Saatchi Gallery

Ben Turnbull at the Saatchi

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I need a hero, Ben Turnbull

Ben Turnbull at the Saatchi

Thank you Ben for reminding us
             that we are all composed
of tiny snippets of other people
             of their words and their actions
and their lives and their histories
             and their joys and tribulations
including their deaths in sad scenarios
              of heroism and sacrifice

taken from the warring
             world of destruction
recreated with tiny clippings
             from vintage American comic books
in which you capture the hollowness
             of military bombast
and all the wasted energies
             all the personal traumas
the heartbreak and loneliness
             and the endless pity of war

Thank you for your unflinching
             words and images broadcast
from the artistic trenches
             of your very own frontline
and dispatched so as
             to combat and confound
the arrogance and complacency
             of those in high places
who would thoughtlessly send
             young innocents to their death
in pointless and illegal wars
             that bring the realm of humanity
to the very brink of twilight’s
             last gleaming and so God Bless

John Lyons

Catch Ben Turnbull’s brilliant and poignant exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, King’s Road, from 11 April to 8 May 2017. 

Champagne at the Saatchi Gallery

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Ljubica, by Jelena Bulajic, mixed media on canvas (2012)

So on Sunday, before the rain and wind sets in, Jonah heads up to the King’s Road, to the Saatchi Gallery, located in part of the barracks where the Grand Old Duke of York kept his ten thousand men. The sound of marching has long faded, and all is quiet but for the gentle footfall of Londoners and tourists on gravel as they make their way in to see Champagne Life, the latest exhibition, which runs until 9 March. And believe me, this presentation of artwork by female artists from around the world is well worth seeing. There are a couple of inspired exhibits by Alice Anderson whom we visited at the end of last year in the Wellcome Foundation up in Euston. Equally, the refreshingly intriguing canvases by Florida-born Suzanne McClelland, are not to be missed.

Then there is the Serbian artist, Jelena Bulajic. Born in Vrbas, Serbia, in 1990, Bulajic lives between London and Serbia. The selection of her portraits in mixed media on canvas are truly mesmerising. According to the gallery blurb:

The human face, with all its softness, contortions, wrinkles and sags, is the subject matter of Jelena Bulajics’ minutely accurate paintings. Each canvas is filled with the faces of people she spots in the street, or encounters in daily life, whose character, look, or empathy catch her interest.

What is staggering about Bujalic’s work is its gigantic scale. The portrait illustrated, for example, measures 2.7 x 2 metres, and yet the detail is absolutely minute and meticulous. Saatchi’s policy of not roping off exhibits or placing them under glass allows visitors to get really close to paintings and appreciate the beauty of the artists’ techniques, which in the case of Bulajic, is of a standard of execution that Titian might have envied. Sensational.