Under the Millennium Bridge, by the river…

Spent the entire day at Tate Modern last friday… observing the works of the ‘isms’ to ‘Pop’, from ‘poetry & dream’ to ‘states of flux’… Bacon, Monet, Warhol, Dali, Al Weiwei, Rothko, Picasso, Anish Kapoor… and then suddenly out of the blue I came across this painting… a painting I had seen in 1995, at Tate Britain!

Abstract Painting by Vanessa Bell.

I was 10 yrs old then and came as a tourist with my parents… maybe it was the simplicity or the bright colours, it attracted me and I remember copying its composition in a diary and writing down which colour went in which ‘box’, so that when I reached home back in India, I would copy this painting! I don’t remember making one though or maybe I did?? Hmmm… but I had totally forgotten about the whole incident till I saw this work and everything came back in a flash. 🙂 As a 10 yr old I did not even know I would want to be an artist one day but life gives you simple clues, it is upto us how we tread the paths.

I covered every floor of the Tate (clap, clap), saw the artist movies in the interactive zone, spent a good time photographing the works I liked, took a break and sat on a comfortable sofa reading my book and eating my hummus wrap. 😉 Finished the Tate after 5-6 hours and later visited the Bankside gallery nearby, showing watercolours paintings by the members of the Royal Watercolour Society.

Later as I walked a little more along the bank observing the beautiful Millennium Bridge, I got inspired to make the paintings posted below… one at the end of a clear day, when the sun is setting and the colours are spread across the sky like paints splashed across a canvas, the sunlight on everything it touches and so I chose to the make the whole painting in vermillion & crimson, the view across the Thames, sitting on the stairs under the bridge… the second painting of a rainy night when everything is blurry, one can see the lights from the buildings, the hazy reflection in the river, a lit lamp reflecting on the rainy road…

Have submitted the first painting for the ‘London Lives’ competition, fingers crossed! 🙂