www.lottieanddoof.com

I wrote to tim [at] lottieanddoof [dot] com after finding this website the other night.

I was really taken with every detail about this site... if you think the photos are excellent then look at all the other aspects of the blog...the writing, the content, the interest in organic, certainly fresh real food sources from markets and quality purveyors. There is humour , useful info and ideas and art.  Then i look up  ABOUT and discover the guy has indeed done serious time in Fine Arts ...hence the almost painterly frittata below...the colour and truth to materials approach to the raw produce. I suggest you peruse this weblink at leisure and have a go at one of the scrumptious cakes or excellent dishes soon. Thanks Tim for the great response to my email and permission to use photos and pass it on! 

The Egg Trilogy, Part I   posted wednesday january 14th, 2009 on the Lottie & Doof  blog

       Eggs with Gruyere and Dijon Mustard Croutons

Market Frittata   (Egg Trilogy:  Part II)  Frittata with scallion and chives...guess who 

went to art school?  Saturday May 9, 2009

Carrots with Caraway and Grapes.  I love food that looks like it is alive!

Roasted pineapple with pink peppercorns   ...living here in northern Australia ( Queensland to be precise) 

where pineapples are abundant ...this recipe will have to be tested out this winter!

A great find: Sue Lawty's blog.

I need to find out more about this...but these images do make me very curious about the World Beach Project  Sue Lawty carried out in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum. If you look to a much earlier May 09 post on my blog you will see the extraordinary work of Jim Denevan which is using the beach as his canvas.

Sue Lawty is an artist and weaver and keeps a weblog called  Concealed, Discovered, Revealed  with the V and A where she is an artist-in-residence. Click here to read her excellent blog.

www.vam.ac.uk/worldbeach  will tell you much more about this amazing project.   

Artist: Nienke Sybrandy

These exquisite works are from a post on www.bloesem.blogs.com on 12.5.09 featuring the work of Nienke Sybrandy entitled "Bladerportretten=Leave Portraits" . Each time a leaf falls from a plant she engraves a small face in it, dates it and  adds it to the collection that is like a family tree for the plant. A fascinating undertaking. There are other works to view as well on the post. Be sure to look out for Bloesem as well.  

Portsmith Vernacular Map by Jodie Silsby

Look closely at the second map.

Jodie Silsby  www.jodiesilsby.com  is a graduate in Communication design from the University of Portsmith, currently working as a designer at  www.ilovedust.com   I love this map when viewed close-up to see just what is revealed.  I spotted Jodie's work on pretavoyager.blogspot.com,  a fabulous blog by the way!

ABSTRACT CITY by Christopher Niemann

OVER THE WALL is Christopher Nieman's story on the Berlin Wall portrayed in image and text....the images consist of a series of orange and brown woven strips of paper.  Go to   niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/over-the-wall/   and you can view this story in full. Its is well worth it...as are the previous posts shown on this blog page. 

Also go to www.christophniemann.com

from an earlier post:

These 2 images are from his I LOVE LEGO feb 2009 post. ...the artist's daydream in a roomful of his kids toys leads to a view of New York as you've never seen.

Artist: Philip Taaffe

Spiraling portal, 2007

     

Dryadic Figures, 2006   Composition with Shells and Algae, 2005

   

Damascus, 2001                     La Sciara, 2001

  

Facade, 2001                 Desert Nocturne, 2000

  

Sigiri Mass 1998   Painting with 8 pointed figure 1998

  

Notturno, 1989                Old Cairo, 1989

 Visit:  www.philiptaaffe.info/taaffeArchive/ and you will have  tour of the artist's studio with work being carried out in the Fall of 2008.

In 2008 the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg organised a retrospective survey, The Life of Forms in Art: Paintings 1980-2008, with a publication by Hanje Cantz. This is a large and sgnificant book on this artist with some engaging writing on his work. One afternoon in Melbourne late last year I found a comfy chair in a wonderful bookstore and read at length from this wonderful publication. I made a note from the text: "what the evolution of language meant for the development of society is what the evolution of the ornamental meant for the history of art" by Niklas Luhmann and pondered this in relation to Taaffe's paintings.

 I have been gazing at his work of an on these past 2 or so years, having read from the 1998  publication Composite Nature where Taaffe dialogues with Stan Brakkage ...a most interesting read. The tone of the conversation was so different to a great many contemporary dialogues around art. This is also an appealing factor as one explores this artist. He seems to have struck such a deep and rich vein of  the visual continuum in human history.

And just now I have found in my journal from the past year I'd documented a quote from the conversation between Robert Creeley and Philip Taaffe in a publication from Valencia: IVAM Centre del Carme, in 2000 where they discuss Taaffe's  idea that "Painting is where these symbolic languages or forms somehow crystallise and reveal their ancestry.....and that in turn shows a certain sense of future possibility...in other words a continuum.... I feel an important purpose for art is to  demonstrate this range of potential...one that tries to take into consideration archaic realms, but at the same time moves forward to explore unexpected new territory...or reaffirm an old territory... imaginative territories."

"...the idea of language from a previous time being made speakable again."

This is an artist who speaks loudly to me on some level I am not even that clear about...that I dont quite have words for. His website allows you to survey his work over almost 3 decades...a magnificent acheivement in itself. Then there are quite accessible interviews and statements that take you closer to learning something of this artist's journey and pre-occupations. One critical commentary titled Philip Taaffe: Celebrations by Roger Lipsey suggests that "Taaffes art seems a naturally loving response to the beauty and authority of life itself and the transformative powers of the imagination". 

This essay  compares Matisse's love of decoration to Taaffe's. "Decoration never apologises for its presence in his art" Lipsey says of Matisse "he had this interest and it opens a kind of breadth...an attribute of well-being". For Taaffe, he suggests, "decoration is a structuring tool that allows him to praise the richness of things. The decorative qualities, of Taaffe's art are an exuberant homage to life itself...we are offered things never seen before, things drawn from distant pasts, energetically woven as in a textile or tesserated as in mosaic".

Perhaps the reason I have found this artist's work so compelling is this enormous sweep of ideas and forms, and the layering in his work. Images shift between contemporary and archaic, the process and rhythym in the work draws one in. Colours challenge and provoke, dont always harmonise. Animated surfaces and energetic compositions make for images to arrest your attention.

Do visit the website if you wish to view more of his work.

Beatriz Milhazes..-selected works-James Cohan Gallery

This wonderful brazilian artist shows in New York at the James Cohen Gallery  -  www.jamescohen.gallery.com -

go to artists and view the video under her name on this site. Its truly fabulous! Look at the coloured windows...reminiscent of Matisse's chapel at Vence ...but the colours are hers...and so is the imagery and energy!

Gamboa, 2008 Iron and Mixed Media

Peace and Love, 2005, Gloucester Rd Station Project, London

Window instillation as part of survey exhibition  "Beatriz Milhazes:  Paintings and Collages" Sao Paolo, Brazil, 2009

set design for Marcia Milhazes Contemporary Dance Company, 2008