Charleston, England
This summer, I found total inspiration during a visit I paid to Charleston, south of England, 3 weeks ago where I visited the home of the artists Vanessa Bell (sister of Virginia Woolf), Clive Bell (Vanessa’s husband), and Duncan Grant (Vanessa’s lover).
In the 20′s, during the very formal Victorian times, Vanessa and Virginia, daughters of Leslie Stephen a writer and critic, adopted a very bohemian lifestyle, fulfilling their lives with art and beauty. With other artists friends, they formed the Bloomsbury Group and their house became the country meeting place.
I totally fell under the spell of the house they inhabited in the 20′s in the south of England. The interior was painted by Vanessa and Duncan, and decorated with their potteries and paintings. It is absolutely exquisite, with the most amazing colors, patterns, something of a rural lifestyle that seems so appealing!
Without getting into so much of the details (because I really need to research more about them), I just wanted to post some pictures of the house for its aesthetic, its color palette and just to inspire.
Adjacent to the house is a magnificent English garden with the most beautiful flowers, left slightly wild and abandoned, being a little to long, just exquisite and natural as it should be.
This house has been one of my most inspiring visit of the summer. I am not surprised that the bohemian house has been the backdrop for fashion and celebrity photo shoots.
Like this:
Serpentine Gallery
my still life picture of the bookshop bag
I just spent some time in London and went to the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park to view the Wolfgang Tillmans exhibition.
It was a lovely afternoon where I spent some time enjoying the cafe pavilion commissioned to Jean Nouvel. It was red, that is all I will say for now, and I will post some pictures of that later…
Back to Tillmans, I remember one of the first time I saw some of his photographs, and my impression of his work was that it seemed too much like regular pictures that regular people could have taken. I loved them, but there was something somewhat disturbing to me. I think it must have been the mere fact that he was documenting his close surrounding, his friends all of my generation, in a very raw everyday way. Lots of naked subject, drunk, after partying, really beautiful in a way, but not in an obvious one!
I really love his still lives. They are just beautiful. A mixtures of flowers, and abandoned objects that one would normally remove from the pictures. They feel poetic.
Window/caravaggio, 1997
still life Talbot RD., 1991
The other series I thought was beautiful were some huge formats of something like a dye that would have fallen in water and would start to dissolve. Something reminiscent of hair, something very fine and delicate, flowing, …
Peaches VI, 2001
these are some scans of postcards I got from the Serpentine’s bookstore.
Wolfgang Tillmans 26 June –19 September 2010
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2010 by Jean Nouvel 10 July – 17 October 2010
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