Nalini Malani’s work weaves together source materials drawn from different media and cultures in order to connect contemporary issues with history and myth. As the recipient of the National Gallery’s first Contemporary Fellowship, supported by Art Fund, she has...
About one-third of the way into Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance we encounter a ‘Virgin and Child’ tondo by Giovanni Pisano, a startlingly naturalistic image in which the Virgin emerges out from the frame of the tondo towards us while the infant Christ also...
2023 begins in Essex with a focus on female experience and perceptions of life changes, embodiment, and the world around them. The largest focus for images and experiences is the Firstsite Gallery in Colchester which is hosting BIG WOMEN, an exhibition curated by...
Surveying current and upcoming exhibitions at the turn of the year provides evidence of the breadth and depth of the past and present engagement between art and spirituality. Briefly profiling a wide range of exhibitions in order of opening, we can begin with WE at...
There was a time when Nativity exhibitions routinely featured among the Christmas offerings from London Galleries. Those days are no more but as galleries and curators now acknowledge the extent to which many artists engage with questions of faith and spirituality, it...
Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in ceramics from artists and the public, from the popularity of The Great Pottery, Throw Down to Theaster Gates’ The Question of Clay, a multi-institution project in 2021-22 across Whitechapel Gallery, Serpentine and the...
Under an image of Richard Woods' 'Small House' installation at Southwark Cathedral, Fergus Butler Gaillie, in a recent article for The Spectator, criticised Cathedral art exhibitions as gimmicks bringing the temporary stimuli of consumerism into "places dedicated to...
I begin this month with two exhibitions that touch on religion in the context of exploring identity and end with a series of book-based installations that probe aspects of the nature of Christianity. Alexander de Cadenet is showing a new series of ‘Skull Portraits’ at...
“Drawing is the starting point to nearly all of Kentridge’s work. He sees drawing as a testing of ideas, a slow-motion version of thought.” Charcoal is the medium he works with most; it’s easy to rub out and you can change your composition ‘as quickly as you can...