When I’m taking a lunchbreak in my studio, I make it a practice to read inspiring or art related books so my focus is always on art and not distracted by other things. When I’m procrastinating, I’ll tidy them up in colour order! Here's a little walk through some of my favourites on the book shelf.

Some of these books are big door-stoppers, bought from art exhibitions that have left a positive impression on me. I read them over the course of a few weeks, getting inside the head of the artist and trying to skim across all the institutional art babble that distracts me from making my own judgement about the work. I like to understand some of the background and related art history, but mostly I want to know why the artist made those decisions, how they managed their lives and what helped or hindered them.

Joan Mitchell x Claude Monet at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, February 2023

It feels somewhat like a pilgrimage as we head across Paris for the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Sirens wail and the streets are dug up, crossings severed and misplaced. We navigate across the Périphérique and scale a wall to access the Bois de Boulogne. Crisscrossed paths traverse through the trees, the leaping red squirrels making more confident progress than we do. 

Finally, we approach the scribbled sketched idea of Frank Gehry, made real in steel and glass. It is strangely sympathetic to the surroundings with its organic curves, and arcs echoing the squirrel’s leap. The un-hidden girders are majestic; an abstraction in architecture with no requirement for a horizontal or vertical line. This building finds no reason to colour inside the lines. 

So we join the lines. Anticipation builds. The barriers pulled back to submit a few at a time. Security, tighter than the border. No liquids allowed, but my mini sketching water container is given artistic allowances.