Summer Exhibition 2015

Overheard in the Small Weston Room from a couple contemplating 'Remembering the Treason Trial' by South African artist William Kentridge HON RA:
'So what does it represent to you, in your mind?'
'The Tree of Life?'
'Right.' Pause. 'And…?'
'Well… there's the scale of it.'
'And there's dramatic stuff mixed up with everyday stuff, and a whole lot going on. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, I'm just trying to get you to tell me what you see…'

There is certainly 'a whole lot going on'. This year's Summer Exhibition is a riot of colour: the Wohl Central Hall has been daubed a 'rich turquoise', Gallery III a 'vivid magenta' and the Lecture Room 'sky blue'; and, as ever, there is an embarrassment of riches. It is not easy picking out three favourites from a strong field, but I would say my choices for this year (in reverse order) are:

3.  Daydreaming (Oil)
     Lucy du Sautoy

A smudge of landscape streaked with droplets of water in sharp focus, as if looking out of a train window after a shower. It is an unusual perspective for an oil painting, and the grey sky and damp-looking greens seem to lull you into a sort of rainy-day reverie.

2.  Looking South (Woodcut)
     Pine Feroda

Another landscape: this time of dark jagged peaks thrusting out of the sea against a misty pink and purple horizon. It is an intense, dramatic composition – but not brooding: I love the way the ripples and waves catch the shimmering light. The title is intriguing – looking south from where? From some Nordic fastness, or a Patagonian peak? I would later learn that Pine Feroda are a collective of five woodblock artists based in north Devon, so perhaps the work was inspired by the rugged Devon coast.

1.  Somerford Grove Adventure Playground in Tottenham (C-type print)
     Mark Neville

A boy with close-cropped fair hair leans against a counter and pulls a little moue. All around him is the chaos of a typical junior school, with kids waiting to be allowed out into the playground for break. The light that falls on him seems to accentuate his pallor; his other classmates appear to be of mixed heritage. An interesting social commentary? I would later learn that this was one of a series of portraits commissioned by the New York Times for a photo essay entitled 'Here is London', and that the scene depicted was of an after-school club!

Honourable mention to Paul Hosking for 'Mimic (Black)', a visually arresting work in and of itself, made all the more interesting by the reflection of the room within it; Sir Anish Kapoor RA for his untitled acrylic cube with mirrored sides and a row of bubbles suspended within, refreshing as an ice-cube on a summer's day; and Emily Allchurch for 'Babel London', an amusing, contemporary take on Breughel's Tower of Babel.

Summer Exhibition 2014

'I never used to like still lifes, but increasingly I find them quite pleasing.'
'Yes… nice colours. Shall we move on?'
'Shall we?'
'Let's.'

For me, this year's Summer Exhibition is not so much about still lifes as it is about landscape and portraiture – and the various techniques of printmaking. It is immediately apparent, gushes the Exhibition guide, why the Print Rooms of the Summer Exhibition are so popular. More than any of the galleries, they exemplify the Exhibition's democracy by presenting a rich survey of contemporary printmaking in all its forms. This year, Galleries I and II have been hung by artist-printmakers Professor Chris Orr MBE RA and Emma Stibbon RA. Orr observes that the Summer Exhibition offers excellent insight into emerging trends in printmaking, while Stibbons points out that prints, being generally more affordable than unique works of art, offer great opportunities for building up a wide collection.

My top three picks for this year are all prints. They are, in reverse order:

3.  Winter Hedge (Archival pigment transfer print)
     Boyd & Evans

A tree surges out of the mist in the middle of a hedge. In this muted landscape, drear and grey, I like how the bare branches seem to explode into the frosty air, lending a strange sense of dynamism to the piece – a distant promise of spring in its simple, sturdy form. As it turns out, its pendant piece 'Spring Hedge' hangs nearby, depicting the same tree triumphant in the luminous green of new foliage under a bright blue sky.

2.  Leicestershire (C-type print)
     Mitra Tabrizian

A half-demolished factory stands in the middle of a concrete courtyard wet from recent rain, its brick and tile interior exposed to the elements. Beside it stands a tall and weathered chimney stack. The colours seem faded: worn reds and smudged whites squeezed between grey ground and grey-blue sky; and the still and sullen emptiness reinforces the overall impression of desolate urban decay.

1.  O Jogo Bonito (Photograph)
     Hermès

My favourite work in this year's Exhibition is of the 'beautiful game'. Here, against a backdrop of dramatic peaks and drab apartment blocks (barely visible through the mix of sea spray and smog), is a beach full of bronzed bodies of all shapes and sizes engrossed in the game. Above their heads, as if suspended, are a flight of footballs – like a host of hovering planets, each one catching a glint of sun. I love the way the picture encapsulates what I imagine to be the crazy, creative chaos of Brazil!

Honourable mention to Ben Johnson for 'Sala de Dos Hermanas', a quietly beautiful black-and-white study of Moorish arches; Gavin Turk for 'Totem', a mesmerising image of a puff of smoke rising against a dark background (or possibly ejaculate in water, thought one wag who must have been spending too much time in the bath); and to Peter Abrahams for 'Approximate Precision – Scourers 4', with its used scourers stacked two-deep on a white surface (I thought they looked vaguely edible, but this was clearly not a sentiment shared by the lady next to me who shuddered and said, 'Ugh – I hate them, they always look "grot"!').

Some parting words of wisdom from Tom Phillips RA: 'Waste not the remains of the day'!

Summer Exhibition 2012

In this year's Summer Exhibition, some of the smaller works have been collected and hung in a 'wave' to give them 'rhythm' and 'energy'. Visitors are encouraged to follow the 'flow', and I do – although I eventually drift off on a slipstream to explore some of the larger works as well. Here are my top three picks for this year, in reverse order:

3.  TQ 31949 05471 (charcoal on Bristol board)
     Peter Marsh

Marsh's charcoal drawing depicts a street half obscured in darkness. Its houses, brooding and silent, seem derelict; yet in the centre of the piece is what appears to be a spreading tree. The curious sense of foreboding evoked by the work is reinforced by its enigmatic title – a Torquay postcode followed by an incomplete OS reference? Unlikely...

2.  Andvord Bay, Antarctica (oil on wood panel)
     Frances Walker

Walker's triptych is visually arresting, its size conveying something of the sheer scale and elemental expanse of Antarctica. In the background broods the base of a snowy mountain, its peaks reflected in the occluded surface of the icy waters in the foreground. Although the peaks disappear into cloud in part of the triptych, in another is a dazzling patch of sky.

1.  Flood (blue pencil with black and white aquacry and aluminium)
     Shirazeh Houshiary

Blue seems to be the theme this year, as I move from Walker's frozen blue-and-white landscape to Houshiary's mesmerising blue-and-grey canvas, its patterned surface lined as if with ripples. Towards the top of the work, a black inky spot appears to be dissolving – or perhaps it is meant to be a vortex appearing out of the deep. The work carries a hefty price tag of £300,000, making it perhaps the most expensive work on sale at the Exhibition.

Honourable mention to Matthew Darbyshire for his tongue-in-cheek 'Untitled Homeware No. 13', a slightly kitsch yellow flock Buddha draped in a blue Union Jack; and to Lucy Glendinning for 'Feather Child I', a fascinating (and slightly disturbing) work of lifelike sleeping child fledged in down.

Summer Exhibition 2010

'Fifteen grand, that pink one up there,' said the lady, pursing her lips.
'We've seen better,' said her male companion.

As ever, this year's Summer Exhibition is exhilaratingly eclectic, with something to cater for all comers and all tastes. Picking three favourites out of the thousands of entries is never easy, but here nevertheless are my choices for this year, in reverse order:

3.  Departure (archival digital print)
     Güler Ates

A veiled woman in a striking blue dress ascends a flight of white stairs, bent forward in an attitude of haste. Ates's composition is dynamic and enigmatic. Why the urgency? Where is she going? Why is she headed upstairs if she is leaving? The picture is devoid of clues, and all that we have is a glimpse of a pregnant moment, of bustle reduced to an eerie stillness.

2.  Last Snow Sixhills (etching)
     Melvyn Petterson

Petterson's monochrome etching is of a hill silhouetted in the slicing rain, with a wide muddy lane dominating much of the foreground. There is something bleak but beautiful in the wet, windswept landscape, and the tyre tracks in the mud seem to emphasise the lonely desolation of the scene.

1.  Acceptance (video installation)
     Bill Viola

It's been a while since I've encountered Viola's work but 'Acceptance', his submission for this year's Summer Exhibition, reminded me of how quietly compelling it can be. The short film, shot in black and white, depicts a naked, middle-aged woman with cropped hair stepping out of the darkness into a light space where water starts to pour over her. It is clear from her frown and silent gasps that the experience is not pleasurable. For a few moments the flow ceases, and a fleeting smile of relief spreads across her face, but the flow soon starts again and her distress returns. 'It's drenching her,' comments Ann Christopher on the piece, 'and she doesn't have much choice. But there are religious undertones: it's a kind of filmed late baptism.' There were also more sinister parallels, I thought, of shaven-headed women being sent to 'showers' against their will.

Honourable mention to David Mach for 'Silver Streak', his sculpture of a chest-thumping gorilla made from metal coat hangers, which drew appreciative cries from the younger public ('Wow cool - look at his face!'); Ruth Dupre for her glass and wood entry, 'Butchery', with its four vitreous slabs of meat oozing off the sides of a table into black, bulbous drops of putrefaction; and Chris Coekin's giclée print 'The Altogether #2' depicting four workmen in dark overalls, right hands extended in cross-handshakes while their left hands clutch their tools of trade.

Summer Exhibition 2009

'What a load of tat!' grumbled an old curmudgeon a little too loudly.
On display, of course, was the usual mixed bag of works: some witty, some serious; some cheery, some bleak; some executed with great skill and panache, and others, well, less evidently so. If there is one thing about the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, it's that it caters to every taste!

Here are my top three favourites from this year's exhibition, in reverse order:

3.  Bird 2 (photograph)
     Elizabeth Zeschin

Zeschin's work is a sepia photograph of a dead sparrow, head convulsed to one side, little claws curled, and wings half-splayed. Its feathers are beautiful still, their fine, intricate structure clearly visible - a small but potent reminder that there is sometimes a strange and solemn sweetness in death.

2.  Sunday Morning (oil on board)
     Marion Pritchard

Pritchard's 'Sunday Morning' is a quiet, intimate picture of two men on a sofa in a simple living room, heads buried in the paper (one reading the main news section of the Observer, and the other the sports). There is a delightful domesticity about the scene. The two are casually dressed, and the sunlight that spills in from the window conveys a sense of warmth and laziness. Who are they? Were they brothers? Lovers? Father and son? There are no clues - it doesn't matter. Nor is there any sense of what else the day might bring. All that matters is that moment of shared repose. Two men reading silently in the morning sunshine - a small, mundane moment rendered sublime by the artist.

1.  Saint Bartholomew, Exquisite Pain (silver)
     Damien Hirst

The highlight and undisputed masterpiece of this year's exhibition, for me, was Hirst's gleaming silver statue of St Bartholomew, scalpel upraised in triumph and flayed skin draped like a trophy over his right arm. In his left hand is a large and fearsome pair of scissors, and at his feet lie an array of surgical implements. Macabre yet compelling, the almost life-sized sculpture (in the words of the display note) 'exposes the full anatomical complexity of the figure's muscular structure'.

Honourable mention to Meg Dutton for her etching and watercolour, 'Mosques', a vibrant jumble of domes and arches and latticed windows strongly evocative of the exotic east; and to Natalia Calvocoressi for her untitled photograph of a child in a red dress in a muted room scattered with dead leaves, staring up with intriguing intensity at the photographer.