Thursday, November 15, 2012

Bazza in Australia, art, Alex Snellgrove and Clarice Beckett

Today I met up with Bazza in the flesh, for the first time.

His blog, To Discover Ice, is always interesting and reveals a lively passion for a great variety of interests.

We had a very stimulating and wide-ranging conversation, which reflects at least some of what moves each of us to diarise.

He has a particular interest in art - has in fact studied art history, which he really loved.
I rued the fact that I hadn't encapsulated significant parts of my life in photos, but at least I could show him a recent painting by my 11-year-old daughter:



We both had to get away to meet obligations for our wives.  My wife was, in fact, going out to dinner with local Coogee artist Alex Snellgrove, who has been tutoring my daughter.  We have a painting of hers, which I hadn't been able to show Bazza:



Her luminescent style reminds me of Clarice Beckett, an under-appreciated Melbourne artist from last century.  Here's an example:



More of Alex Snellgrove can be seen here; some more from Clarice Beckett can be found here.  Enjoy, Bazza.

19-Nov-2012 Update: Alex Snellgrove's web site is http://alexsnellgrove.com/.  She has an exhibition coming up from 29 November to 9 December, at Gallery East, 21 Burnie St, Clovelly (no website), Thu-Sun 11-6pm.

2 comments:

bazza said...

Hi Stephen. This post is a nice surprise! I found some of both Clarice Beckett's and Alex Snellgrove's work on the net. Clarice is seriously underated in my opinion. Alex has time on her side! And as for your daughter her work is way ahead of her years and very beautiful.
Thanks again for for a lovely evening to finish our Australian experience.

S Simmonds said...

Ah yes, Clarice Beckett is _the_ unknown name in Australian art, for me. I'd love to see another exhibition of hers - but you'd have to come to Australia for that.

Alex's exhibition - some of those paintings were the best I've seen yet. I'm so impressed with her water studies.

As for my daughter, she's a steady surprise. Getting better all the time, especially under Alex's tutelage.

And I looked up Hockney's Bigger splash after you mentioned it. I can appreciate it, but a splash is a hard subject for a painting, and I still think there's something to be achieved in it.