Oops

Back-blip from a full day (on which I got drunk). It was my mum in law's birthday so I was staying around in Greater London. We had a nice casual drink, supper (or "dinner" as I call it) and cake in the evening, during which I corrected my belief that I am immune to gin.

I gave "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" a try for the first time since leaving primary school, but find I still only appreciate it in principle as the '70s version of internet meme culture. Can't say I really laughed, in spite of my inebriation.

But before all of that (!) I was out and about. I went up to Shoreditch to visit the Espacio where a friend was exhibiting their paintings as part of a group of painter-colleagues.

I was taken with a set of monoprints by Helen Minns, an artist printmaker who is interested in contemporary approaches to abstraction. I could trace the things she described as her recurring interests in the appearance of her artwork, which is a good thing and definitely not a given with themes of "control and play, materiality and illusion, distance and closeness, figuration and abstraction".

It was the mixture of pattern with expressionist brush strokes that caught my eye. I find it difficult to engage with abstract expressionism that doesn't have some form of pattern to latch onto. The layers of ghost-prints drew me further. The effect is similar to a thing I forget the name of: a Victorian contraption that uses tricks of perspective to make it seem like you're looking into an explorable world when you look through layers of "stage flat" painted cardboard.

I walked through Hoxton over to Islington next, staring at plenty of things along the way, and eavesdropping on cafe conversations. At Islington I went to the London Art Fair. This was a new thing for me, but my one of my art tutors had mentioned there were lots of paintings by Keith Vaughan to see. On the course, he was used as an significant example of contemporary expressionist figure painting, so I thought it worth a look.

I saw a lot there, and interesting to see people shopping for pricey art (although I overheard a dealer speaking to a first-time fine art buyer, describing their £5,000-ish wares as "inexpensive"). It was a bit overwhelming, and very different from the experience of going around a quiet exhibition. I wrote down some names to look into further if I get around to it, so that is my blip!

My note on the top is about finding two copies of the same lithograph by Hockney in two different gallery stalls. There's a lot more to think about in terms of the push and pull between art being rarefied and/or commodified, but this sent off a tweaker.