Posts from the ‘Art’ Category

Nov 6

8am Wake-up Call

It’s not so much the fact of my brother-in-law’s tragic end that traumatises me as the way I heard the news. It’s the moment that will always haunt me, continues to haunt me even now, 10 months later.

It was the Saturday before Christmas, and there was no more work until after the season itself. I had seen my dear friend Millie the night before, and had gone to bed full of excitement for the season to come. My partner and I had been so enamoured by the romance that comes so easily with the festive season that we fell asleep with Christmas lights still twinkling and the soft choral chants of a cloister monastery singing medieval carols playing quietly on my iPod. And it was to this Elysium of festive tranquility that we awoke that morning, full of happiness for the season to come.

We lay in bed, discussing what we would do that day. How we would finish wrapping presents and go out to savour the spirit of London at Christmas before leaving town. Dominik was checking Facebook, reading my sister’s last message posted online – she too had been wrapping presents till late, waiting for her 3 babies to fall asleep so as not to spoil the surprise.

But 2 minutes later all that was to change. I’ll never forget it. The landline ringing at 8am exactly. It was my family’s number on the caller display. I thought it was a bit early this call, but answered nonetheless, quite innocent of what was to come.

The tone of my mother’s voice told me immediately that something was wrong. Almost gasping for breath, struggling to annunciate between tears, she said the words that have come to haunt me ever since. Nick, she sobbed, something dreadful has happened. Neri was killed in the night.

8am Wake-up Call (2013 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

At that moment my world, tangibly, perceptibly, collapsed around me. The hopes and the spirit, the festive joy of Christmas crumbled. All happiness was gone, replaced only by the unquenchable burden of grief.

As the day proceeded and the shock began to take hold, we did not know what to do but to go out. Wandering around the town, London looked the same as it had the days and weeks before. Seeing a city full of the festive spirit, but this time like watching the whole scene unfurl in slow motion. It was as though we were on the outside of a gift shop called Christmas looking in, everyone inside enjoying the warmth and happiness of the season, but our emotions paralysed by the grief which had drowned our souls, as we stood outside in the cold.

It was the moment when Christmas had ended. Along with so much else. And in this second work, created impulsively in the aftermath of my brother in law’s inquest two weeks ago, I paint the moment when joy, for our family, crumbled before our very eyes. In the simple symbol of a falling Christmas tree, I have attempted to demonstrate how the happiness of Christmas departed us, and our world literally fell apart; the striking colours representing the irony of loss at this, the happiest of all seasons; the only gift under our tree being the ribbon-wrapped car which caused this tragic end. A fate to which we were inescapably tied from that point onwards.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Return Journey (daily-norm.com)

Nov 4

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Return Journey

A little over 10 months ago, just 3 days before Christmas in fact, my brother-in-law was killed in a tragic road traffic accident. It was a tragedy whose catastrophic effects were augmented by the life-changing effect on his three little boys – 2 year old twins and a 4 year old – who in that sudden cataclysmic moment of disaster lost a father, and by the deep heartbreak of his wife, my sister, who lost her husband after only 8 years of marriage. They say that time is a healer – although there are some things which time can never truly mend. It’s as though time acts as a sticking plaster or band aid, only for its thin protection to be unceremoniously ripped away at certain instances of remembrance, one such being the inquest into his death, which we, as his closest family, attended two weeks ago.

I don’t intend to talk about the inquest – it’s details are too sad for sharing; too grave for the lighter side of the blogosphere in which I like to roam. Yet what I did want to share with you is a painting I made, in immediate response to the hearing, a work which for me sums up the sadness of this death. There may be some who believe that to paint a vision of tragedy somehow lessens or trivialises its impact, but I, like many others, would disagree. For just as some of the world’s most famous paintings have been created in a direct response to, and as catharsis for some of history’s worst obscenities (take for example Picasso’s Guernica, or Goya’s 3rd May 1808), so the process of painting has helped me to respond to the horrors of this family loss, in the same way that painting also enabled me to work through the after-effects of my very serious accident 5 years ago.

Return Journey (2013 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

The painting I am sharing today, Return Journey, is a simple but poignant image, and one which I could not get out of my head once it had formed in response to the testimony of one of the witnesses at my brother-in-law’s inquest. She described how she and the passengers in her car had seen my brother-in-law out on the roadside, alive, but in great peril and, worried for his safety, had taken the first turning round a roundabout, driven back up the opposite carriageway, and then retraced the route where they had first seen him alive. But on their return journey, they could see him no longer – all that visibly remained of my brother-in-law was a single shoe lying in the middle of the carriageway. He was no longer to be found. What we now know is that in the short time between seeing him alive and returning to the scene, he had been struck by a car, and killed.

It’s for that reason that I could not get the image of that lone shoe out of my head, and in creating this work, I felt some sense of catharsis in reaction to that dreadful, but necessary inquest. It’s an image imbued with the heavy shadow of tragedy, but a painting of which I am proud as an artist, and as a family member, in dedication to my brother-in-law’s memory.

Oct 30

Still life with Gourds

October has been a busy month, and while I could have been indulging more in the autumnal hues of Britain, applying those ruby reds and auburn oranges to canvas, I instead escaped the impending cold and jetted off to retrace a little of my summer in Spain. Then, as is so often the case when one receives a little treat, fate takes back the pleasure with his devilish sense of humour, and gave me a particularly debilitating throat infection. So apart from my Composition 11, which made a study of autumn’s descent on the once green and pleasant leaves of London’s parks, I have been altogether devoid of autumnal artistic activity recently.

So, in the knowledge that art is not all about me (if only…) and pursuing what I love to do more than anything else – gazing longingly at the stunning work of artists who have gone before me – I thought the time was only right to share with you a painting by one of my favourite 20th Century British Artists, Graham Sutherland.

Sutherland, born in 1903, has long fascinated me as one of the most striking and visceral of Britain’s modern-age artists. Made an official war artist during the second world war, Sutherland’s works are full of the morbid, often violent tumult of war, even when war itself is not the protagonist of his canvases. I love Sutherland’s depictions of the crucified christ for example, which exude the pain of the crucifixion without any of the pretensions of a renaissance depiction, and I love his spiky, pugnacious thorn-head images, which in themselves appear to stem from the imagery of the crucifixion’s crown of thorns.

Still life with Gourds (1948) © the Estate of Graham Sutherland

The painting I have chosen to feature on The Daily Norm today is therefore something of a departure from Sutherland’s more savage war and post-war works, and presents a still life composition of gourds which is warming, and even sensuous to the eye, with its bulbous curves and earthy autumnal colour palette. That said, there is some indication of Sutherland’s spiky reflections in the sharp stalks which punctuate the golden background at the top of the vegetables, while the curved lines of the bowl or perhaps table on which the objects sit are finished with sharp almost threatening points.

It’s a hearty autumnal image, but with a perhaps subtle sense of warning about the uneasy seasonal changes which are still to come. Now if this week’s hurricane winds and beautiful calm orange sunrises are anything to go by, I’d say Sutherland has got autumn painted just right.

The image in this post is the copyright of the Estate of Graham Sutherland. Remarkably, the painting appears to be for sale for those lucky few who may be able to afford to add this piece to their collection – go to www.jonathanclarkfineart.com for more details.

Oct 23

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Composition No. 11 – Autumn descends

A couple of weeks ago, a forage amongst the undergrowth and autumn tones of London’s Wandsworth Common inspired a whole series of photographs which celebrated the tangible transformation which accompanies the onset of Autumn. While the weather since that gorgeous sunny weekend has been something of a damp squid (and therefore far from ideal in which to appreciate the ruby hues of Autumn), the inspiration of those initially sun-drenched reflections on the season prompted to me to once again take out my gouache paint box, and create the 11th of my “compositions” series: Autumn descends.

Composition No. 11: Autumn Descends (2013 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Against a backdrop of leaves which turn gradually from summery green, through golden tones until they become a rich autumnal red at the foot of the painting – Autumn in full descent – a group of those delightful forest mushrooms which had prompted me to go out foraging in London’s parks grow whimsically in the undergrowth, each angled playfully one way or another, differing in heights, in shapes and sizes, just like the plethora of mushrooms I found here in London.

Looking out of the window now onto a wet and windy London, I can see that Autumn truly has descended. But it’s not all gloom – Autumn is a time of rich colour and seasonal transformation like none other, something which I hope my latest painting portrays.

Autumn Inspires | Photos (Part 1) – What lies beneath (daily-norm.com)
Autumn Inspires | Photos (Part 2) – Reflections on a theme (daily-norm.com)
Composition No. 10 – Cupolas of Kraków (daily-norm.com)

Oct 21

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Introducing my revamped website

The Daily Norm has been fairly quiet of late, and certainly far from daily. But the reason for that is all the work that I and my scurrying little Norms in the Daily Norm office have been doing on this blog’s sister website. For www.delacy-brown.com – the official home of my art – has been revamped, and now finally, with content uploaded and fully up to date, it’s ready to go live.

The process of revamping my website has, despite many hours of late night toil, been a rewarding one, as is so often the case when I see so many of my creations all gathered in one place. But where this revamped website differs from previous versions is the proliferation of Norm content which has grown so significantly since I have been producing artwork for this blog – the home of the Norms. And so, while directing you to the Norm sketches section of my new website, I also thought I’d take this opportunity to look back on a few of my favourite Norm sketches from the last two years – an exercise which is even more appropriate since The Daily Norm will be celebrating its two year birthday next month.

Norms on a Tram in the Praça do Comércio, Lisbon (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

Norms in Venice (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen and ink on paper)

Norms at the Musée Rodin, Paris (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

Of all the Norm sketches I have even done, my travel images are probably still my favourites, since the travels of these friendly little Norms are synonymous with my own fond travel memories. I love my Norms in Lisbon, for example, which perfectly sum up the charm of the old trams clanking their way around the Portuguese capital; likewise I’m fond of my Norm gondoliers, elegantly steering down Venice’s Grand Canal, and my various Norms in my favourite city of Paris, such as these ones above, looking round the grounds of the Musée Rodin.

However, my Norm sketches have also been invaluable in enabling me to celebrate the special occasions and life-enhancing experiences of my lifetime; such as Norms at the London 2012 Olympics, and involved in the celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, as well as annual festivities such as Halloween and Christmas.

The Norms’ Diamond Jubilee Street Party (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown) (Pen and pencil on paper)

Norms at London 2012: The Torch’s final journey (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

Normy and Normette ponder the meaning of Dali’s Mae West Lips (2013 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

So I leave you with just a few more of my favourite Norm sketches, while encouraging you too look at all of the rest, and the remainder of the comprehensive art content, which can now be found on my revamped, restyled home of my art: www.delacy-brown.com. Look forward to seeing you there!

Norms at the Halloween House of Horrors (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

On the 10th day of Christmas my Normy gave to me, 10 Lords a-leaping (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

The Nighthawk Norms (after Hopper) (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2013 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Oct 18

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Dürer the Prodigy – at the Courtauld Gallery

It’s always a thrill to turn back the clock on an artist, putting asides the famous masterpieces of their renown, and heading back to their early years. Those formative first works are always so illuminating, not just as an art historical evaluation of the influences which were to be instructive in helping to characterise the artist’s own creations, but also as a demonstration of just how talented an artist truly was. Take Picasso for example : while we are so used to his heavily abstracted, childlike works (some even doubting that he had any talent at all), one look at the exceptional figurative quality of his teenage works demonstrate how truly exceptional he really was, so much so that he famously asserted that he learnt to paint like a master as a child, and then spent the rest of his adult life learning to paint like a child.

London’s exclusive little Courtauld Gallery, whose exceptional collection contains some of the world’s most recognised impressionist and post-impressionst masterpieces including Sr Picasso himself, is the perfect sized gallery to draw such a focus on the formative years of an artist’s life in one of its small but perfectly formed temporary exhibitions. And with its new show, opening to the public yesterday, the Courtauld does just that. With The Young Dürer: Drawing the Figure, the Courtauld examines the very first creative years of this master of the Northern European Renaissance, heading back to the 1490s when, in his late teens and early twenties, Albrecht Dürer set out on his wanderjahre – literally a wandering journey, taking him across Germany and over the Alps into Italy, where the young prodigy was widely influenced and honed his already exceptional drafting skills.

Dürer the great master…

Self Portrait (1500)

A Young Hare (1502)

Praying Hands (1508)

The show, which includes some wonderful works never before seen in the United Kingdom, provides an engaging insight into the early talent of a young Dürer, and for an audience who, like me, loves to study the meticulous details of black and white ink drawings and print works, is a thrilling event. While the few works included in this post from Dürer’s later career demonstrate just how exceptional a draughtsman he was to become, the early works on exhibition at the Courtauld demonstrate how Dürer worked tirelessly to hone those skills which were later to make him one of the most revered draughtsmen of his time.

The show includes, for example, a good many studies in pen and ink – of the perilously difficult folds of drapery, the complex fall of the material captured proficiently no matter the many poses adopted by the sitter; of hands and feet, and the foreshortening of limbs. Such studies are then utilised to brilliant effect, as Dürer moves into creating his first largescale drawings and printworks. In The Prodigal Son for example, Dürer brilliantly captures the detailed fuzzy coats of a group of pigs, while in the fantastically detailed woodcut depicting The Flagellation of Christ, Dürer shows himself to be adept, not just in his portrayal of a complex group of figures, but in his use of foreshortening, and his depiction of drapery and costume.

Dürer the early prodigy

Man’s Bath (1496)

The Prodigal Son (1495)

Flagellation of Christ (from the Large Passion Series) (1497-1500)

But perhaps one of the most insightful works of them all is the simple self-portrait drawing he made of himself in 1491. Eyes staring, full of melancholy, straight into those of the viewer, the portrait is one with a psychological intensity which invites the modern day audience to travel straight back into the 15th century mind of this young artist, whose skills, as demonstrated here, need no introduction – just look how his brilliantly drawn hand pushes against the slightly sagging skin of his face, distorting his features perfectly. And all this drawn fluidly and confidently in what appears to have been a single attempt.

Self Portrait (1491)

It’s a brilliant protrait and a brilliant collection which make artists like me quake in fear that one day a similar such exhibition of our early works may demonstrate just how little talent we had when compared with prodigies such as this. But hey, there will always be those with more talent, and the new Courtauld show allows us to revel in the early skills of one of the greatest.

The Young Dürer: Drawing the Figure is on at the Courtauld until 12th January 2014. Admission to the exhibition is generally £6 unless a concession applies – and that includes the gallery’s stunning permanent collection to boot. Bargain.

Oct 6

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Sunday Supplement – The Heartbreak Diptych

In 2007, I suffered the angst of so many young people in the throws of their first romance: I suffered a horrible heartbreak. At the time, when a short but very intense relationship came to an unceremonious and unexpected end, I thought my world had been torn in two. I spent my days feeling breathless, unable to concentrate and with my stomach in turmoil, as though a little roller coaster ride was traversing the inner contours of my intestines. I would think about the failed romance endlessly, relentlessly engaging in a kind of obsessive postmortem: What went wrong? How could I change things? Was there really no hope for the future? And when, finally, exhausted by the onset of morning depressions and days spent in deep contemplation, I turned to my canvases and represented what I felt in paint.

What had started off as a portrait of my ex, in the bright colours of a Parisian bistro, soon became a tale of my own woe, as I completed the painting in shades of black, white and grey, with a portrait of myself sat melancholy and lonely on a Parisian bench. Appropriately, that self-portrait is represented in stark contrast to the colourful tones of the main portrait of my ex; an illustration of how, in this period of heartbreak, all of the colour and vitality of life had been drained out of me.

Heartbreak II: Paris in Hues of Gray (acrylic on canvas, 2007 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown)

By coincidence, at the time I painted my tale heartbreak, my flatmate was also going through a heartbreak of her own. Almost torn apart emotionally by the strain of her failed romance with longterm South African sweetheart, my portrait of her illustrates, through surreal imagery and references to a dark and brooding South African landscape, the pain and torment she was feeling as she reflected on what the relationship had been, and the hole its passing had left in her very core.

Heartbreak I (2007 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

Of course looking back on these two paintings now, it is hard to re-engage with those feelings which, at the time, seemed so deep; so central to all existence. With age and maturity, I am able to reflect on what was a mere romantic folly, and recognise that the despair I was feeling wasn’t at the loss of “love”, but at the shock of personal rejection. Yet at the time, the process of painting those emotions was extremely cathartic, and the canvases which resulted are probably two of my most interesting portraits painted to date.

Enjoy your Sunday.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Oct 3

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Printmaking Progress III – Editioning El Marinero

Readers of The Daily Norm may remember that in that optimistic time of Spring, long long ago, I discovered the art of printmaking. Having been inspired to give the medium a go by masters of the craft such as Lucian Freud and the ever dark-minded Spanish great Francisco de Goya, and having dappled at first in a little lino cutting, I very soon fell in love with etching, the technique by which acid is used to “etch” an image into a metal plate, which can then be used to print a whole run of that image (albeit seen back to front – something for which careful planning is required). You’ll be forgiven for thinking that my newfound love of the technique was short lived – after all, I haven’t posted any etchings since May, and have, quite unapologetically, become obsessed with gouache paint on paper which I have pursued relentlessly in the creation of my “Compositions” series.

Well, come the autumn, and with my summer travels, sadly, long behind me, I decided the time was right to re-enter the printmaking studio, not just to start projects afresh, but to finish off the ones I started all those months ago.

I have previously told you about etching the line image onto the metal plate (I used zinc, but other metals can be used and this will affect the number of prints which can eventually be made from the plate), and also about the aquatint process by which tone is added to the plate. The final stage of printmaking is printing and editioning – making sure that every single print is printed identically, so that a closed “edition” can be made, and sold through the aid of a single exhibited example.

The zinc plate with image etched into it

First print – before the aquatint was applied

El Marinero during the aquatinting process

Editioning is an intricate and time consuming process. You have to cut yourself paper of an identical size; bathe it in water to ensure the paper takes the ink, but dry it before printing to ensure the ink does not run. You have to smear the plate in filthy oil-based ink, and then gradually wipe it off again, leaving the ink remaining only in the lines. You have to clean the edge of the plate to ensure that the embossment of the paper around the plate is kept pristine. And finally, ensuring you do not dirty your paper with your inky-black hands, you have to run the plate, and the paper through the printing press. All this takes about 15 minutes per print, but once you get a system going, it’s surprising how easily the human body can become like a factory process.

I have now spent several sessions in the studio, making editions of the two zinc etchings I made back in May, and the result I want to share with you today is my first ever plate. When you last saw it, it was a line image only, with no aqua tint adding tone. Now the image is aquatinted and complete, printed as a limited edition set of 15 which, by coincidence, are now available on my online shop to buy.

The finished print

The print, entitled “El Marinero” shows a sailor Norm holding a fish on a mysterious Mallorcan rocky beach. It’s an enigmatic image, with its empty shores and strange rocky forms, but one which I cherish as being my first dalliance into the world of etching, and inspired by the surreally-shaped coves of Mallorca’s stunning coastline. Now I am on my third and fourth etchings respectively (one in zinc, and one in copper) and I cannot wait to complete those and share them on The Daily Norm.

Details of how to purchase your own strictly limited print of El Marinero can be found on my Etsy shop. As a closed edition of 15, it’s an extremely limited set, and hopefully therefore an attractive art investment for your future, as well as a pleasing little gift for another, or of course, for yourself.

Oct 2

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Norm’s Autumn Banoffee at Palau March

As the green leaves of summer turn gradually to shades of auburn and brown, it’s time again to reflect on that sunny island of Mallorca, where the higher temperatures of summer live on, and the sun’s midday warmth embraces all locals and visitors alike with its life-enhancing optimism. But even Mallorca and the Mediterranean is not immune from the seasonal momentum of the planetary system, and as evenings draw in before winter descends, and the sunlight hours diminish, the locals and Norms of Mallorca’s capital Palma look to the cosier pursuits in life.

And can there be anything cosier in the emerging autumn than a late afternoon tea, with a slice of Cappuccino Grand Café’s classic banoffee pie, consumed while sitting on the comfy sofas of the Palau March café under the colonnades ofthis elegant city palace? This little Norm certainly does not think so, and indulging in the very height of afternoon delight, he sips upon his coffee and digs into his oozing caramel-filled banana and cream tart with a gusto which is more than justified when exposed to such an exquisite dessert. His little heart beating to the sumptuous sounds of Cappuccino’s jazzy sound track, and his eyes otherwise entertained by the unbeatable views of Palma’s historic centre beyond the colonnades, this Norm is all set up for an autumn afternoon of insurmountable delight, and is frankly the envy of all of us who can not be there with him.

Norm at Cappuccino Palau March (2013 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

My little Norm painting is acrylic on canvas and currently hangs, so I gather, in the stunning Ibiza Botafoch café of the Grupo Cappuccino. Now that’s got to be a double whammy for this little Norm.

Check out more Norm paintings in the new Norm galleries of my (almost) completed new website.

Mallorca Map Commission Part 1 – Mallorca and Ibiza (daily-norm.com)
Mallorca Map Commission Part 2 – Palma (daily-norm.com)
Norm cocktail in the Port of Andratx (daily-norm.com)

Sep 26

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Norm cocktail in the Port of Andratx

It’s been a bit quiet on The Daily Norm front this week, as behind the scenes, the Norms and I are scurrying around working hard to redesign and develop my art website which, when it is finished, should provide the perfect partner to this blog, acting as a permanent platform to show my artwork to the world. So while the hard work continues in the offices of The Daily Norm, and as the chillier autumn evenings start to draw in, its surely time to pay one of our Norm friends a visit, over in the warmer climes of the Mediterranean, where the summer extends, that much longer, into the darkening autumn days.

Norm at Puerto Andratx (2013 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

To the island of Mallorca, and onto the stunning little Puerto Andratx, a naturally enclosed semi-circular marina, flanked on all sides by steep green hills leaving only a slight cerulean slice of horizon visible. In this idyllic little port, where fishermen still cast out their nets and store their fishing paraphernalia on the dock side, and where little cafes and restaurants are lined along the still lapping waters and cobbled harbour walls, the persistently chic Cappuccino Grand Café has acquired itself the nicest spot of all, directly next to a little harbour arm, where old wooden boats bob up and down, and the omnipresent sunshine sparkles like a discotheque over the surface of the water.

There, on rocking chairs set out alongside the sea, this hedonistic Norm is soaking in the ultimate pleasures which this cafe paradise can provide: a lavish location, melodic jazzy music, warm midday sun, and a cocktail in her one, well manicured hand.

Now this is surely the way to spend an autumn day.