Art and Eye

  With an idiosyncratic artistic practice which defies artistic categorisation, Howard Hodgkin's Lovers was eight years in the making. It bleeds out of its dark frame towards a viewer, illustrating a swirling motion of vivid reds and greens which cannot be controlled. Towards the left-hand side of his panel, the artist has captured a more humanised form; a figure in orange curled in a fetal position and protected by the nest of colour illustrated on the opposite side. Perhaps, Hodgkin suggests another example of human love here, through the allusion to comfort, safety and protection. Opposite, he captures untameable human emotion with single sweeps of brushwork, firstly in red, then in green, then red again, exploding outwards with yearning and urgency.  Running away from school to pursue his artistic career, Hodgkin went on to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale, whilst he also won the Turner Prize and earned himself a knighthood. However, he never attached himself to an...

  Tomás Saraceno's interests in spider webs might seem uncannily odd to some viewers, however, to put aside that arachnophobia is to produce intriguing works of art. Boxed in and spectacularly spot lit, the works are confined by an omnipresent curator and the hand of Saraceno is certainly present, yet there is still room for freedom, for uniqueness. Their display in the round enables a visitor to explore for themselves. Simplistically black and white with no fuss, they are mesmeric displays, ritualistic and quietly captivating.  Saraceno has made a name for himself through 'Arachnophilia', a community of researchers striving to know more about the spider web and its uses. However, the artist has also spoken at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, he has created his own 3D models of webs and he works across both media and scale with incredible ease - for instance, in 2022, he transformed 25,000 square feet in The Shed, New York, into a web stretched at both twelve and fort...