Author Archives: dianapage
Bonnard near and far of violets and peaches.
Emerging from the Tate Gallery drenched in Bonnard sunlight, an after-image of yellow, violet and peach has indelibly imprinted itself on my brain. Sated from a feast of colour, amazed in a theatre of looking, revolving slowly in a golden … Continue reading
Painting at the rim of the world
”I think this world is magical. Colour, form, space, relationships ‒ these elevate life. They energise. They elevate my whole consciousness…I think art heightens the potential of the actual.’ – Patrick Heron I was pleasantly surprised to arrive in the newly opened … Continue reading
Living, liking and exclaiming Paris
Returning to Istanbul from my two-month sojourn as a resident at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, I have in my possession three signed volumes. Together they signal the points of a triangle, or the pages of a trilogy, … Continue reading
Frank Auerbach: painting uncertainty
Picking up on something I wrote a while back after visiting a major retrospective of Frank Auerbach’s work held at Tate Britain: Frank Auerbach creates a cathedral of perception and then invites his viewers to do the same in this … Continue reading
Swimming the distance of memory
Geographies of paintings done and redone. Having walked the long-mediated underground from the Metro station into the glammy Zorlu centre, arriving in Mamon, announced as it is, 250 m then 150m, then 100 only; a grey airless tunnel and I … Continue reading
Painting crows
What remains after a visit to the homeland? How to weave these skeins of memory, recent and past, into the work. I am left with a sense of the animation in the Karoo, our last stop before we were bulleted … Continue reading
Late night maneuvering for Open Studio 2013
Photograph: Ya2eed Kamaldien http://yazkam.wordpress.com/ What is it about the prospect of an open studio that pulls me back into the paint, has me reworking a painting that has been la2ily checking me out from a corner of the studio. Or how … Continue reading
Picturing the homes of two heroes (kahraman (Tr): hero)
I often have occasion to pass by the pink yali on the Bosphorus where Argonauts one of my recent Istanbul paintings now lives. Paying the painting and the home of its discerning collectors, the Kahraman family a visit I was … Continue reading
Thinking about Running and Painting
Sometimes I run to my studio along the Bosphorus. A way to get my vision tuned afresh. The fishing boats are out casting their yellow spirals and pitching their tents on the silvery plains. Hot sepia tea is being served … Continue reading
Picking plums on the Bosphoros.
From our studio window we watch a small boy nimbly scale the fence, and inhabit the garden. His absorption is complete as he sets about filling his pockets, with the green fruit (“erik”) of the plum tree, first his front … Continue reading