Since the beginning of the year, I actually managed a fair few arty pursuits with friends. Here’s a quick record of what I’d seen:

Alexander McQueen retrospective at the NGV, Melbourne

Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse offers insight into McQueen’s far-reaching sources of inspiration, his creative processes and capacity for storytelling. Drawn from the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art – the exhibition reveals common themes and visual reference points that connect his practice with that of artists and designers throughout history.

— Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse

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Hidden Doors art festival, Edinburgh

I had only a very short time to run around the latest Hidden Doors venue, but my favourite installation by far was this audiovisual experience by Chell Young:

The experience consisted of an immersive AV projection space guiding you through a dreamy, nearly psychedelic beachside hike morphing into a stop-motion overnight campfire camping spot in the jungle, depicted by the shadow box above.

It was by far my favourite thing, touched something very core for me. The music and lights really transported me right inside the experience.

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Hilma af Klint exhibit at the Tate Modern, London

I was seriously looking forward to this show of one of my favourite recent artist finds, as part of the Forms of Life joint exhibition with Piet Mondrian’s works. I didn’t particularly care to see the Mondrian works, but they did add useful context to af Klint’s pieces in the end.

I was absolutely mesmerised by the Ten Largest, which were all shown in a single room together, absolutely dwarfing us and every other art piece in the show.

Photos don’t do these artworks justice. I have seen them all reproduced in art books in the past, so it was a massive surprise to find that the ones that were perhaps my least favourites before actually jumped off the wall with a mind-blowing richness of colour. In real life, I much preferred exactly the ones that seemed so flat and lifeless in the books. Their vibrancy and colour variation simply cannot be translated to print, or words.

I was in total awe and wished I could have spent more time there.

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And that’s a wrap, for the first half of the year anyway. I’m just grateful for having relatively easy access to places with art shows like this.