London town

Whilst staying at my dad's recently I had a little wonder into London to have a look at what the galleries had to offer me. I was gutted to find out that the Saatchi gallery was closed this week for private viewings which was a dead loss as there's a New Speak exhibition on at the moment that looks pretty sick. Instead of Saatchi I went to the National History Museum in South Kensington and the National Portrait Gallery just off Trafalgar Square. Again to my disappointment the giant robotic T-rex was under the knife and not well enough to come and play so I amused myself with other various carnivores. I must admit that the stuffed animals in Manchester's Museum seem a lot more realistic in comparison to the ones in London. They look a little haggered and worn out.

I'd definitely recommend the National Portrait to everyone and anyone. At the moment they're showing the BP Portrait Awards 2010 and a small collection of Alex Katz portraits that were pretty sweet.

One piece in particular that really stood out to me from the rest was an oil painting by Sir George Hayter entitled The Reformed House of Commons 1833.



The intense amount of detail about everything in this piece was insane. The picture above really doesn't do it any justice whatsoever but literally everything was perfect. Seeing it in the flesh made me appreciate so much more then looking at pictures in a book or on the web. I can't imagine how long it'd have taken people to paint images like this, really mind blowing.

In the BP Awards 2010 there were so many amazing contemporary Portraits that have a broad range of styles. The overall winner of the awards was and oil and acrylic painting by Michal Ozibko called iDeath. At first glance I instantly presumed it was a photograph but at closer inspection I couldn't believe it wasn't. The portrait is of Ozibko's classmate, Jana. He got her to pose with iPod earphones to create a representation of how young people often appear closed off to the world. Apparently Ozibko and Jana aren't very close friends so this gave him the opportunity to create a new persona to depict.



Another one of my favorites was a hairy piece by Jason Butler called The Rubbish Bin Men. The two men in the painting are Rob Greene and Paul Lawford, friends of Butler. The portrait was made from a series of sittings in Butler's Jersey studio. He wanted to capture the dynamic between the two men, one of a series of double portraits exploring particular relationships. I one day aspire to have a cracking beard like these two chaps.



I've come to realise that I definitely prefer photorealism paintings even though it has been totally obsolete since the camera was invented. I think I just appreciate the skill and dedication someone must have to make their work look so life like. Ona whole dead inspiring.