Alice in Wonderland, Tate, Liverpool.

An apparent trip to Wonderland ....

Alice in Wonderland for me is essentially about connoting the mysterious, surreal and thought provoking knee jerk reactions. I love Lewis Carroll's imagination and the way in which you are able to relate to Alice in her growing and learning through the two books.

The exhibition at the Tate, Liverpool was lack lustre and didn't evoke a magical transition from room to room. Their was no use of interactive features, lighting was bright and overhead, room layout was restrictive in atmosphere with more attention being paid to the history of Lewis Carroll and Charles L.Hodgson, illustrator.  It evoked an educative, informative experience but by doing this it lost its imagination therefore essence of the book.

The exhibition leads to work by Surrealism artists such as Max Ernst, Salvador Dali and Roland Penrose. I can see the relation between surrealism art and Alice in Wonderland but for me it didn't flow cohesively as the Alice in Wonderland part of the exhibition was mundane and controlled compared to the paintings which have an air of fascination of the uncanny and strange, which should be connoted throughout the exhibition.

Bill Woodrow 1987 sculpture, 'Humpty Fucking Dumpy,' added a comical and light hearted touch. It allows the viewer to re-connect with their earlier child hood stories in a juxtaposed twist of new meanings which are connoted from the sculpture against the original motif of the child hood story.

The final stages of the exhibition represent the transgression to 'Alice through the looking glass,' and is designed through its use of perspex clear boxes in which viewer can sit within, and mirrored walls with quotes shown on to directly question yourself in a self reflecting manner.

Overall I feel that the exhibition was unsuccessful in what I feel to be its aim of representing the mysterious and uncanny world of Alice in Wonderland. Instead I find the start of the exhibition to be too informative in its display contents and display layout. the surrealism art displayed is the only part of the exhibition that allowed me a 3D conceptual experience which I expected when visiting an Alice in Wonderland theme exhibition.

Everything begins with an end ....





Catching up

Yes, I am still here! I miss our blog dialogue here on Hue.

Life has been busy with a toddler, to say the least. I call this photo, "Playing with rolled oats is super fun, mom!" (mine is the red-headed one)

I thought I'd show you a sneak peak of a fun recent project.

I worked with a family to give their beautiful Victorian an interior facelift for a more bright, airy, modern feeling. Dark stained trim and moulding were painted white, for starters. With a lack of natural light, the space felt too old, dark and closed in.

 

Here is a before shot of the foyer, with a variety of painted sample boards.  Notice how we didn't paint swatches directly on the walls? There is no sense in selecting a color based on how it relates to a background that won't exist once you repaint. 

We see colors in relationship to whatever color is next to it. The technical term is called simultaneous contrast. The appearance of any one color is modified by the presence of other colors. For example, place dark colors next to light colors and the dark colors will appear darker and the light colors will appear lighter.
The center gray square is the same in both the right and the left.

Okay, back to pictures.

Here is the "after" shot of the same hallway. Huge difference, right? We did an warm, cheery accent wall in the foyer to greet people as they arrive. 

 

Before shot: On the other side of the hallway is the staircase, flanked by an impressively intricate banister.

We continued the mocha color below the chair rail from the accent wall, and used a soft grayish taupe for above the railing all the way upstairs to the second floor hallway. Because the hallway zig-zagged it's way through the foyer, up a staircase, and around the second floor landing, care had to be taken in selecting a subdued palette that would function in so many different spaces. Cut-off points like the end of a wall, or a break in the trim were not available, so color mileage was key.

A challenge with this project was incredibly varied lighting conditions throughout the spaces. Using Benjamin Moore's new full spectrum paint, Color Stories, the paint swatches looked dramatically different when held up to various locations around the foyer and hallway. In the end, after trying 5 or 6 different combinations and options, we ultimately returned to the first choice. Sometimes you just have to check out your options!

Have any of you experimented with full spectrum paint? How has it changed the way you view paint?