Colin Ruffell

POWER AND POLITICS IN ART This is a big subject for a blog post. So goodness knows where to begin. First of all, what is art? Then what is ‘power and politics’? Then how does one fit in with the other? What is art? Art is the result of creating something beautiful or imaginative. There are lots of different kinds of art. For my blog posts I focus on the visual arts rather than performing, written, or audible arts. So usually there is nothing about films, theatre, music, poems

The gender divide in art In my recent blog post I questioned whether women artists were taking over. That was a rhetorical question based on a personal observation that there are often a majority of women artists in the galleries and exhibitions nowadays. That is actually fine by me, but it prompted a couple of other questions. The first extra question in the blog was whether women have always been just as artistic as men or not. And secondly whether women artists have been u

Abstract by Colin Ruffell Abstract Art and Non-Subjective Art The subject of abstract art and non-subjective art came up again the other day as I was updating some descriptions on my websites. I found myself drawn to the phrase that I had used to explain myself as an abstract painter many years ago. The phrase that I had used to fend off my critic was ‘ abstract art is like music without words’. I don’t know where it came from. Actually the similar concept of ‘frozen music’ i