Ernest Zobole Mutates into Karel Appel

Horribly early it was, feeling like the small and terrible hours of the night, as the Cardiff train passed through uninhabited moon country on the dark side of the earth, while an unmildly irritating man hollered constantly into two mobile phones and thumped the table.

I'm on my way to the Museum of Cardiff, to choose a painting to rework/retake/reinvent/re-anything.

I'm thinking about the painter Ernest Zobole, particularly about his interiors that include himself, perhaps in the act of painting, falling,angsting. The artist's stride in a confined space. The way the outside comes inside, and the thoughts impose on the outside through ordinary windows.

I'm hoping to see a Zobole today, not sanguine but hoping.

I want his wrong perspective, his bung-everything-in-ness, his moonlight streetlight colours, his hint of that terrible villain, veridian green. How useful yet how awful it can be. I like Zobole.

This is a lovely train if you don't mind it having a mission to stop at every conceivable benighted opportunity. Nearly 6 hours later I arrive at the grand doors of the museum, on the dot of 11am as arranged. How cool was that?

'To unravel a torment you must begin somewhere'
Louise Bourgeois said this apparently. It's surely wise?

I'm not easy to please. I'm a grumpy old woman. I spend a long time in the supermarket deciding between 2 different kinds of fishcakes when I don't even like fish. I like art to mean something. Really. I don't mind if it takes effort. There's art and there's Art.

Gilly Thomas

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