Thursday 5 July 2012

John Stezaker print at Counter - Recto/Verso (2012)

Recto/Verso (2012) is a new print by John Stezaker, just released by Counter editions.

Normal price is £420, but you can get it for £350 if you enter the promotional code STEZ20. Get yours here.


  • Edition of 100
  • Photo-lithograph on 300gsm Somerset paper. Produced by Paupers Press, London.
  • 61 x 51cm (24 x 20in)
  • Signed, numbered and dated by the artist on the reverse
John Stezaker intervenes with found images - typically old film stills, vintage postcards, or Hollywood headshots - by excising critical parts of the composition or by juxtaposing two seemingly unrelated images. His concise alterations have surprising surreal effect and psychological force.

John Stezaker has created the limited edition print, 'Recto/Verso' (2012) exclusively for Counter Editions. The image arose from Stezaker's early 'Dark Star' series of silhouettes cut out from mid-century actor's portraits. The layered profiles confound a straightforward reading of presence and absence. The overlaying of male and female profiles, of colour and shadow, of empty flatness and carefully modelled detail, gives rise to sensations of nostalgia, romanticism, and perhaps of voyeurism. In a world saturated by images, Stezaker's manipulations create space both physically and metaphorically for alternative interpretations, for exploring the seams and fissures of the visual world.

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Jenny Saville - Modern Art Oxford catalogue 2012

It's looking like a bumper year for Jenny Saville books. Hot on the heals of the Continuum catalogue comes this, the catalogue for the Saville retrospective exhibition in Oxford this year.
This is a paperback on fairly large scale with 25 full page reproductions, starting with a good overview of early work and then focusing on more recent paintings and drawings.
 Only 2,500 of these have been printed and at £15 represents really good value. It looks to be only available from the gallery itself, you can buy it online here.


Tiina Heiska - Waiting Room

 So I had a birthday recently, of the round number variety, so to mark the occasion I asked all potential gift buyers to chip in so I could buy a nice painting.
 After a few months of searching I settled on Finnish artist Tiina Heiska. I has seen some works from her Patent Shoes series a number of years ago and they really stayed with me.
 Her painting has a lovely film like quality to it (she works from photographs she has staged and taken of herself). Brilliant economy of brushstroke.
 Waiting Room is a new painting from a potential new series. It was shipped in from Finland for us by Rollo Contemporary art, many thanks to Philippa Found for getting it for us on our tight budget.

The back is nearly as pretty as the front!