The Walker Gallery

First stop on our school trip to Liverpool was 'The Walker Gallery.' We initially went there to have a look at Bridget Riley's 'Flashback,' but also had a wander around 'The Rise of Women Artists,' exhibition. There were excitable school children running around everywhere, and we got told off for taking pictures but all in all a good experience.

"You cannot deal with thought directly outside practice as a painter, 'doing' is essential to find out what form your though takes."

I will begin by looking at Bridget Riley's 'Flashback.' The exhibition tracks Riley's career and we were given the opportuinty to have a look at her earlier sketchbook drawings to the huge, optically vibrant paintings which she created later on in her career. From her original black and white paintings she later moved onto studies of greys and in the late 1960's she went onto draw with colour.

The above image named, 'Ecclesia,'(the last image I took before we got told off!) was one of my favourite pieces of Riley's work in the exhibition and is simply oil on canvas, created in 1985. I loved the use of colour in this piece, it was refreshing to look at work which used colour as its something I rarely use in my own studio work. Unlike some of the other pieces, this one didn't send my eyes all funny, I don't usually enjoy exhibitions of paintings, especially not old relicy ones from millions of years ago. However I found 'Flashback,' rather inspiring as the use of coulour and line was really poweful with the final aesthetic resulted in being quite magnificant. Maybe in the future I can refer back to this exhibition and look at the bold use of colour and the optical illusions it can create, and utilise this in the future.

The next exhibition we moved onto was 'The Rise of Women Artists.' There was only really one pice in this exhibition that really stood out from the rest and that was a piece created by Helen Chadwick called 'Viral Landscapes No.2'. A pioneer of British art, Chadwick made use of her own body, and examined bilogical structures and cells to create really scientific pieces.

'Viral Landscapes No.2,' is part of a series of 5 montages made in the late 1980's when AIDS was inspiring artists to explore the nature of viruses. Chadwick montaged images of cells from her cervix, with a rugged coast line then splashed paint on it to suggest the colonisation of the body by a virus and the colonisation of the world by man. Not really sure why I was drawn to this image, I usually don't like 'arty' pieces like this but for some reason it struck a chord! Maybe again it was the bold use of colour or the lack of any structure to the image. The strong concept is very prominant but the freedom in which this piece was created, also shines through. I shall observe it some more to discover what it actually is that makes me find this image appealing.

Overall a good trip to 'The Walker,' didn't really look at the permanent exhibitions as I'm not really interested in renaissance work but I shall definitley return to the gallery if the we get the chance to see more work like Bridget Riley's.