THE ART OF SERENDIPITY

Art the end result of perception, wisdom, intelligence, discipline, hard work, passion, luck, accident, and coincidence.

An improved and slightly expanded version of Postgraduate Postmodern:

Twice during my recent travels round the RA Summer Exhibition, I have met, quite by chance, people who have a link with my painting (on display in the Small Weston Room). On the first occasion, I heard soft Bradford accents in the picture’s vicinity and noticed an elderly lady and what turned out to be her middle-aged son looking intrigued and saying ‘Alhambra’. I introduced myself as the artist and soon discovered that my brother Bill had been a colleague of the lady’s late husband. Her son remembered Bill taking him to a rugby match.

A few days later, on the terrace at the back of Burlington House, I encountered another elderly lady and young man. On that occasion it transpired that the young man had been a boyhood best friend of Bill’s grandson.

There is a further instance of serendipity in the fact that the Summer Exhibition is a nice prelude to the reprise of My Perfect Mind at the Young Vic and that my painting depicts a scene which Paul Hunter fleetingly re-enacts in the show. In anticipation of rehearsals, Paul and I together visited the Summer Exhibition last week, making a little pilgrimage to ‘The Conductor’.

Photo by EP

Coming soon: The PA Summer Exhibition …