Good morning everyone,

The everyday and the banal are amazing because they are where we live our lives and if we're going to find happiness and beauty in the world they are probably the best places to start looking. Here is a Fem Fri about artists and one art historian who have found joy and beauty in their everyday.

Let's start with the art historian – Sunglim Kim, leading expert on chaekgeori screens. These are 18th century Korean paintings of what I can only call Western kipple, and they are quite delightful. I like what appears to be the jar of pencils:

Here's the story of how she came to study these screens:

To Kim’s knowledge, still-life painting, so popular in Europe, hadn’t yet reached Korea, which had no direct diplomatic relationship with the West until the late 19th century. The Confucian ideals that informed most of the art of Korea’s Joseon Dynasty didn’t consider ordinary objects worthy subjects for painting. The screen was painted using illusionist techniques like perspective, common in the West but almost unknown in traditional Korean art. And where had those eyeglasses come from?

https://news.dartmouth.edu/news/2016/10/art-historian-brings-little-known-korean-art-america

Now on to artists! If you are in London, have you been to the Dorothea Tanning exo at the Tate Modern yet? If not I highly, highly recommend it. There are lots of everyday things running through her beautiful surrealist art – including an excellent array of wee dogs – but what I want to look at today is the recently unfolded tablecloths which recur in many of her paintings, but very creepily and notably in this one:

Tanning’s talent was to spin her observations of the domestic into something seriously otherworldly. In a note which accompanied the picture, she wrote: “Here some roses from a very different garden sit? lie? stand? gasp? dream? die? – on white linen…As I saw them take shape on the canvas I was amazed by their solemn colours and their quiet mystery that called for – seemed to demand – some sort of phantoms.” The colour palette is tight and deathly: white, sepia, brown and black. Even the air seems infected. The wall behind is unstable and pustulant.

https://www.1843magazine.com/culture/look-closer/escaping-the-banal-with-dorothea-tanning

Finally, Oaxacan women's pottery deserves and will get its own Fem Fri but here is a taster to get you amped for that treat. The everyday is one of several topics that Oaxacan women cover in their lovely clay work, here's a tremendous example from Conceptión Aguilar called "Market Woman". I love this. Look at all the tiny fruits!

And here's more about the artist herself:

Concepción Aguilar, the youngest of the famous Aguilar Sisters, was just nine when her mother died without teaching her the skills she had previously passed on to her three other daughters. However, Concepción developed her incredible skill with clay first by imitating her sisters and then constantly pushing herself to further develop her talent. Perhaps because of her dedication to creativity, she definitely holds her own with her famous sisters, and some critics would even argue that she is the most innovative artist among her talented family.

https://www.elinterior.com/2014/01/23/concepcion-aguilar-clay-artist/

Have a lovely day,

A xx.