Visual Research

This study explores the work of celebrated artist Tracey Emin, exhibited at Turner Contemporary in Margate Kent. It reviews the figurative studies and neon calligraphic scultpures.

Interview recorded with Rachel Howard at the artist's studio in July 2011. Explores her childhood and upbringing, awareness of "God", and experience of a Quaker schooling. Attendance at Goldsmiths and work for Damien Hirst on pharmacy cabinets and the Spot Paintings. Recent exhibition in Italy, the "Via Dolorosa"; discussion of her paintings and drawings; the desired effect of her work.

Interview with painter Anthea Holmes, recorded in April 1988 at her Whitechapel Studio. She describes her training at Kingston University and at The Pratt Institute New York; with the development of an intricate play between figure, ground and light in an intimate process of accumulation and elision of elements.

Interview conducted with Christiane Baumgartner in 2010, by emailed questions and replies, in which she describes the process of her graphic and video work; incorporating ideas of stop-motion time frames applied to subjects of landscape, travelling, traffic, highways, and military installations.

Renowned artist Thérèse Oulton describes her series, Territory, detailed aerial views in small-scale paintings, exhibited at Marlborough Fine Art London. She considers their source and her excursions in London and elsewhere, and their bearing on her work.

Interview recorded with Brazilian artist Lara Viana at Domobaal Gallery in January 2010. She describes her interest in souvenirs and votive settings found in the Catholic Church, and acknowledges an influence from the art of Velazquez and Zurbaran in her refined and ethereal paintings. The conversation revolves around a recent set of still life studies; tableaux of nature morte, that carry implications of transient existence in their subtle conception.

Interview with leading British sculptor Alison Wilding, RA, recorded at Tannery Street Studio, Bermondsey, in 1995. She describes the making of Harbour, in alabaster and pvc moulding, and Echo, a stainless steel sculpture exhibited at Karsten Schubert. Sourcing materials, the levels of the work; assistant Adam Kershaw; and its relation to other contemporary works.

Morag Ballard describers her studio in Penzance, Cornwall, and the strategies of her work; paintings which create perspectives and settings referring to certain interiors.

Interviewed during the installation of "Ghost" at Chisenhale Gallery East London in 1990, sculptor Rachel Whiteread describes her initial experience as an assistant to Alison Wilding and employment as a theatrical props maker. She reveals the development of "Ghost", cast from a room at 286 Archway, and gives details discovered in her first major project of replication.

Sharon Kivland describes strands of influence in her work, which draws on French and Russian literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, in particular concerning the changing roles of women in domestic, social, and political life.

Art dealing today in the United States is a huge, well-organized, well-publicized industry. Probably, there has never previously been a market in art that has played such an important role in a national economy. The United States retains the preeminent position in the world market for art that it achieved immediately after World War II and seems unlikely to lose it any time soon. In addition to serving collectors and institutions based in America, the American dealing community supplies works of art to individuals and museums all over the world.

In this study, Art, Poetry, and WW1 by Edward Lucie-Smith of writing, poetry, and painting in the centenary year of the outbreak of the First World War, the author considers the historical impact on the general psyche of the calamitous events, reflected in the expression of poets and visual artists. He establishes a continuity to the theme with reference to works by Velázquez, Watteau, Goya, and others, in their treatment of the spectacle of battle and the horrors of war and human conflict.

Very seldom in London can a major show of modern and contemporary art at a highly respected national institution have received such universally negative reviews. As I write this, not all the verdicts on the Royal Academy’s exhibition of Modern British Sculpture have been delivered. However, it is already clear that the majority will be hostile. Paradoxically, it is this, more than any other factor, which makes it seem like an important event - a turning point if you like.

Charles Thomas "Chuck" Close (born July 5, 1940) is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photo-realist. He developed his own highly resolved heads (his preferred term to portraits), which were worked on a massive scale. Despite suffering a disabling spinal aneurysm in 1988, the artist has continued to forge a monumental body of work in a variety of media: paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs, of potent and original effect.

A study of Giacometti portraits at the National Portrait Gallery London and Frank Auerbach at Tate Britain.

Feature by David Rose first published in Cv Journal of Art and Crafts 2/4 December 1989, in which he describes craft practices of individual makers in the county of West Cork, Ireland. The monograph also includes a survey of Dublin colleges of art and design by Margaret MacNamidhe, first published in Cv Journal 4/2 July 1991. From Cv/VAR Archive. Crafts Directory surveys practices in the applied and decorative arts in the UK and Ireland. The anthology of interviews and features was first published in the quarterly review Cv Journal of Art and Crafts 1988-91, and includes showcases of emerging practices, studies of crafts education, and a comprehensive index of specialist producers and suppliers in the flourishing arena of crafts design and distribution.

Cv/VAR 80 presents an interview by sculptor Tom Grimsey in 1991 with Spanish artist Glòria Ortega. She describes her work in various mediums from straw to steel. She credits the effect on her work of artists Miro, Chillida, and Ortéiza, and discusses her place in the community of Catalan artists.

Cv/VAR 50 publishes an interview with the artist Helen Chadwick (1953-96), recorded at her Beck Road studio in 1989. It explores the body-action-photographic works distilled in installations such as Ego Geometria Sum and Of Mutability, and the cromalin prints of 1989: Viral Landscapes, prepared for exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art Oxford in 1990.

A presentation by exhibition curator Catherine David in 1997 describes her plans for Documenta X Kassel; title 'Retroperspective', including works by Joseph Beuys and Walter de Maria. She proposes the ambitions of the projects, in linking strands of modern and progressive art, with aspirations of different nationalities and cultures.

Explores the structure and development of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in the mid-19th century and works that figure among the most enduring and generally popular in British art. Renowned writer and art critic Edward Lucie-Smith contributes a study of the brotherhood of seven artists and their interconnection and intricate links with the social establishment of the time. James Cahill has a special interest in the movement, having studied Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Holman Hunt. He reviews a major exhibition of 150 works at Tate Britain launched in September 2012.