'Poems are like sentences that have taken their clothes off.' Marlene Dumas' poetic and sensual refrain accompanies her figurative watercolours on view in Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life, the fourth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) in the southern state of Kerala, India (12 December 2018–29 March 2019).Dumas' new series...
The paintings of Ellen Altfest are ethereal in their detail. Fields of minutiae come together as pulsating images; small brushstrokes of oil paint accumulate over a series of months to single out seemingly innocuous subjects, such as a hand resting atop patterned fabric (The Hand, 2011) or a deep green cactus reaching upwards from beneath a bed of...
On the rooftop of the former Rio Hotel complex in Colombo, it was hard to ignore the high-rise buildings, still under construction, blocking all but a sliver of what used to be an open view over Slave Island, once an island on Beira Lake that housed slaves in the 19th century, and now a downtown suburb. The hotel was set alight during the...
Christopher Le Brun is a painter, printmaker and sculptor based in London. Born in Portsmouth in 1951, he trained at the Slade and Chelsea Schools of Art, London. In his early career, he was a double prizewinner at the John Moores exhibitions (1978, 1980), also showing in the Venice Biennale (1980) and the ground-breaking exhibition Zeitgeist, 1982 at the Martin-Gropius Bau, Berlin. His recent solo exhibitions include Albertz Benda, New York, USA, 2017; The Gallery at Windsor, Vero Beach, FL, USA, 2017; Colnaghi, London, UK, 2015; Friedman Benda, New York, USA, 2014; New Art Centre, Wiltshire, UK, 2010, and The New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK, 2008.
Le Brun served as a trustee of Tate from 1990-1995, The National Gallery from 1996-2003, the Dulwich Picture Gallery from 2000-2005, and as a founding trustee of the Royal Drawing School from 2003-2016. He is currently a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. He was elected the first Professor of Drawing of the Royal Academy, London in 2000, where since 2011 he has been the President, the 26th since Sir Joshua Reynolds and the youngest since Lord Leighton in 1878.
His work is in many major museum collections including Tate Gallery, London, UK; Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; the British Museum, London, UK; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland; The Whitworth, Manchester, UK and Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA. Le Brun's public sculptures include Union (horse with two discs) at the Museum of London, City Wing on the site of the former stock exchange at Threadneedle Street and The Monument to Victor Hugo on the quayside in St Helier, Jersey. His work will be the subject of a solo exhibition at Wolfson College, Cambridge (Sculpture, watercolour and print from April until August 2018) and Composer at Southampton City Art Gallery, from September 2018 to January 2019.
Christopher Le Brun is president of Britain's Royal Academy of Arts. He is also a painter of unusual seriousness. His latest exhibition Composer has been curated by Zurich-based art consultant Emilie Bruner. It is held in two parts: at the Albertz Benda Gallery in New York City (until 15 Apil 2017), and at The Gallery at Windsor, Vero Beach,...