I finally managed to get to see the Kiefer exhibition on Saturday at the Royal Academy in London. I’ve been looking forward to it for a very long while. I have seen his work together before at the Guggenheim in Bilbao in Spain and was blown away by that many years ago. He’s been a firm favourite of mine ever since, and I often use him in my art teaching to inspire the students. I’ll never forget what I read once, that he felt he did his best drawings before he went to school! How could he remember, but given the nature of the man and his art, I do believe he could remember. The pieces were huge both paintings and sculpture and mixtures of both. The themes were overarching tackling the nature of humanity and our place in the cosmos. The texture, colour or absence of it, were so satisfying and immersive. Anyway, here’s a couple of my sketches. I’d run out of grey in my box of pastels unfortunately, so the colours aren’t as true to his paintings as I’d have liked. The first sketch is of a huge piece over two canvases entitled Osiris and Isis 1985 in oil and acrylic emulsion with additional 3D materials. I was fascinated by the copper wires that ran across the two canvases in one instance, but were broken in others. I kept asking myself why was this? Mostly I just respond though. but I’m guessing the pieces of ceramic were pieces of Osiris. Don’t forget to click on images to enlarge.