Happy New Year @ Saatchi

Just as I wanted to start my year with my mother, Trinity, a glass of champagne in one hand, and a paintbrush in the other hand, I also wanted to go straight to Saatchi when I woke up, so I did.

The current show is fantastic, and in addition to seeing several pieces I had already seen over a decade ago - Richard Wilson’s iconic 20:50 - and pieces that I knew but had never seen with my own eyes - Jenny Saville’s monumental Passage - I also loved the moment when I ended on the ground floor (I felt like starting on the top floor and working my way down, to start the year changing habits) and discovered “Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants”, by artist-curator Louise te Poele.

Firstly, I must have seen shows with “artist-curators” before, but this was the first time I really found myself staring at the word and actually identifying with it.

Without realising it, I had been questioning my own approach to art for several months, because my love of creating opportunities for myself and other artists around me was making some people nervous, but this was only because it made me nervous too. I had not accepted my own duality, because I had not realised that it was a concrete possibility to be both.

I realised that my position as an Artist AND a Curator was absolutely legitimate, if that was the path I wanted to take.

Just knowing that this was a real possibility made me relax. Even if tomorrow I decide to focus on art, or even on curation and creation, that is fine.