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Sunday 13 June 2010

Victoria Tower Gardens ellies

On Friday morning on my way to a team meeting, I passed these wet and bedraggled ellies near Westminster.  I was very surprised to learn that this park was called Victoria Tower Gardens - I had no idea!  It's much more Westminster than Victoria in my mind.  I am certainly learning much more about London in this exploration and elephant hunt. 

This is #250 Haecceity.  I didn't even know this was a real word - but here's the definition, according to Wikipedia ...

Haecceity (from the Latin haecceitas, which translates as "thisness") is a term from medieval philosophy first coined by Duns Scotus which denotes the discrete qualities, properties or characteristics of a thing which make it a particular thing. Haecceity is a person or object's "thisness".  So culturally enlightening, as well as visually satisfying! 




The decoration is a pastiche of aerial photographs of people.  You can also see the raindrops - it was raining at the time. 

Here is #192 - bird 2.  The paint is quite thick on this ellie - you can really see the layers.  This elephant was created by Patricia Shrigley.  Artist's Inspiration: "London crows, These are my sanity in concrete landscapes."



Last one in this group is #171 - Jarlo.  Lovely and bright on a horribly dull morning. 

After work, I caught the tube to the city, and walked around in the early evening and also got lost quite a bit!  I saw some very pretty ellies, so more to come soon .....

4 comments:

  1. Thanks to you and your wonderful photos I am soon to be giving a home to 2 small ellies. I looked at the shop with a view to buying a book of photos of the exhibits and succumbed to a couple of diddy ones instead. I will not feel guilty as it's for a very good cause; having to explain their presence might be another matter.

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  2. Love Haecceity! she is so unusual! and bird 2! Wow! fab colours on her too! wish i could make it to the exhibit when it opens! Well done for taking the pics and making the Elephants profile more visual to us country bods that live in the sticks!

    xxx

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  3. Oooh love Haecceity what a fab idea! I also love things that have thick paint strokes on so bird 2 is lovely and Jarlo is pretty cute too!

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  4. I am just adoring all these Ellies - thank you so much Ali for bringing them to those of us that cannot make it into London to see them.

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