Matthew Rose

Last evening I was having a smoke with artist Matthew Rose outside his one-man show at The Orange Dot Gallery in Bloomsbury and Rose was telling me that all of his work was about being scared but also about being fresh. "It's a love story, with scissors and glue".

Matthew Rose is an American artist who has been living and working in Paris, France for the last 20 years and his current show features an intriguing mix of collage, found objects, paint and glue. Oh! And a pair of scissors... It is an engaging show in a beautiful gallery space just around the corner from the Foundling Museum. You can download a copy of the poster here.

The Orange Dot Gallery, Continental Stores, 54 Tavistock Place, London WC1. Open Monday-Saturday 11am-5pm. The show continues until 31st October 2010.

Bloomsbury Festival

The Renoir Cinema

The Bloomsbury Festival has just ended, I visited the area yesterday and saw a couple of exhibitions, including Threads of Feeling. As I was leaving the Foundling Museum I spied the Renoir cinema through the trees of Brunswick Square. A lovely place to watch a movie.

Threads of Feeling

A bunch of 4 ribbons narrow – Yellow, Blue, Green, & Pink’. Silk ribbons tied in a bunch with a knot. Foundling number 170. A girl admitted 9 December 1743. Given the name Pamela Townley by the Foundling Hospital. Died 1 September 1746.

Threads of Feeling. The Foundling Hospital's textile tokens, 1740-1770.

The Foundling Hospital textiles consist of 5,000 small swatches of fabric dating from the middle decades of the eighteenth century. They are pinned to the registration documents that recorded the entry of each baby to the Hospital. These fabrics were kept by the Hospital as a means of establishing an identifiable link between the child and its mother. They now comprise the largest collection of everyday textiles surviving from the eighteenth century in Britain.

The exhibition continues at The Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, London WC1 until 6th March 2011. Entrance is £7.50.