Friday, January 25, 2013

Camilla Engman

I am a huge fan of Camilla Engman's work, I have been following her fantastic blog for a while now. Her images and compositions are bizzare, humourous and insightful. She has an eye for finding the extraordinary in the everyday.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Karla Black



Karla Black talks about her exhibition at the 54th Venice Biennale

Michael Borremans on painting

January, a new year and new work! When the new year rolls around I always put too much pressure on my self to make new work. I am browsing around the internet looking for inspiration. I find watching interviews with other artists helps me realise that the struggle is all part of the process!

Thought I would share this interesting interview with Michael Borremans on painting.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Miniatures

I am working on some exciting things for the New Year! Here are a couple of miniature portraits that I have just finished. I have really enjoyed working on these and I am open to commissions. So if anybody is interested in getting a miniature portrait done by me, please contact me at eleanor.mccaughey@gmail.com or I have just opened an etsy shop so you can get all the info on there and I also have original paintings for sale on there too! If you would like to check out more of my work you can visit my website.





Ciara & Patrick
Both portraits were painted using high quality Old Holland oil paints on canvas.
The frames were salvaged.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

El Anatsui

El Anatsui was born in Anyanko, Ghana in 1944. Many of Anatsui’s sculptures are mutable in form, conceived to be so free and flexible that they can be shaped in any way and altered in appearance for each installation. Working with wood, clay, metal, and—most recently—the discarded metal caps of liquor bottles, Anatsui breaks with sculpture’s traditional adherence to forms of fixed shape while visually referencing the history of abstraction in African and European art.

The colorful and densely patterned fields of the works assembled from discarded liquor-bottle caps also trace a broader story of colonial and postcolonial economic and cultural exchange in Africa, told in the history of cast-off materials. The sculptures in wood and ceramics introduce ideas about the function of objects (their destruction, transformation, and regeneration) in everyday life, and the role of language in deciphering visual symbols.



The Miniature Portrait

I have been really interested in Miniature Portraits lately as I have been working on a couple. I have been reading up on them and the reasons why they were commissioned.

The portrait is one element in an object which was usually part of a piece of jewellery such as a locket that held locks of braided hair and monograms of the sitter’s initials. Miniatures were given as presents to close friends and family, were exchanged during courtship and were the traditional way of commemorating an important event, such as an engagement, marriage or a long separation during wartime or periods abroad. Portrait miniatures were part of memorial jewellery and mourning dress.

The cabinet miniature, had a slightly more public role. When miniatures were hung on walls or were painted to be part of interior decoration they were usually larger and rectangular in shape. They were framed in wooden and gilded frames and arranged in decorative groups or placed in display cabinets. Nevertheless, these displays were usually confined to the most private, informal rooms of a house such as a boudoir or cabinet-room. These rooms were used by family or close friends and thus emphasise the intimate nature of the miniature.By Dr. Paul Caffrey



Tuesday, January 1, 2013

To a great New Year!

To end 2012 I chilled at home watching the end of season 2 of The Hour. The Hour is a BBC behind-the-scenes drama and espionage thriller in Cold War-era England that centers on a journalist, a producer, and an anchorman for an investigative news programme.

I love this show, it looks incredible. It's a pity the seasons are so short but maybe that's why it works. The first season was better in my opinion, it was darker and seemed less polished and glamorous but still season 2 is well worth the watch!