Dancing Ostriches and Scrambled Eggs

Hallo,

New year is approaching so I have been sorting through all my sketchbooks from the last 12 months, and looking back through it all made me realise I really have had sucha nice time. 

The best exhibition I visited was Malborough London's Paula Rego Ostriches, which showed her huge pastel drawings of a frumpy, ageing ballerina posed as an inelegant bird on a shabby leather sofa. Best album of 2016 was pretty Beach House's Thank Your Lucky Stars. 

I talked to Grayson Perry about the weather, finished a big commission for two oil paintings, saw Beach House n Parquet Courts live, found a top notch pair of Little Mermaid sunglasses, danced on a kitchen table, had work exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, sort of learnt how to knit, visited Derek Jarman's house, made a big plastic book about meaty flesh, left school and started my art foundation which has all been really lovely ! 

There's not much else to say except below are selected pages from my last three sketchbooks, and I leave my 2017 Resolution here in the form of a song x 

BE NICE / CHARLIE BOYEUR AND THE VOYEURS 

R Tist trying

Happy New Year friends hope u all have a smashing time 

x G

Seen and Not Seen

Hallo,
I have just got back from an inter railing trip round Europe with some friends which was the loveliest thing, and I've filled a sketchbook and a half this summer so far. We visited Paris for a day and then Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna and finally Budapest: going to art galleries and exploring all day, plus hours and hours of train journeys.

I also went on a day trip to Dungeness to see Derek Jarman's home by the beach and wander between the lighthouses and the huge power station. There was a perpetual wind blowing and Prospect Cottage's black and yellow silhouette stood out against the orange wildflowers and stone sculptures. It was v sad as well as beautiful seeing Jarman's deserted garden preserved as he grew it and reading the Donne poem carved on the wall among the plants.

 Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,

               In that the world's contracted thus.

         Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

         To warm the world, that's done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;

This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.

Dungeness

(Also my portrait is finally on show in the room before the BP Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London!)

I am listening to..

Elliott Smith / XO

Blood Orange / Freetown Sound

Parquet Courts / Human Performance

Good luck for anyone getting their exam results in two days!!

from G