London Art Fair 2012. Detail of Andrea Mastrovito‘s Gulliver’s Travels.
You may remember from my previous blog that the launch of The Catlin Guide for the best graduate artists took place at the London Art Fair last week. I popped along to the Islington Business Design Centre to check out the completed guide, suss out which galleries are showcasing the best new talent, and find out what trends are hot in the art world right now.
Annie Whiles, detail.
First up at Danielle Arnaud I loved work by Annie Whiles, using simple line to create iconic shapes.
Simon Lewty, detail.
Simon Lewty for Art First showed amazing inked drawings: it’s well worth checking out the rest of his work.
Annie Morris, detail.
At Pertwee, Anderson & Gold, the first in a common theme was evident, rows of stuff: in this case hundreds of pegs, each decorated with a crudely drawn female figure. This Peg Piece was created by artist Annie Morris, who rose to fame after illustrating the children’s book The Man With the Dancing Eyes by Sophie Dahl.
Andrea Mastrovito, detail.
At Foley Gallery Andrea Mastrovito used intricate collaged paper for the Gulliver’s Travels series, which imagines a brightly coloured world of little people and puppet hands.
Diamond dust is hot news for use in prints, favoured by the likes of Damian Hirst, Peter Blake, and Justine Smith at TAG Fine Arts. Her lovely limited edition print of a bank note British Isles features oodles of the stuff. Common glitter was also a favourite enhancement for many artists.
Also at TAG I loved the work of Claire Brewster. The Harbingers featured exquisitely cut and mounted birds, created from old maps: Maps are another massive trend, reworked into any manner of different outcomes. Good to see so much upcycling!
Tobias Till showed a fabulous set of prints – the London A-Z, available as a boxed set and selling very well if the red dots were anything to go by.
Witness – Detail, by Rachel Shaw Ashton.
Of course TAG also host the work of Rob Ryan (read a review of his TAG art exhibition in 2010 here). More beautiful papercutting (still a massive trend) came from Rachel Shaw Ashton, showing with JaggedArt. She layers paper with pins to create simple shapes in pure white to great affect.
I was also drawn to the 3D sculpture by Tracey Bush. Little Clod of Earth is a clump of wild plants made from the dog ends of paper packaging – oddly beautiful and strange.
JaggedArt also hosts the work of Francisca Prieto, who once more works with old atlases and maps to create beautiful 3D repetitive works of art. We wrote about her recent exhibition Unbound.
USA based artist Charles Fazzino creates astonishing scenes with layers of paper. He calls it 3D pop art; showing with Galerie Olivier Waltman from Paris.
On a completely different tangent I was surprised to see the work of fashion photographer Derrick Santini, who showed lenticular artwork with Scream. Forget those cheesy Jesus postcards, these artworks feature an astonishing amount of different angles. I can see city types absolutely loving one of these on their penthouse apartment walls!
Russian Bear by Karen Nicol.
The Rebecca Hossack gallery always hosts interesting craft based artworks: Karen Nicol‘s Thread Bear utilised a vintage piece of French needlepoint as the basis, into which pieces have been embroidered and appliqued. I have a bad photo so here’s another similar piece.
Rebecca Coles also shows with Rebecca Hossack – you can read our extensive interview with this paper artist who specialises in butterflies here.
Rounding a corner I was pleased to see a wall of artwork by Simone Lia, who sells prints with Jealous Gallery. Her infamous Hello Sausage Hello Chicken has just been reissued in a new colour range. The gallery are also the purveyors of the prints from the Ghosts of Gone Birds exhibition, including the fab Ralph Steadman birds (read my review here).
More coming up shortly… don’t go away! *here’s part two of my review*
Categories ,2012, ,Anderson & Gold, ,Andrea Mastrovito, ,Annie Morris, ,Annie Whiles, ,art, ,Art First, ,Butterflies, ,Charles Fazzino, ,Claire Brewster, ,collage, ,craft, ,Damian Hirst, ,Danielle Arnaud, ,Derrick Santini, ,Foley Gallery, ,Francisca Prieto, ,Galerie Olivier Waltman, ,Ghosts of Gone Birds, ,Gulliver’s Travels, ,Hello Sausage Hello Chicken, ,Islington Business Centre, ,JaggedArt, ,Jealous Gallery, ,Justine Smith, ,Karen Nicol, ,Lenticular, ,Little Clod of Earth, ,London A-Z, ,London Art Fair, ,maps, ,Papercutting, ,Pegs, ,Pertwee, ,Peter Blake, ,prints, ,Rachel Shaw Ashton, ,Ralph Steadman, ,Rebecca Hossack Gallery, ,Rebecca J Coles, ,review, ,Rob Ryan TAG fine arts, ,Scream, ,Simon Lewty, ,Simone Lia, ,Sophie Dahl, ,textile, ,The Catlin Guide, ,The Harbingers, ,Thread Bear, ,Tobias Till, ,Tracey Bush, ,Unbound, ,Upcycling
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