“Art enables us to find ourselves and loose ourselves at the same time”

Thomas Merton

I try and stay away from art reviews; art criticism isn’t really my cup of tea and I have no idea where to start. How does one even criticise art? I have always found art, and the arts in general, to be very subjective. Just because someone says, “ah yes, this is good art” doesn’t mean I have to like it, or even consider it ‘good art’. Whatever ‘good art’ is. What if I hate it; think this painting, drawing, performance, whatever… should be destroyed and never see the light of day again? To be honest, I don’t think that. I generally think that all art has value, from Rembrandt’s ‘The Jewish Bride’1665-1669 to a birthday card my cousin drew me when she was three. It sits pride of place over my desk; I’m very proud of it. But I digress, during this wildfire of a year art institutions across the world were forced to shut their doors as a pandemic spread and clung to the fabric of society, like damp. So, when restrictions were relaxed, and museums and galleries started opening their doors, I jumped on the band wagon and booked to see as much art as was possible. Mostly because lockdown No.1 was hecking long and Google Images doesn’t do the ‘Rokeby Venus’ by Diego Velázquez any justice. At all. It’s so much better in real life. I thus saw everything from Steve McQueen at the Tate Modern to Artemisia Gentileschi at The National Gallery. It gave me a nice broad spectrum of art practices, that and a chance to get out of the damn house.