listings

Category: Art

AGATA LASKOWSKA- Study on human emotion.

Degree Art’s Signature Art Prize opens with a Spitalfields gala show on Tuesday 25th September, celebrating the very best newcomers to the art scene. Four category winners in Painting, Photography, Sculpture and Mixed Media will be announced at the opening, and from there the exhibition will move to Degree Art's Execution Room in Vyner Street.

NJ LARDER – girl with the pearl earring.

The final work has been judged by a host of arts world luminaries, including Mark Westall, Creative Director of Fadwebsite, Marissa Cox of Online Arts Editor for Art Wednesday and Chris Pensa, founder of Love Art London.

Below is a selection of the work on show.

Gonny Van Hulst – Friend of Dorothy.

Matthew Spencer – Graffitied fighter jet in woods.

STUART RUSSELL – Kinross.

Molly Goldwater – Yellow.

Caroline Pick – onetwo.

Seung Ah Paik – Self-watchers.

Check out www.degreeart.com for more information!
 

Category: Art

In their latest collaboration Anna Burns and Thomas Brown have dived into high machismo world of B-Movie staples; guns, girls and explosives but with a very British twist. What could be more British than mixing these iconic b-movie tools with a giant wall of umbrellas and locating them in three stereotypical British landscapes; the forest, London’s docklands and the grounds of a Suffolk Manor house. The project is a multi-media presentation of film, photography and chandeliers produced over the past year.

Here Anna Burns describes how it all came together:

'This is really just self indulgent image making, pure and simple! I always find it's a good way to let off steam and do some work that is totally off the commission conveyor belt. A few years ago it was a book with Michael Baumgarten called the Deformers and now it's a project I have been working on for about 18 months with Tom Brown. It started as a purely stills project but the idea really lent itself to films and also to installation; hence it grew and began to take more and more time to produce. 

The basic premise was to build installations of printed umbrellas that when opened up create one huge image. The idea was to create big boisterous tongue-in-cheek images in very British settings: An AK47 on a graffitied background shot in a Norfolk forest, a 70's porn image found in a magazine I bought at a car boot sale that was set in an old factory and finally a giant 80's explosion featuring a Mustang in front of a manor house in Suffolk. 

The films play on the silliness of the installations, helped along with a soundtrack by MEAN RED who are a fantastic sound design duo that brought another level to the motion, adding a little 'climax' to each scenario – a puff of coloured smoke from the AK, some pigeons flying from the nether regions of the porn model and a giant real explosion burning the printed explosion.

The show features three films, a selection of prints showing the outdoor installations and some carefully lit still lives of select umbrellas. In the space there are also three giant upturned umbrellas which have been made into chandeliers printed with collages designed from the original artwork.' Amazing.

Category: Art

Let's Fika! showcases the work of six Swedish illustrators, several of whom have worked for Amelia's Magazine. It will be a visual celebration of the tradition of Fika, which is an essential part of life in Sweden. It's about relaxed socialising, taking a break from hectic lives to catch up with friends (traditionally) over a cup of coffee. The word “fika” can serve both as a verb and a noun and Swedes consider having coffee an important part of their culture. Fika has such a vast meaning and the work presented will reflect various interpretations of having a fika.

Bear Fika by Asa Wikman.

Fika Bar and Kitchen is a restaurant on Brick Lane that embraces the fika tradition wholeheartedly. It is a home away from home, where lots of lovely people come to eat, drink and relax. There could not be a better place to display the works surrounding the tradition of fika.

Featured illustrators are previewed here:

Fika by Emma Lofstrom.

Fika by Hanna Melin.

Ingemar Bergman by Danijela Dobric.

Kanelbulle by Karin Soderquist.

Reflection by Martin Wollerstam.

There is a private view on 13th September 4-6.30pm, and from 6.30 -11pm the restaurant is open to the public.

Opening times:
Mon – Thur: 09:00 – 23:00
Fri & Sat: 10:00 – 00:00
Sun: 10:00 – 23:00

Category: Art

Illustrator Jack Teagle is just one of the exciting artists who have been commissioned to take part in the first Foundation: Rug Addicts exhibition in the Dray Walk Gallery at the Truman Brewery. He got in touch to tell me about the project:

'11 artists have designed hand knotted rugs, which were woven in Cairo, Eygpt. It's been a great project that has helped out young people, by taking them on as apprentices to give them skills for work that they wouldn't otherwise be able to gain. Here's a photo of my half finished rug.'

Foundation Rug Addicts exhibition Anthony Burrill.

I love prints for the wall but putting artwork to good use can be even more exciting, and rugs provide the perfect surface to display big bold images – something which artist and designers are fast picking up on – Serge Seidlitz featured hand woven rugs in his exhibition Serge vs Spaceship Earth last year. Curators Mark Hanlon and Nick Hartwright have commissioned only one hand-woven rug of each design, which have then been produced on a centuries-old loom process in Egypt, so you'll be paying big prices for these pieces: ironically they may end up on the wall rather than the floor after all.
 

Featured artists include Anthony Burrill, Paul Insect, Pete Fowler, Present, Tomato, Alexone, Jack Teagle, Natasha Law, No Days Off, Si Scott and Yann Brien. 'These rugs have been a labour of love and have all taken around a year to make; from the creation of the artwork by our artists, to the many months of hand weaving on the looms in Cairo. The carpets will finally land at our exhibition in November. Because of this process each rug has become a unique masterpiece in its own right.' says Mark. 'We work with and support a local charity that helps kids in the slums of Cairo to get off the streets and into education,’ says Nick. ‘A percentage of our profit from every rug we sell goes directly into the project – we use only local, ethically sourced materials – so we wanted to give something back to the community. I’ve worked in the handmade carpet business for many years and the craftsmanship, knowledge and integrity of the loom operators, is second to none.'
 
This launch event showcases the first of many collections, each of which will feature a range of exciting artists and will make an equally vital contribution to the wellbeing of the communities of the Cairo slums. Find out more on Foundation: Rug Addicts website. The Private View is on Thursday 1st November, 6pm-10.30pm

Category: Art

A new print series in collaboration with The Wrong Shop showcases previously unseen works by some influential designers:

Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
Ronan Bouroullec (born 1971) and Erwan Bouroullec (born 1976) have been working together for almost 15 years. Their collaboration is a permanent dialogue nourished by their distinct personalities and a shared notion of diligence with the intention to reach more balance and fineness. The Paris-based brothers design for numerous international manufacturers, namely Vitra, Kvadrat, Magis, Kartell, Established and Sons, Ligne Roset, Axor, Alessi, Cappellini, Mattiazzi and more recently Flos and Mutina.

‘The drawings of the Bouroullec brothers are works of independent artistic value, whose tender, often crosshatched and at times almost naïve-seeming pictorial motifs create their own unique world of forms. They act as important steps within the design process to gradually move toward the ultimate proposal of a new object. The designers proceed like natural scientists who investigate and continually retest the forms of their own array of ideas with a spirit of curiosity.’ says Mateo Kries, Director of Vitra Design Museum.

Pierre Charpin
Pierre Charpin (born 1962) is a visual artist living and working in Ivry sur Seine, on the outskirts of Paris, France. Though he obtained his degree from the National School of Fine Arts in Bourges, he decided to concentrate on designing objects and furniture in the early 1990s, and has since embarked upon a number of research and production projects, carrying out his unflagging research under a variety of auspices. Since 2005, he has been working exclusively with Galerie Kreo for the production of limited edition pieces. He has also become involved in the actual production of his designs, teaming up with such big-name firms as Alessi, Issey Miyake Parfums, Ligne Roset, Montina, Pamar, Post Design, Schneider Electric, Tectona, Venini, and Zanotta.

‘Drawing is the point of departure for all my design projects, but I have always believed that it can also be an end in itself – something I call ‘drawing for drawing.’ I attach great importance to this practice because it is the link to my visual arts background and education. It is also the only time, as a designer, when I assume complete responsibility from the beginning to the end of the process. For the Loop series, produced and edited by The Wrong Shop, the original felt-tip pen drawings were converted using a basic vectorial program then screenprinted, or digitally printed. These ‘translated’ drawings possess a quality and a specificity of their own and while their interpretation remains close to the original they become new and different objects in themselves,’ says Pierre Charpin.

The Wrong Shop is an innovative new platform started by designer Sebastian Wrong that allows the world’s leading designers to explore their creativity with experimental pieces that require unorthodox methods of production. For this exhibition he works in collaboration with twentytwentyone, suppliers of furniture, lighting and accessories. Sounds like an interesting show!

Opening times:
Wed 19th -Sat 22nd Sept 9.30am-5.30pm
Sun 23rd Sept 11am-5pm

Reed + Rader: Cretaceous Returns

Dubstep Dinosaurs, Prehistoric GIFs & Video Games take over 18 Hewett Street

Thu 8th November 2012 – Tue 20th November 2012

18 Hewett Street, London EC2A 3NN