For the new year, the National Gallery is reopening its workshop just behind Miss Lassie’s house, so I am really looking forward to restarting the Still Life Studio after a whole year of baking and eating fruits instead of painting them. Nickola McCoy is also opening a new gallery called Arteccentrix in Governors Square, so look out for the grand opening if it hasn’t happened before this goes to print. Talking of galleries, it seems that Geraldine and Steve Morgan of the ex-Morgan Gallery have just moved from the UK to settle in China where they will be Art consultants.
Another new opening is Renate Seffer’s studio on the road to the Turtle Farm in West Bay. If you go there on a Monday, Tuesday or Thursday, you can see all Renate’s work from card sizes to canvases which are twice my height (yes – very funny!).
NasariaSuckoo-Chollette and Randy Chollette have a New Year’s resolution to take a three-month sabbatical away from the public eye so that they can paint just for themselves.
Margaret Barwick, the painter and writer who helped design the Botanic Garden, is back from France until the end of February. She is currently too busy designing gardens in Cayman to paint.
I saw a wonderful display of paintings by Teresa Grimes at Calypso Grill. Judging by the number of red dots on the plentiful artworks, the exhibition was a real success unless I was seeing double as a result of the endless suite of complementary drinks which were most generously put upon us. I saw other artists there such as David Bridgeman, who went carousing in Miami Beach with Chris Mann(Art Basel…),John Broad and Wray Banker. Wray says that he is just ‘doodling’ at the moment and has invited me to see his doodles, but I bet these seemingly innocuous sketches contain all sorts of symbols, as with everything Wray produces.
On the international front, Christian Boltanski is the prominent French artist chosen for the Monumenta 2010 exhibition under the great glass-dome roof at the Grand Palais in Paris (last year the American Richard Serra was the lucky guest). If you’re travelling to Paris, do go to see this well-known annual show. The exhibition entitled “Personnes”is very engaging and it will run until 21 February.
You may already know that not long ago one of the internationally renowned Christo artists died, namely Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon. This will probably push the price of the couple’s work up, even further than the astonishing 180% increase it enjoyed between 2005 and 2008 since they inaugurated The Gates in Central Park, New York. Serious Art investors, take note!
And for the ones who dream of discovering the new Gauguinor digging out a forgotten masterpiece, listen to this: a Chagall painting worth US$650,000 was purchased in a Paris auction for only US$40,000! I bet the auctioneer who estimated the work is glad that the guillotine is abolished...
Otherwise, you probably all heard about THE event: our queen of the arts scene, Natalie Coleman, got married in Jamaica on 20 November to her designer-prince Sandy Urquhart. And most unexpected of all, she’s cropped her familiar long hair!