Huge crowd at the RHA for the Nissan Art Project featuring Paul McKinley (with some Mark Clare video as a side show) - mainly student liggers mind you hammering the free wine supplied by Nissan.
I'd never seen PM's work before and was somewhat surprised to find meticulously painted figurative work - using a pointilist style reminiscent of Seurat but with the dots raised off the canvas. The works (mainly landscapes) had an artificiality that reminded me of Stephen McKenna. They were very attractive, if conventional pieces, and eminently collectible I'd say.
In sharp contrast to this we were also offered the video art of Mark Clare - jumping around in a small squalid room or pinching his arm and describing himself as "the perfect human being". We can only hope, I suppose, that he is being deeply ironic. But I'm biased here - video art (?) leaves me cold.
