Exhibition Visits By Shona Coyne

On a recent trip to London I stumbled across three very interesting galleries just by I making the decision to get off one tube stop earlier and walk the rest of the way.
Moral of the day=  take time to actually look and you will be surprised.

• Corinne Day: May The Circle Remain Unbroken
• Damien Hirst, Candy
• Johan Van Mullen, Origin

The collection of Corinne Day's earliest photographs, taken between 1987-96, are 'filled with humour and life where one can almost hear the laughter out of shot' is relevant to the work that I have been looking at involving friendship (the youth culture project).
Therefore I particularly enjoyed the set of short videos on show at the exhibition- with a punky sound track it showed the life of these young people relaxed, free, happy but with the same anxieties about life as everyone else. Overall the idea portrayed is that we all go through the same circle of life; even though we have individual journeys.

Corinne's grandmother on her 90th Birthday. Corinne's partner Mark Szaszy described this image so beautifully 'the thing about old age is the complete and total loss of all inhibitions.' - What an interesting outlook!!!

 I love the subdued light and thoughtful expression of this image.

So many sweets had people wondering- are we supposed to take one? But has this idea of the audience participating in the artwork become over used now...

Johan Van Mullem's very beautiful and fascinating exhibition entitled 'Origin' contained a collection of unclear, muddy images which at a distance formulated images of the human face. I loved how the painting technique was scratched and 'messy' as it enhanced the foggy, ghost-like quality in the  development of these images of the human face. 

This was my favourite painting from the collection as the colour palette of brown, blue, yellow and green gave a natural and earthly reflection on this painting of a developed face. For me it was a very fresh painting and the perfect representation of this exhibition 'Origin'.