Notes and Images

http://catherinefinnisgray.blogspot.com.au/search/label/portraits%20in%20oil

Mary Adlington Axon

This portrait was commissioned by Mary's husband John Axon and here it was shown in the Rugby School gallery before being taken home to their house in the English countryside! I tried to express Mary's vibrant personality and love of flowers and garden.

Tineke Hazel, fibre and textile artist

Tineke Hazel in her studio

Tineke Hazel was learning the cello from me when I asked her to sit for a portrait to enter into the RSASA exhibition 'Characters of the Fleurieu' 2015. She agreed and it was accepted and shown in the Signal Point Gallery in Goolwa. We then showed it at Tineke's studio in Willunga as part of SCALA 2015 along with her work and that of photographer Liz French and paper artist Cher McGrath. Tineke does not like the portrait, because of her expression, she says!

Welcome to my blog

I hope you'll enjoy the body of work I've put up so far. To a great extent it reflects my life as a musician, full as it is of images of colleagues and sights seen at work or on the way to work (play). It shows my preoccupation with people, animals in situations, and certain places.

1 February 2009

It has been a time of recovery and sitting tight while the weather has been at its hottest since records began. Cellos are still on their way, arriving soon I am supposing, and I go to see a studio in Adelaide tomorrow afternoon. It will be marvellous to start to feel a sense of belonging in my home town again, but after... so many years... I know it will take time.
Coping with the heat is a joy (not for all, I know) and it reminds me of other hot places, like Jerusalem, Mexico City, on stage in the Royal Albert Hall -- surely one of the hottest places on earth!

Adelaide all of a sudden (28 January 2009)

Here for six months. Already it is so wonderful to see the exceptionally beautiful trees. Camera will be out as my soul catches up -- it hasn't quite arrived yet.
Went to Brighton beach on holiday Monday morning early. There were countless dogs on leads on the sand, and countless people having breakfast in the coffee shops leading down to the esplanade. It is another world entirely from the rigours of the northern hemisphere.
Now to find a large studio space to work in -- one big enough to help people play music and specifically the cello, as well as room to paint, sit, screen print, sew... remember Barbara Hulanicki's mother's words; "While you have a sewing machine there will always be bread on the table."

24 November

Flick, Nick, Ella, Jude, Alex, Alice, Nigel, Lydia, Valentin, Joe, Saeko, Harley, Bridget.

21 November

Susan and Holly at the Barbican radio waves and light show

Susan (spryblue) and Waterloo Bridge

kitchen

I'm inspired by my nieces and nephew(s). It is so very good being an aunt -- the best, along with being a grandmother of course. Going to London to see them perform in various ways and looking at their various blogs has meant that V. languishes on, and the kitchen improves.
People must check out Susan Prior, actor in "Riflemind" at Trafalgar Studios until a couple of weeks ago.
Amy Prior of Umbrellabella fame. Beautiful blog...
Edmund Finnis, composer of "Flicker", premiered at the Barbican Centre the other night. Guildhall Symphony Orchestra + Vasily Petrenko, balletic young Russian conductor. Look at his Myspace.
Holly Childs (hollyfluxx). Look!!
It has been good to see them.
Forgot to take photos of some of them, but did get Susan on our way to the Tate Modern to meet Holly before going to Ed's concert in the evening. Rushed into Tate and saw some Picasso, Gris, Lichtenstein, Bonnard, before the place closed. Heard Finnis, Shostakovich and Prokofiev. A good day.

By the way, my two photos "Hair" and "Friends (Hair1)" both got into the Rugby Open, but not "Trevor". Was he too big, too heavy, or just...?

20 October

Friends (Hair 1)
Venice 2007 on the waterbus on the Grand Canal.
At the time I was very preoccupied with hair and fur, not surprisingly in Italy.

I have felt so far removed from my painting shed in the garden, and V. has languished for several weeks.
After Cothen (how do I get an umlaut?) I went with Florilegium to France, also to play Brandenburgs 3 and 6. Picardie, NE of Paris was beautiful I thought. Senlis, Saint Leu, Saint Quentin, Vervins. Much coach travel and sitting around perforce and looking for food in sleepy towns.
After Picardie the Canary Islands with Philip Pickett and New London Consort to play four Megadidos (mega-Didos) in Las Palmas and in Tenerife. Great, great, great, but... did not find energy enough to explore the old colonial parts; just saw some from the bus. Came back to find autumn in England.
Entered Trevor P. for the Rugby Open exhibition, as well as Friends (Hair1) and Hair which are both digital prints, or which will be in the next 2 weeks. They must all be prepared and framed now,and what with doing some cello practice yesterday + walking today, things are looking up!

10 September. Koethen.

The Klee/Kandinsky house in Dessau.

Danny Yeadon outside the Bauhaus, Dessau.

The Spiegelsaal, Schloss Koethen. Rachel Beckett and Kati Debrezeni.

Flautist Rachel Beckett, JEG, Richard Fitzgerald (orchestral manager) and onlooker.

I have been away, playing in John Eliot Gardiner's version of the Brandenburg Concertos, in the schloss in Koethen, where JS Bach lived and worked for a time. Two concerts with English Baroque Soloists in the spiegelsaal and the other in the JS Bachsaal. The mirrored room is very pretty and the surrounding rooms impressive too with large painted portraits and tapestries. Full house every time and satisfying from... all points of view.
We stayed in Dessau throughout, so went to the Bauhaus and to the 'Meisterhausen' up the road among wonderful trees. Both Dessau and Coethen very quiet and atmospheric, with a constant fine mist of rain.

28 August

Max Ernst "Snow Flowers" 1929 oil on canvas
130 x 130cm. Belgium, Private Collection

Back in the shed today and V. is visible again. I spoke to Alice Channer about incorporating a suggestion of her folds and pleats in the painting, and she was intrigued and in favour. Alice has just graduated from the Royal College of Art with an MA in sculpture, and her work is amazing -- very conceptual and great to look at as well. I'm thinking of putting V. in between two diagonal folds, pictorially speaking, to imply transition. Between stages.
Again Max Ernst rears his sometimes quite unattractive head, and I'm thinking of his painting 'Snow Flowers' which incorporates two diagonal folds.

24 August

John Gray and Charles 1
Compton Verney

Summer madness and V. is a shadow of her former self. She progressed, and was then rubbed off (with silk) so that the outline remains. This is a lovely stage, and it is always tempting to leave just like that, but the next onslaught will be made when I go into my shed again when the migratory influx of Grays and others calms down.
Took a trip to Compton Verney on Friday afternoon and saw portraits from the Chequers collection as well as Chinese bronzes and 'The Fabric of Myth'. Robert Adam and Lancelot 'Capability' Brown wove their magic -- the trees are looking at their most luxuriant now, before they go over the top and autumn arrives.

16 August 08

Here is the first start of V. in my studio.
Somehow permanent rose presented itself
and then cobalt blue mixed with titanium white.
Not very similar to Leonardo's vision --
more that of Marlene Dumas! or Elizabeth Peyton's.
But then, maybe their approach is suitable for a 12 year-old.
Let's see what happens to the permanent rose.
It will certainly be covered before today is out.

11/08/08

Today I am going to make a start on a new portrait. It will be of the daughter of a violin-playing friend, the identity of whom must remain secret as the painting is to be a present and a surprise for the violinist's father. I have been given carte blanche to do it as I please, whatever size I like, as it will be hung in a large converted warehouse somewhere in London's Docklands, and therefore I imagine on large white walls. Because the girl (V.) is twelve years old I am drawn to the idea of representing her in a Renaissance manner -- like Leonardo's "Lady with an Ermine" (left) perhaps. Or the Mona Lisa, as she does resemble her in fact. We'll see. One could equally paint her in the style of a Rineke Dijkstra photograph. The first thing to do is to prepare my shed/studio for action and then the canvas. I have a beautiful fine linen one measuring 32"x32", therefore larger than "Lady" which is 54.8cm x 40.3cm, but nothing like as big as the Dijkstra prints I've seen in the flesh.
I'll make some preliminary drawings from the set of photographs I took some months ago too while the undercoat dries...
Action.

Christine Rice (Mrs Woodhead) and family January 2008

32" x 32" oil on canvas

This portrait is deliberately domestic in feel
to express Christine and Crispin's abiding
concern with their family while being
out in the public eye as singer, pianist, linguist...
The background refers to their life as it was in Rugby
when the portrait was commissioned, with more than
a passing nod to Max Ernst.

Philip Pickett

Philip Pickett with his portrait. The painting was hanging in the '8 Artists' exhibition' at the Lewis Gallery, Rugby School in 2006 and is now in the possession of the opera singer, mezzo soprano Christine Rice. (see above)

Carlo Martelli

The composer and arranger Carlo Martelli with his portrait of 2006. This was my take on 'Diego Martelli' by Edgar Degas, painted in 1879. I feel the critic and the composer must be related.
Carlo is renowned for his string quartet arrangements of practically everything ever written, and many have been recorded by the Pav ao Quartet.

Trevor Pinnock

oil on canvas

Harpsichordist and founder-director of the original 'English Concert',
Trevor agreed to be photographed and painted by me, and is depicted
in rehearsal in a small theatre in Italy while we were on tour
with the European Brandenburg Ensemble, specially formed
for his year-long 60th birthday celebrations in 2006-07.