On looking

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition has come round again. It’s one of my favourite shows to visit as there I saw for the first time many of the artists whose work I admire and love. Here’s a snapshot of what caught my eye this year. Some of these are old favourites and some are new finds. All of them either make me think or make me smile, even the ostensibly sad and poignant ones. Looking at the work of the artists I admire is a mediation for me. Useful, as I can’t get on with the whole breath noticing thing. I often come to my best ideas while looking seemingly idly a picture or sculpture. Perhaps you might try it.

The Annenberg Courtyard

The Space Between Revisited

Ben Johnson, acrylic

Passageway

Suzanne Moxhay, archival pigment print

Deception Glass, Glass and Thistle, Fox Talbot's Article of Glass (tagged decanter)

Cornelia Parker, polymer photogravure etching

Village VK 4A

Peter Barber Architects, a sustainable zero energy estuary island village, made of clay dredged from the bottom of the river

Mors-Somnus (07), Medium Diamond Glass

James Turrell, LED light, etched glass and shallow space

Gallery IV

The Clearing

Lee Madgwick, acrylic

Bear From Dump Circus

Nicola Hicks, plaster

Raven I, Raven II

Tim Shaw, photopolymer etching

Poplar Hawk Moth

Sarah Gillespie, mezzotint

The Artichokes

Jim Dine, lithograph on hand coloured paper

Parliament (The Voices in Your Head)

Tim Shaw, black polythene, straw and wire

Gallery VII

The Queen's Room, Zanana, Udaipur City Palace

Karen Knorr, colour pigment print

Babel Britain (after Verhaecht)

Emily Allchurch, transparency on LED light box

The White Horse

Peter Lawrence, wood engraving

Wohl Central Hall