Reigning on One's Parade?: Diamond Geezer at the William Wilson Gallery

I’m so underwhelmed by the whole Jubilee jamboree that I’m planning on disappearing this weekend and avoiding my beloved London for the entire flag waving four days. So anything which pokes fun and subverts this Establishment show is absolutely welcome, which is why I found myself in Hatton Garden, EC1 twice this week heading towards the Wilson Williams gallery. The irony begins before you even get to the curious little gallery, with the gorgeous windows of many jewellery shops having a queenly theme; emphasising the diamond, in diamond Jubilee.

Sensory Idyll

Scents of childhood return;

Retreated ignored to hidden spaces

Winter is a dusty attic; yet in

Summer thoughts come out to play

Smells so vivid, arresting

Cut grass, staining so stubborn

Throwing off clothes encumbrant

To lie, face down, in the green

Sights to unfurl the heart

Honeysuckle pinkly glowing

Intoxicating iridescent flies

To watch, to dream, take flight

Water with magnetic attraction

River's forbidden, dangerous allure

Caress my fingers, lap at my toes

To tingle, to entwine, with icy foam

Stealthy plucking of stolen herbs

Youthful exploratory palate

Bitter sorrel, warm sage, fennel chewed

To taste, to experience, all is new

Mind excludes all external sounds

The background clamour drowned out

My humming company of voices

To listen, to question, noise unceasing

My young senses are all still here:

Tuned, acknowledged and vital

Constantly quickening because

If forgotten, summer's over, dead. 

Endless

Take me I'm yours
Look at the sky
Endlessly dark
Pierce me with light


Have me I'm free
Listen to waves
Repeatedly hard
Openly there's no fight


Make me I'm yours
Touch the stones
Caress the velvet
With only pure delight

Skin Deep at Hay Hill Gallery

Artist Jamie McCartney(left)

As I get older and wiser experience confirms that judging by appearances is never a good idea. One of the benefits of social media is swapping ideas and inner most thoughts, getting to know people from the inside first, allowing inner beauty to shine through. Then should you meet, you already know the mind of the person, if not the superficial flesh. And their looks, really, does it matter? Why are people so judgemental regarding what is on the surface? 

Skin Deep explores ‘notions of beauty and society’s obsession with the physical self’. The artist Jamie McCartney ‘depicts his models in their natural state without recourse to the scourge of image manipulation …they celebrate the human body and human condition.’ The exhibition contains over forty large photographs, bronzes, and plaster casts and is deeply intimate in subject; the human form is stripped bare leaving skin and personality exposed.