[Detail of] Tom Phillips and Alice Woods
Photograph by John Nick Pull, 1997
Tom Phillips and Alice Woods
Photograph by John Nick Pull, 1997
Featured this month:
BENCHES AT THIRTY : Three decades and thousands of lives.
A HUMUMENT: LIFE SHIRT : A new, Web-only Edition
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
SAINT DAVID'S HALL - FOYER GALLERIES, The Hayes, Cardiff
Ineluctable Modality: Images to accompany Ulysses
14th January - 9th February 2002
Work: Chapter 11, Sirens.
ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS: Library Print Room
The Unknown Wittgenstein: Architect, Engineer, Photographer
27th November 2001 - 28th January 2002
Work: Wittgenstein Dialogue; Wittgenstein's Dilemma Inverted; Tractatus Drawings.
ROYAL INSTITUTION, London
Ongoing
Works: Susan Greenfield studies and DVD portrait.
1 December 2001
IRMA AS HELEN
Aficionados of Tom Phillips know that a semi-faceless female pervades his work. She is Irma, the ideal woman, always just out of reach. In his essay on The Quest for Irma Tom writes, "As all who have been lovelorn are aware, there is great potency in the 'could it be?'.
She found her way into Benches, and in doing so she became mother of the multitude works that grew from that single picture. That fraction of a face launched a thousand canvases.
2001 quickly draws to its close, and we'd like to raise a toast to Benches. With the melody of 'Auld Lang Syne' warming up the Victrola, we look to the left and see the bench in Battersea Park populated by Irma and her consorts. Then to the right -- the same bench, and all have gone.
Carpe diem,
JOHN NICK PULL, editor.
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