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A year in the life of St Nicholas Rest Garden
I’d read in a few places about the idea of taking a photo from the same spot each month to track seasonal change. I’d tried it once before, but the place I’d chosen, while beautiful, wasn’t somewhere I visited reliably. St Nicholas Rest Garden I visit almost every weekday when taking Breezy for her morning walk, so committing to being there wasn’t a problem.
As it turned out, committing to the first of each month was trickier - sometimes I wasn’t in Brighton, sometimes I simply forgot. But they’re all from early in the month, and a good enough record of how this well-loved space changes through the year.
The composite image was put together with Claude’s help, based on my instructions. It’s what I wanted to do with the photos, but didn’t have the tools to do manually.
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Cecily Brown: Picture Making
As I was already in Hyde Park and had visited the Serpentine North, it made sense to pop across to the Serpentine South as well. There I found Cecily Brown: Picture Making, a collection of works inspired by Kensington Gardens.
The paintings I loved most were the brightest and the monochrome one. The yellow was extraordinary, especially on a sunny day - it lit up the room. I’m not sure I’ve seen such a yellow painting before. And then as a contrast, the monochromatic Nature Walk in Black and White. I visited a monochrome exhibition at the National Gallery many years ago and enjoyed it very much, and I’ve always loved black and white photography. Something about stripping colour away seems to sharpen everything else.
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David Hockney: A Year in Normandie
When it was announced that David Hockney had died, I, probably like many people, looked at where I could see some of his work. I found this exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery. As we were going to be in London in the evening to meet friends, I travelled up earlier and spent the afternoon in Hyde Park, which gave me the chance to visit the Serpentine North.
I’d never visited this gallery before. The main work is a large frieze made on an iPad, depicting a year in the Normandy landscape across all four seasons.
I’d never seen Hockney’s iPad work presented in an analogue format before. Some panels I loved, some left me unmoved. What I did notice was the absence of wildlife - no birds, insects or mammals that I could spot anywhere in the landscape. My covid years felt more full of creatures than this.
I enjoyed it. I’m not sure it would have been worth the time and cost of a train ticket on its own, but paired with a good walk and a picnic with friends in the park, it was a no-brainer.
