The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2024
18 June - 18 August 2024
I'm delighted two of my drawings, Act and Home IV have been selected for the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition 2024.
Thanks so much to Anne Desmet RA for selecting both my drawings for Room VIII. Act is number 1164 and Home IV is number 1162.
Scroll down to see close ups and find out more about both drawings ...
Above: Alexandra Blum, Act, 2023, graphite on paper, 53 x 70 cm (including frame) £950 SOLD. Room VIII, number 1164. Photo credit: John Howard Davies
Act was drawn looking out of my fifth-floor studio window overlooking the industrial estate behind the Thames Barrier...
Keep scrolling to see close ups….
Above: Detail from: Alexandra Blum, Act, 2023, graphite on paper, 53 x 70 cm (including frame) £950 SOLD. Room VIII, number 1164.
Photo credit: John Howard Davies
After sudden rain, looking out of the window onto the industrial estate below, I glimpsed the reflection of the corner of a warehouse in a puddle created by the downpour. This fleeting reflection became the starting point of my drawing. Next, my eye travelled along a line of crumbling tarmac towards two people hurriedly loading a car...
Above: Detail from: Alexandra Blum, Act, 2023, graphite on paper, 53 x 70 cm (including frame) £950 SOLD. Room VIII, number 1164.
Photo credit: John Howard Davies
....my pencil then moved on to vans and people huddling on benches for a chilly lunch break. Drawing feels like a journey. I use each form I observe as a stepping stone to reach the next, so that I discover the landscape gradually, as if feeling my way through the dark, rather than creating a perspectival plan of the entire space from a fixed view point at the outset of the drawing.
Above: Detail from: Alexandra Blum, Act, 2023, graphite on paper, 53 x 70 cm (including frame) £950 SOLD. Room VIII, number 1164.
Photo credit: John Howard Davies
Chance juxtapositions between forms often occur as I draw, making it feel close to a collaging process. This means that narrative emerges not only through the recording of observed details, but also through chance encounters between different sections of drawing. When drawing Act, for example, the letters ‘act’ (part of a sign reading ‘impact’ on the side of a van) suddenly became a command when seen in conjunction with the figures in other areas of the image. Most figures in the drawing are dutifully going about their business, but the silhouetted figure (standing on the edge of the 5-mph speed limit ground marking) seems immobile, incapable of taking action. It began to feel as if the silhouetted figure was outside of the flow of time in which the other figures jointly participated.
Above: Alexandra Blum, Act, 2023, graphite on paper, 53 x 70 cm (including frame) £950 SOLD. Room VIII, number 1164.
Photo credit: John Howard Davies
Here's a reminder of the whole of Act, which is number 1164 in Room VIII at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition 2024.
Above: Alexandra Blum, Home IV, 2020, graphite on paper, 53 x 70.4cm (including frame), £950 SOLD. Room VIII, number 1162.
Photo credit: John Howard Davies
Whilst drawing Home IV in my north London home during the pandemic, the solid boundary between interior and exterior space began to feel transient, a thin membrane between myself and the exterior world.
Above: DETAIL from Alexandra Blum, Home IV, 2020, graphite on paper, 53 x 70.4cm (including frame), £950 SOLD. Room VIII, number 1162.
Photo credit: John Howard Davies
This sensation of porous boundaries became visible in the two-way flow of space and rhythmic connection of forms between interior and exterior: the pinnacles of the church tower echoing the plug and socket for example.
Above: DETAIL from Alexandra Blum, Home IV, 2020, graphite on paper, 53 x 70.4cm (including frame), £950 SOLD. Room VIII, number 1162.
Photo credit: John Howard Davies
I also wanted to record the tiny events I noticed taking place both within the confines of my flat and the wider city beyond : a pigeon gliding on the wind...
Above: DETAIL from Alexandra Blum, Home IV, 2020, graphite on paper, 53 x 70.4cm (including frame), £950 SOLD. Room VIII, number 1162.
Photo credit: John Howard Davies
...part of a cloud drifting slowly upwards...
Above: DETAIL from Alexandra Blum, Home IV, 2020, graphite on paper, 53 x 70.4cm (including frame), £950 SOLD. Room VIII, number 1162.
Photo credit: John Howard Davies
.....creases newly formed in a cushion....
Above: DETAIL from Alexandra Blum, Home IV, 2020, graphite on paper, 53 x 70.4cm (including frame), £950 SOLD. Room VIII, number 1162.
Photo credit: John Howard Davies
....or the blind chain moving in the breeze, for example.
In this way, a story of place begins to emerge. A story not of fixed elements but of multiple strands. Strands which temporarily come together before drifting apart, potentially ready to form subsequent, new interrelationships. My hope is that my drawings convey this fluctuating interweaving of events within the places I encounter daily.
Above: Alexandra Blum, Home IV, 2020, graphite on paper, 53 x 70.4cm (including frame), £950 SOLD. Room VIII, number 1162.
Photo credit: John Howard Davies
Here's a reminder of the whole of Home IV, which is number 1162 in Room VIII.
The Summer Exhibition is open Tuesday - Sunday 10 am - 6pm, Friday 10am - 9pm, 18 June - 18 August 2024, at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BD Further information here
I hope you will look out for my drawings if you go to the show!
To find out about availability of further drawings in each series, please contact me here.