The October meeting of the Central London group was on the theme ‘Unexpected’. Four members shared their work.

Ⓒ Nusse Mechthild von Gohren
Nusse presented photographs that captured the urban unexpected with wit and a sense of fun. She started with a photograph of a man who tried and ultimately failed to push a huge van back towards the Lloyd’s building. Nusse’s humorous and sometimes ironic observations of the unexpected went on to include Jesus in partnership with the NHS, a dismembered mannequin in a skip, a human sized rabbit in sunglasses on an underground platform(!), a blues brothers sculpture on a balcony and an accidental visitation to hell(o) in the Battersea Power Station/Nine Elms development.

Ⓒ Janet Nabney
Janet started with a fun set of images from Frieze Sculpture in Regent’s park. These included a selection of John Wood and Paul Harrison’s “10 signs for a park, 2022” such as a sign in front of a tree pointing left to a tree and a sign with an arrow labelled arrow. She noted of her image of “Speakers Corner” that whilst it looked unclimbable it had a “do not climb” sign. In a change of subject matter Janet very effectively combined line drawing and a photo collage of St Bart’s Gatehouse. The combination produced an image that seemed to be both modern and timeless.

Ⓒ Alec Wylie
Alec talked us through his personal photo project, a study of palms in Northern Tenerife. His images captured the geometry and delicacy of palms in a mixture of habitats and provided a real feel for both the plants and their setting. Alec’s variety of presentations included: an isolated palm on a rocky shore, a rather beautiful phoenix canariensis, close ups and architectural work such as a striking architectural palm canopy against a white sky. Alex ended with an unexpected not-palm, a water lily flower.

Ⓒ Andy Schneider
Andy provided a selection of images based on different interpretations of unexpected that included an abstract created with acrylic paint, water and light, a glitch art image created by a Lightroom software defect and a still life of an Anthurium with a stapled spadix
We wrapped up with an interesting discussion on commercial drivers in art, NFTs, AI generated imagery and related topics. Alec raised the issue of a LIP Central group show and noted the planning had been disrupted by the pandemic. He said he’d go back through emails and find out what had been planned.
Next month’s theme is ‘Dark’.
Further reading:
- Frieze Sculpture in Regents Park: https://www.frieze.com/article/your-guide-frieze-sculpture-2022-regents-park
- Text to image AI examples:
- Stable Diffusion: https://stability.ai/blog/stable-diffusion-public-release
- Midjourney: https://www.midjourney.com/home/
- DALL-E 2: https://openai.com/blog/dall-e-now-available-in-beta/
- AI art curation and sale: Mario Klingemann’s Botto https://www.botto.com/ and https://www.stirworld.com/see-features-german-artist-mario-klingemann-on-his-creation-botto-an-nft-revolution
- St Bartholemew’s Gatehouse: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/St-Bartholomews-Gatehouse/