The joy of visiting galleries again

In the recent weeks, I visited three galleries, for real, physically, not online. And it confirmed my belief that no matter how clever the technologies have become, nothing compares with visiting a gallery and looking at artwork with your own eyes.

This may seem contradictory when this website acts as a platform to show my paintings. But I consider the images in my website Gallery simply as a gateway to my work. I am fully aware that this is against the general trend when people are happy with virtual experiences and even beginning to embrace the idea of NFT (Non-fungible Token). However, while I accept the benefit of having alternative ways to enjoy art, and digital images have their roles, they cannot replace the real thing as far as paintings are concerned.

The exhibitions I visited are:

• ‘Stop! Act!’ at Mid Wales Arts (15 Apr - 23 May)

• ‘Still at it’ by Wil Rowlands, ‘Bright Field’ by Kim Atkinson, ‘Across the Land’ by Janie McLeod and “Chapel of Hairy Flatness’ by Paul Emmannuel at Plas Glyn-y-Weddw (30 May - 11 Jul)

• ‘When the Land Rested’ by Claire Scott, Peter Prendergast, Mick Manning, June Forster, Alysia Webster and Dennis Farrell at Twenty Twenty Gallery (5-26 Jun)

With my mask on, following the arrows and minding the social distance, I approached artwork at varied paces and examined them from different distances and angles. Sometimes I looked around the room to adjust my focus and return to the same work, or purposely left a room before trying to look at them in different orders. While roaming like that, I notice different things about the same artwork.

Apart from the much wider scope for close examination of work, this freedom of how to look at artwork is invaluable to me. When I tried to roam via virtual gallery app, I get dizziness instead of pleasure.

Another reason for hoping for the pre-pandemic normality to return. Soon.