Art exhibition | The Daily Norm

Nov 28

Sorolla: The Colour of the Sea

When I made my life-changing move from London to Mallorca earlier this month, I moved to a place equally as enriched by culture as the city from which I came. In fact comparing the size of Palma de Mallorca to London, you could quite easily declare Palma to be disproportionately abundant in art. Everywhere you walk in amongst the maze of streets in the old town, a flashy new contemporary art gallery or dusty quaint antique shop emerges, and of course the city lays host to Es Baluard, one of Spain’s most significant contemporary art spaces. However Palma is also home to one of the La Caixa Foundation’s finest art galleries, set within the stunning art nouveau setting of the old Gran Hotel building, and its exhibition diary is easily as significant and varied as that of a much larger city. And La Caixa’s current exhibition, Sorolla: The Colour of the Sea is no exception.

Joaquín Sorolla. El balandrito, 1909. © Fundación Museo Sorolla

Exploring the oeuvre of Spanish master, Joaquin Sorolla, the exhibition focuses on what the artist, famous for the luminosity of his light and the proficiency of his landscape, painted best: the sea. Sorolla was born in Valencia in 1863 and as such was painting at a time when impressionism was at its height. Often compared to his friend, artist John Singer Sargent, Sorolla painted both people and landscapes with great sensitivity, and captured a startling degree of light. In painting the sea, Sorolla managed to capture a luminosity which I have always found so difficult when working on coastal images myself. Take his 1904 Estudio del Mar for example: This simple painting of waves breaking upon the shore is alive with the current of water, and magnificently captures the many colours hidden within the ordinary blues of the water. Similarly, his 1905 painting simply entitled Mar depicts shallower waters magnificently, with the light glinting over the surface and the dark purples suggesting rocks lurking just beneath.

Joaquín Sorolla. Estudio de mar, Valencia. 1904. © Fundación Museo Sorolla

Joaquín Sorolla. Mar (Jávea). 1905. © Fundación Museo Sorolla

No wonder this exhibition is called “the colour of the sea”, and no better example exists of just how rich those colours can be than Sorolla’s depictions of Mallorca itself, such as his painting of the Cove at San Vincente. If you hadn’t been to Mallorca, you might assume that these superb aqua marines and subtle mauves of the surrounding mountainous landscapes were made up, but I can assure you that they are very much representative of reality. Even my lucky November dip in the sea last weekend proved that much.

Joaquín Sorolla. Cala de San Vicente, Mallorca. 1919. © Fundación Museo Sorolla

Joaquín Sorolla. Rocas de Jávea y el bote blanco, 1905. © Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza en préstamo gratuito al Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga

Joaquín Sorolla. Mar de Zarauz. 1910. © Fundación Museo Sorolla

Awash with mediterranean light, Sorolla’s seascapes are alive with the fresh coastal air and tranquil dance of the waves. Seen as a group, you could almost be excused for feeling as though you were on the beach, watching Sorolla painting (he invariably took his canvases down to the beach, hence why they are probably so imbued with the naturalistic light that one sees in reality). However, it’s not just Sorolla’s landscapes which come alive before your eyes. For as this exhibition shows, Sorolla was also particularly adept at portraying people naturalistically, and this is seen no more so than in works such as Saliendo del baño, where a mother dries her child after a dip in the sea, and Pescadora con su hijo – a brilliantly realistic depiction of a mother masking her eyes from the sinking late afternoon sun.

Joaquín Sorolla. Saliendo del baño. Firmado y fechado. 1915. © Fundación Museo Sorolla

Joaquín Sorolla. Pescadora con su hijo, Valencia, 1908 © Fundación Museo Sorolla

Joaquín Sorolla. Nadadores, Jávea. 1905. © Fundación Museo Sorolla

So even if you come to Mallorca and the weather is not at its best, this superb exhibition has the power to transport you right to a sunny day on the coast. Although let’s face it, with Mallorca’s track record of brilliant sunny record all year around, you should probably be able to do both.

Sorolla: The Colour of the Sea runs at La Caixa Foundation Palma until 8 February 2015.

May 12

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Countdown to my new Solo Exhibition | 1 day – Ready to go!

I can’t believe it. After almost as many months of planning and preparation as it takes to make a baby, my baby – my new solo art exhibition When (S)pain became the Norm at London’s Strand Gallery – is finally upon us. Today I will be heading into the gallery to set up the show which comprises 105 displayed and framed works, and an additional 65 unframed mounted works – all for sale, of course.

The exhibition is the result of 6 years of hard creative slog. It’s testament to the constant workings of my imagination, and the unrelenting desire to be creating, whether it be on canvas or paper. Each painting or print has a detailed comprehensive story which is told through the combination of colours and form, and in its overall composition, while each Norm illustration has itself been used to tell or accompany a story on this very blog. All in all, from today onwards, London’s Strand Gallery will be filled with 105 windows onto another world, inviting viewers to enter in and go on a little journey within each work.

Preparations for the show

So as I commence the final piece of my journey towards getting my show open to the world, the final piece of the jigsaw is YOU – without viewers with whom I can share my work, the exhibition will not be ultimately successful. Like any artist, I need my works to be seen – I want people to see my view of the world, even if it is only for a few days. And of course, I need to sell, so that my work can spread beyond the boundaries of my art-filled home to bring colour and life to others. So please do put the details of my exhibition in your diary and come along to central London to share in the world of De Lacy-Brown Art for a moment or two. It won’t be the same without you.

The exhibition is on at The Strand Gallery, 32 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6BP from 13 – 18 May 2014. The gallery is open daily 11am – 7pm with early closure on Sunday. See you there!

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. 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

Nicholas de Lacy-Brown’s new solo exhibition, When (S)pain became the Norm, will be at London’s Strand Gallery from 13 – 18 May 2014. For more details, click here.

May 11

Countdown to my new Solo Exhibition | 2 days – Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe

As my new collection of Norms started to gain momentum, and I started to amass a series of Norm sketches and new Norm paintings including yesterday’s featured work, Flamenco Norm, I started to take inspiration from the art that had gone before me. Not my art, but the art of the great masters of art history past. The first of art history’s masterpieces to get my “Norm” treatment was none other than Velazquez’s Infanta series. This was followed by Degas’ L’Absinthe, Frans Hals Laughing Cavalier, Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait and Da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine. But of all art history’s masterpieces, there is one work which I had always wanted to emulate, but had never quite put my finger on how I could represent it in my own style. Now that the Norms were back, I had the key to the problem. And the painting? Why Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe.

Massively controversial in its day, famously rejected from the 1863 Paris Salon and lampooned in the Salon des Refusés that same year, Manet’s picnic masterpiece with its mysterious conjunction of two dressed men and a totally naked woman is well established as having marked a turning point for modern art; for having inspired the Impressionists to forge a new revolutionary path in the art world; and for exposing hitherunto hidden social realities in a world of artifical society niceties. It’s a painting which has been emulated and reworked by artist after artist, Picasso being perhaps the most famous to do so. And now it’s my turn – and that of my Norms.

Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe (after Manet) 2012, © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

My Norm Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe was painted in 2012, and with its abundant picnic full of delicious delicacies of the age, it’s certainly one of my more complex Norm paintings. It’s also the biggest at 100 x 80cm. However while the composition very closely emulates Manet’s original, the colour palette is completely changed, and it is perhaps this element which I feel is the work’s greatest success.

Now the painting is wrapped in bubbles; it’s corners are specially protected and it is getting ready to travel for the first time, a few miles north into central london where it will be displayed in pride of place amongst my new collection of solo works. For in only 2 days my new solo exhibition of paintings and prints will open at London’s Strand Gallery. Please come along and share in the last 6 years of my work. In the meantime take a look at the gallery below featuring all 15 of my Norm works based on the geniuses of art history. Enjoy!

: Infanta Norm (after Velazquez) 2011 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: Absinthe Norm (after Degas) 2011 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: Card Player Norms (after Manet) 2013 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: Norm with an Ermine (after Da Vinci) 2011 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: The Opera Kiss (after Doisneau) 2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: The Rokeby Norm (after Velazquez) 2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: Van Gogh Norm (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown)

: Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe (after Manet) 2012, © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: Manet Norms at Cappuccino Marbella (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown)

: Nevermore Norm (after Gauguin), 2013 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: The Kiss (after Klimt), 2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: Laughing Cavalier Norm (after Frans Hals), 2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: 3 May 1808 (after Goya) 2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: Madonna Litta Norms (after Da Vinci) 2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

: Norm with a Pearl Earing (after Vermeer) 2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. 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

Nicholas de Lacy-Brown’s new solo exhibition, When (S)pain became the Norm, will be at London’s Strand Gallery from 13 – 18 May 2014. For more details, click here.

May 10

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Countdown to my new Solo Exhibition | 3 days – Flamenco Norm

In 2005 when I was studying law at university, I started doodling The Norm. It was a character straight out of my imagination, but inspired by Kelsen’s Theory of Normativity which I was studying in jurisprudence. The inspiration wasn’t so much garnered from topic, which was inherently boring, but more out of the need to distract myself from falling asleep in lectures. With the advent of the Norm came a series of paintings, exhibited in 2006 at my Sussex solo exhibition, Between Me and My Reflection, before the collection dried up.

The next stage of this important Norm story is November 2011. I was on a career break, waiting for a new job to begin, and wondering how to make the most of the time suddenly available to me. It was my friend Cassandra who suggested that I rejuvinate the Norms, some 5 years after I had last painted them. The idea was sewn, and this very blog, The Daily Norm, was the result. I posted my first ever article on 14 November 2011, and from that moment onwards I went into artistic overdrive, drawing, painting and designing Norms for this blog.

Flamenco Norm (2011 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

One of the first creations of the Norm rebirth was this painting: Flamenco Norm. Painting on the tail-end of my Spanish collection, and in fact created while I was in my house in Marbella, this painting represents the perfect transition between the Spanish section of my new London exhibition (starting in 3 days!) and the most comprehensive section of the whole show: my Norms! With its deep yellow cracking walls covered with flamenco memorabilia, its bare bulb and wooden floor, this to me is the typical Spanish flamenco setting, while the melancholy guitar and the energetic swish of the flamenco dress represents the heart and soul of this vibrant indefatigable dance. It’s still one of my favourite Norm paintings.

So as the title of my new exhibition, When (S)pain became the Norm, apty represents, this was the period when both pain, and spain transcended into a new era of Norms which has been growing strong ever since. See the entire collection at my new solo show – opening on Tuesday.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. 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

Nicholas de Lacy-Brown’s new solo exhibition, When (S)pain became the Norm, will be at London’s Strand Gallery from 13 – 18 May 2014. For more details, click here.

May 9

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Countdown to my new Solo Exhibition | 4 days – ¡Guerra!

With 4 days left to go until my exhibition, I wanted to take you to sunnier climes in exploring some of the collection which will be on display as my work goes on show at The Strand Gallery, albeit not necessarily calmer times. For in painting the first of what was to become a comprehensive series of works based on my most beloved of countries, Spain, I reached back into history for inspiration, and more particularly to one of the most turbulent periods of Spanish history – the Spanish Civil War of 1936-9.

The Spanish Civil War has been somewhat overlooked in the typical school’s history curriculum in favour of the more wide reaching first and second world wars. It was perhaps for this reason that I became so engrossed in the story of the war when I first started reading about it during my post-accident convalescence in 2009. Of course I was well aware that the war had happened, but knew nothing of the shocking details which meant that only a little over 70 years before, the country which today seems such a calm sanctuary of beach tourism and a hotbed of cultural highlights, was ravaged by one of the most severe wars in history. And what made the war even more shocking to my mind was the fact that it had seen one Spaniard turn against another, families literally split in two and generations of friends turn in on one another. Here there was not the kind of national solidarity which comes of an entire nation being invaded by an external aggressor, but a country made cannibal, turning in on itself.

¡Guerra!: The Spanish Civil War (Oil on canvas, 2009 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown)

The more I read about the war, the more engrossed I became, and it was only a matter of time before an image started to emerge in my head for a painting depicting the conflict. So taking a 90cm x 90cm canvas, I set about painting what was to initiate an entire series of Spanish paintings, this one showing the country at its lowest ebb. From the Spanish guitar shown split at the painting’s centre as a symbol of Franco’s attack on the Andaluz gypsy culture, and the bombings of the innocent down of Guernica, to the imprint of a soldier’s show trod across an abandoned doll, symbol of the total disregard for innocent lives, even children’s – this painting contains all of the ingredients which made the Spanish Civil War so shocking to me.

And yet despite the somewhat grim tale it portrays, the work remains one of my favourite paintings, and hangs in prime position above my bed, where it has remained since it was first created. Should I sell the work at my forthcoming Strand Gallery show, it will be a hard one to part from.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. 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

Nicholas de Lacy-Brown’s new solo exhibition, When (S)pain became the Norm, will be at London’s Strand Gallery from 13 – 18 May 2014. For more details, click here.

May 8

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Countdown to my new Solo Exhibition | 5 days – Semana Santa Code

This is the third post of artwork shares as The Daily Norm warms up for my first solo art exhibition in 6 years. Moving on from the more emotionally raw works of my accident collection which will take centre stage at the exhibition, I move on, albeit gradually, to my works inspired by the culturally abundant, vividly colourful country of Spain.

For in the third work I am featuring by way of preview of next week’s exhibition, Road Traffic Control (The Semana Santa Code) I may be representing the Spanish Semana Santa parades which are characteristic of Spanish cities up and down the length and breadth of the country during Easter Week, but I also continue to reference the road traffic symbolism which dominated my work from the time of my 2008 accident onwards.

Whether or not the influence of the accident was still dominant in my mind when I painted this work I am not sure. To some extents I will never truly escaped the effects of my accident in my art, just as I will never totally escape them in life. However, the road traffic imagery in this painting was used, not so much as a reference back to my own accident, but as a way of portraying the traditional parades of the Spanish Easter celebrations through a less traditional mode of illustration.

The Semana Santa Code (Oil on canvas, 2011 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown)

The idea came to me when I noticed that the Spanish Nazareños, marching along the roads of Spanish cities with their pointed conical caps, looked much like walking traffic cones. And so the idea was born. From the use of traffic cones, I moved on to utilise familiar traffic signs and symbols by way of “codyfying” (in the same way as The Highway Code does for traffic) some of the religious meanings and motivations underlying the Easter parades. For example I converted the typical motorway sign into a symbol of Mary, Mother of Christ, while the crucifixion was replaced with the sign for a crossroads.

For its scale (the painting measures almost 2 metres across) and the relative simplicity of the image, I really do love this painting, a fact which will be reflected as I plan to hang this work at the very opening of my show next week; for as a painting reflecting both the Spanish culture which has so entranced me, and the road traffic imagery which was the cause of so much personal all-encompassing pain, this painting really is apt illustration of the time when (s)pain became the Norm.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. 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

Nicholas de Lacy-Brown’s new solo exhibition, When (S)pain became the Norm, will be at London’s Strand Gallery from 13 – 18 May 2014. For more details, click here.

May 7

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Countdown to my new Solo Exhibition | 6 days – Champiñones

As the time for my new London solo art exhibition fast approaches, I am sharing some of the artworks which will be exhibited, most of them for the first ever time in a public gallery. Yesterday, I shared the first of my accident paintings, created in the immediate aftermath of my sudden accident in May 2009. Today I’m moving on to a work created towards the end of the series, at a time when the problems of my post-accident injuries moved from broken bones to deep internal infection. It was also the time when, after a year of healing and corrective surgery, I was told that the leg would have to be rebroken and reset, which in effect meant that I would be going back to square one all over again.

The resulting painting, La Marcha de Los Champiñones (March of the Mushrooms) was painted in my house in Spain (hence the Spanish title given to the work) immediately following my fifth operation – an emergency procedure to remove large scale infection which had built up in the leg. And no surprise there, since the amount of surgery I had endured up until this point was so extensive that my leg was literally riddled with holes. The leg had also healed with a fixed flexion deformity, which in effect meant that it had healed bent and would need to be rebroken.

La Marcha de los Champiñones (2009 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

All this I reflected visually with the use of mushrooms as an indication of the spread of infection, hence why, when the bent leg is cut open, a mushroom can be found at its centre. Meanwhile, a fragmented landscape, pocked with holes and broken pieces represents the fragility of my half-healed bones at that time, and the leg, which is also full of pins and nails, represents the amount of metal I had in my leg after various metal fixators had been used to piece it back together. Meanwhile, the use of road traffic symbols including ribbon and roadwork signs, as well as ladders, demonstrates that the leg was, at this stage, far from repaired and still a work in progress. It also reflects the accident which occurred by a road side.

It’s a painting full of some of the cynicism and frustration I was feeling at the time, but by this stage, my accident paintings had become more visually playful as I had accepted my fate and focused my energies on expressing my turmoil visually instead. The resulting image is one of bright colours and whimsical imagery which transports the heavily emotional accident works into a new place of greater hope and free-spiritedness. And just in time, for a new collection based on the bright colours and vivid culture of Spain was just around the corner…

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. 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

Nicholas de Lacy-Brown’s new solo exhibition, When (S)pain became the Norm, will be at London’s Strand Gallery from 13 – 18 May 2014. For more details, click here.

May 6

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Countdown to my new Solo Exhibition | 7 days – Bricks and Stones

It seems almost mad that close on 6 months have gone by since I first announced on this blog that I would be holding a brand new solo exhibition of paintings, illustrations and prints in London’s Strand Gallery this May. And yet here we are, with the exhibition on the doorstep. In 7 days, my exhibition, which will feature over 100 displayed artworks and a whole lot more other artworks for sale, will throw open its doors to the prestigious West End of London. A mere 50 metres from London’s Strand, the exhibition is in the heart of the city’s colourful Covent Garden/ Charing Cross area, and frankly I could not think of a better location.

So as excitement builds, the bubble wrapping goes into overdrive, frames are attached, price lists drawn up and champagne gathered, I thought I would take time to explore some of the themes and artworks which will feature in the show on each of the 7 days approach to the exhibition’s opening on 13 May.

The exhibition is entitled When (S)pain became the Norm, a title which represents the three main themes which will run through the collection – Pain: the time of my 2008 road traffic accident and the protracted convalenscence which followed; Spain: how this most colourful of European countries has given rise to some of my most exciting and energetic artworks; and the Norms: all my paintings and illustrations of the small white-blobbed one-armed creation of my imagination, most of which have featured on this blog which is named after that same unique character.

In this first post, I am sharing the painting which really kickstarts the whole collection. Entitled Bricks and Stones may Break My Bones (The Show Must Go On), it was the first painting I started in the weeks immediately following the horrendous accident in which I was involved in May 2008. On 29 May 2008, I was walking out to buy some lunch when a lorry, without warning, collided with a 10 ft concrete brick wall which then collapsed onto the pavement as I walked by. I was caught under the rubble and serious crush fractures sustained to my right leg. Frankly, I was lucky to get away with just that. The injuries were so severe that I had to have my leg placed in an external fixator – a horrific instrument attached to the leg with a series of a bloody pins – and I underwent some 7 operations over 3 years before the leg was finally healed, sufficiently, to such a level that I could walk once again.

Bricks and Stones May Break My Bones (The Show Must Go On) 2008 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, oil on canvas (130cm x 110cm)

This painting, which is perhaps one of the most visceral and uncomfortable of my collection, represents the accident itself. I am shown, in self-portrait, morphed into the wall which had by that time become an inescapable factor in my life. Crashed into it, a small toy lorry is beside me, while on my head, like a crown of thorns, is the barbed wire which ran along the wall and collapsed down upon me in turn. My broken leg is shown as a column broken into three pieces, reminiscent of a similar representation used by my idol, Frida Kahlo, while my crutches are propping up my right food Dali-style since, which, owing to nerve damage, otherwise flopped involuntarily to the floor. Meanwhile over the bleak landscape, the pins which pierced my leg pierce the ground, and on the right, a theatrical proscenium arch likewise propped up by a crutch and a swollen leg demonstrates that despite all of the horror around me, the show had to go on: Something demonstrated by the fact that I was up on two chairs, my leg outstretched, painting this powerful work.

Come back tomorrow for my next featured work, and in the meantime, please consider coming along to my exhibition. More details can be found on my website, and on that of The Strand Gallery.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. 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

Nov 18

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Daily Norm’s 2nd Anniversary/ 30th Birthday/ new website/ exhibition preview spectacular!

Christmas may be merely 5 weeks away, but its been all about a mighty great November for me. Not only have I been celebrating the relaunch of my official art website this month, but I have also been busy organising the first solo gallery showing of my artwork in 6 years, which will make its debut in London in the Spring of next year – more details will follow soon. Not only that, but I am still reeling from the shock of turning 30 earlier this year, but nevertheless still determined to celebrate it for as long as the year goes on. And finally, this month (and in fact the 14th November last week) marks the two year birthday of The Daily Norm!

From its very humble beginnings, this blog has now been freshly pressed 3 times, gained 2,332 followers, had 301,364 total views and even received 2,527 comments. And statistics aside, it has just been a joy from beginning to end – an outlet for my creativity; a mirror on my soul, and a magnificent far-reaching channel through which my thoughts and experiences can be shared with the world. So a huge thank you just has to go to everyone who has supported my blog all of this time. I feel incredibly honoured that you take the time to share just a little of my life with me.

My paintings on show at the Benugo Drawing Room private cocktail bar, last Friday

So how best to celebrate all of these marked feats of November jubilation? Why, to throw a private party of course! Yep, last Friday night, the best and beautiful of my inner circle – both friends and colleagues alike – gathered in their glad rags to belatedly celebrate my birthday, mark the relaunch of my website, reflect on the success of The Daily Norm, and look forward, in equal measure, to the prospect of my solo art exhibition next Spring. And in celebrating the latter aspect, what better way to anticipate what I hope will be the art show of the 2014 Spring season than to kick things off with a warm up preview of some of my latest works!

So for all those friends of mine rocking up at the British Film Institute’s secret cocktail bar within its main Benugo bar last friday evening, they were treated to an impromptu display of some 20 of my works, including a selection of my latest Compositions series, a few of my Norm originals including my Norm take on Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe and Flamenco Norm, and also a few examples of my more contemplative works, such as Pink Bf, Return Journey and Pupillage.

The evening was a fantastic success, a wonderful opportunity for some of my latest colourful paintings and more subdued, delicate etchings to benefit from an outing to London’s cultural South Bank centre, and a fine way to touch base with my ever faithful friends, many of whom I have not seen for months, if not years. And I sold 3 more paintings to boot – which can’t be bad!

Sadly, as far as recording this magnificent event goes, I can only show you photos taken as the paintings went out, but before the people came in. No sooner had the first friend arrived than I was occupied talking to my guests all evening – and my well intentioned desire to record the evening through photos got quite lost in the revelry. But that is surely a sign of a good party.

Stay tuned, as ever, into The Daily Norm for exclusive details of my May 2014 art exhibition – coming soon!

And in the meantime another huge thanks to all those who have supported me and my blog for the two years of its happy existence. Here’s to the next!