded in his diaries. I saw Sickert's painting on my visit to Tate Britain.

Some patterns I've come across in London:

The floor on the 2nd level of the ICA.  
Designed by Jennie Moncur, it's a permanent 
part of the building's identity

The ceiling of the King's College London
Chapel, which is to be unexpectedly found in 
an unassuming room off what is an ordinary
upper-level corridor

Italian Maiolica pottery dating from the 1500s.
I have never come across this type of pottery 
before in the flesh and was surprised to find out
that it's that old.  To my naive eye, the patterns
and colours look so modern

Two women embracing surrounded by all
manner of animals and objects

Another Italian Maiolica pot from the same 
display at the Wallace Collection.  
I was drawn to the shape of the jug
and the elegance of the patterns

I thought that this unevenly-shaped detail
on the side of Southwark Cathedral looked
like squashed oyster shells.  I think I thought
this because I had just come out of the fish 
section of the Borough Market where I'd been 
considering purchasing half a dozen oysters to 
eat for lunch... and then laid eyes on this detail.
It was an interesting material to find wedged 
between between massive weights of stone

I've noticed so many cranes across Central London as I've walked from place to place. They seem at odds with London's centuries old buildings. This one is right on the River Thames.

Thinking about the rapidly changing London, I came across this busker playing cheerful 1920's music on a tuba that breathes fire. I instantly thought of Joanna Hogg's 2013 film Exhibition which I believe this exact man appears in, playing similar music in the film on his fire-tuba. I've been thinking a lot about Hogg's films since arriving here. 

On that note, when I was in Kensington I walked to find the James Melvin designed house that was used in Hogg's Exhibition. The house was used in the film like another character and implied as being like a child to the childless artist couple portrayed in the film. When selling the house, the character 'D' is anxious that the next occupants might demolish it. Subsequently, I was shocked to find that the Melvin house had recently been pulled down completely and the foundations laid for another building on the site. 

I read that the house was designed by the architect in the 1960s for his family to live in. Exhibition is kind of about the preservation of the house for future use and to protect the vision of the architect. From what I had seen, it appeared to have an uplifting interior with a spiral staircase, hot pink sliding doors and lots of room for children to run around. The final scene of children playing in the house optimistically implies that the house is in good hands and will continue to carry meaning and memories for generations to come.

From watching the film, I got the impression that the house related to the street really cleverly with nice views through big windows looking out to the surrounding terraced rooftops and to a church spire in the nearby High Street. I was interested in seeing all of this for myself on my visit there. I think that new residential developments often fail at achieving the qualities seen in this house; lacking connection to the architect, neighbourhood and city and therefore disregarding the potential for creativity and dreaming within the viewer (occupant).

I presume that there are quite a few buildings of this era and style being pulled down across London right now as it rapidly modernises to meet the 21st century's shiny, sterile, commercialised needs. The inner boroughs are becoming more heavily built up, which is a real shame. 

This article indicates that it has been at risk of being demolished for some time: https://c20society.org.uk/casework/set-piece-a-finely-refurbished-and-ingenious-house-is-at-risk/ 

Looking out from within & vice versa

The various vistas at the Tate Modern Herzog & de Meuron building- looking out to nearby buildings and the cityscape and down to the Turbine Hall where visitors gather. While walking through the building the visitor is regularly reminded of the museum and its extensive collection of art being posed in relation to the city.

^ Marwan Rechmaoui's sculpture of a building in Beirut that cannot be demolished due to it being too tall and too dense, remaining completely intact during the Lebanese Civil War. Instead it remains today as a memorial to the conflict as well as a symbol of defiance during that time.

                            

An English arrival 

On Sunday, the day after I arrived here in London, I went for my first walk in the Wimbledon Common. I took some pictures of the trees, only three so far because there were so many people with dogs hanging around all the trees that were of interest to me. There are many really mature trees here and I like the idea that they have been around much longer than me.

This: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/23/liverpools-1000-year-old-oak-is-englands-tree-of-the-year?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco

A mother and son sitting together on my bookshelf.

During a live recital of J.S Bach organ partitas, played on a church organ in central Melbourne, I could hear the sounds associated with a modern city in the odd note rest or in the silence between partitas.  It was a contradiction of sounds like the ticking of pedestrian crossing signals, dinging tram bells that all emanated from the street outside.  Re-adjusting to these sounds felt paradoxical after being so consumed by Bach's 300 year-old organ works.  It's an interesting thing to hear Bach in the context of a  contemporary, technological and fast-paced society.   

It made me think of some of the older buildings in the city: how they (in some cases) continue to inspire and serve contemporary needs, and how they've been adapted to do so.  I thought of this church conversion in East Melbourne:

My mother's hands

While watching Abbas Kiarostami's 2008 film Shirin, I thought of these photographs I had taken of my Mum's hands and fingers in close-up while she was knitting a scarf.

The successive close-up images of the individual faces of veiled Iranian women (and French performer Juliette Binoche) sitting in a cinema watching a film- are powerful in their subtle gesture and emotion. Viewers (or spectators) of Kiarostami's film understand that a face still doesn't give everything away, we can never truly understand these women or their emotion. 

Still of Binoche in Shirin

From within the house

This year I've spent much more time at home than I anticipated. I've taken this opportunity to think more deeply about my emotional connections to the home that I've lived in for the past 18 years. It has obviously overseen and nurtured a lot of personal change through my childhood and adolescence and will now see me off into adulthood and living my own life. I care for the house and its surrounding trees and I often think of how devastating it would be if any future residents were to remove any of them. I know the ins and outs of the house; familiar with the sounds, the light, neighbours and progress in the vegetable patch. This ultra-familiarity is of both comfort and self conscious concern to me.

I have also spent a considerable amount of time as a volunteer assistant at the new public Lyon Housemuseum Galleries. Being there has made me consider the potential of my own house or bedroom as a museum or as a spectacle for visitors (as boring as that might be to experience). Visitors to the original Housemuseum (next door) learn something about the lives of the resident family as well as their perspectives of what it means to live and grow up in a contemporary city. When I was on a tour of this building I was more intrigued by the objects, books and papers the co-founder architect had amassed on the desk in his study. I certainly don't have the financial means or the passionate desire to emass a large a collection of contemporary artworks (as they have), however (like most people) I have always collected things throughout my short life. For instance, just scanning over my desk and bedroom currently, I have a collection of stones that I've collected from various trips in the country, a film currently on pause on my computer screen and some hessian cloth wrapped around a bottle (with this I was thinking about merging different shapes and textures). There is also a raku-fired vase made by a dear friend here, which is the first and only work in my acquired collection. I suppose these objects mark my interests at a particular time and embody psychology. I arrange these accumulated objects so that they hold some kind of aesthetic attraction to me as well. Perhaps aesthetic attraction is why I've been drawn to collect them in the first place. So perhaps, like the Housemuseum, in opening up my family home and my bedroom, visitors would get a somewhat autobiographical understanding of my experience of living through the objects I collect and through experiencing the architecture and private space that hold them. 

View from the entrance of the public galleries
looking towards the original (private)
housemuseum

My desk

This topic will be something that I keep looking into and expanding on.  There is probably a lot of theory out there that I ought to seek out as well- so I'll keep writing on this and related subjects as I read more and more.  This, from Memo Review (https://memoreview.net/blog/lyon-housemuseum-galleries-meow-by-paris-lettau) was a good thing to read.  It puts the Housemuseum Galleries in context with other current museological trends in Melbourne- galleries in sharehouses, sheds, etc. 

It's a brave and vulnerable thing to open up your home to unknown visitors and it isn't something I would ever feel comfortable with doing.  It does feels too personal, and a bit too self obsessive if I was to do it myself.  If anything I'm more 'at home' sharing the odd image on this blog of various details of my experience of the house for readers to see and judge for themselves.

My desk- from a distance- with the detritus of things I've been working on recently

Seasonal transitions

Stills of footage I took in the garden yesterday when it was really sunny and springlike. The transition of seasons is always exciting as a period of inspiration and anticipation. I'll soon be transitioning into the depths of a cold, wet and dark London winter. In the second still image there are the magpies that fly in daily to get some meat from us to take back to their nest. The family have been visiting us since their previous babies were born last spring. The second last image is of me turning the compost.  I really enjoy this task.  I think my enjoyment has something to do with the feeling of renewal and of being involved in a natural process. 

I took this footage with a film by Italian filmmaker, Franco Piavoli in mind. I watched his beautiful film 'The Blue Planet' at the beginning of last year's summer.  I was eating that season's homemade apricot jam on crumpets and sitting in the sun: a sensual overload.  'The Blue Planet's' images have been stored in my mind through all the seasons since.  The film perfectly distills the changing of seasons and frames humanity as being synonymous with nature and its cycles. Stunning.