After some years attending the London Art Fair I have a fair idea of where to find the artists that will catch my eye. Here’s what I loved at this January’s show, held at the Business Design Centre in Islington.
John Stark: The Division of Labour. This eery tableaux features beekeepers poring ominously over their hives.
Also at Charlie Smith, Tom Butler once again showed that the trend for doctoring the faces of old photographs continues.
Jamie Taylor at John Martin Gallery has also been messing with faces, this time pixelating his painted version of an old portrait.
At Ink_D Gallery artist Matt Smith chose to deface the features on a tapestry. Myself and others clearly find this style oddly appealing; I wonder why? It seems to me a reference to the way the past is all eventually obliterated. The subjects of these works must have meant something to someone at some time, but we are swamped in a sea of memories that means nothing to anyone anymore.
I am more used to seeing porcelain sculpture by Katharine Morling in the Whitechapel Hospital, here she was showing with Long & Ryle.
London Babel by Emily Allchurch was selling well as a light box display. This powerful piece shows a future dystopia inspired by Brueghel’s Tower of Babel.
Bird Tree is the newest screen print from Simone Lia, on display with Jealous Gallery.
Paul Scott turns traditional ceramics practice on its head with his Cumbrian Blues series. This Palestine, Gaza plate sets the destruction of war against a traditional pattern.
This strange figurative work is called Dawn, by Berlin based artist Juliane Hundertmark.
Jane Ward at Bearspace Gallery specialises in super detailed digital collage landscapes, combining the urban and the natural in a dreamlike manner.
I am really taken with the surreal works of Guy Allott, who was showing with Grey Area Paris.
There was no title with this painting of a spooky house in a wintery landscape, but fortunately an artist friend on instagram was able to inform me that it is most probably by Mark Thompson.
Heather Nevay: Last Days in the Dollhouse. This Glasgow based artist produces extraordinarily strange vignettes inspired by the memories and dreams incapsulated in dolls.
I am a sucker for an evocative natural landscape and I love the way that Roland Corbin has captured the splendour of rock formations on the islands of Iona.
Geoff Diego Litherland creates an eery fantasy world in Spaceship Earth, showing at Antlers Gallery.
I love these photos of brutalist Soviet monoliths by Jan Kempenaers at Breese Little.
I am always a massive fan of Adam Dix, who was showing with The Contemporary London. I love the use of tapestry to make this footstool, titled Follow (kneeler).
Finally, Anaemic Archives by Christos Venetis is a series of delicate pencil drawings on old book covers. An engaging installation tucked away at TinT Gallery.
Categories ,2015, ,Adam Dix, ,Anaemic Archives, ,Antlers Gallery, ,Bearspace Gallery, ,Bird Tree, ,Breese Little, ,Business Design Centre, ,Charlie Smith, ,Christos Venetis, ,Cumbrian Blues, ,Dawn, ,Emily Allchurch, ,Follow (kneeler), ,Geoff Diego Litherland, ,Grey Area Paris, ,Guy Allott, ,Heather Nevay, ,Ink_D gallery, ,Iona, ,Jamie Taylor, ,Jan Kempenaers, ,Jane Ward, ,Jealous Gallery, ,John Martin Gallery, ,John Stark, ,Juliane Hundertmark, ,Katharine Morling, ,Last Days in the Dollhouse, ,London Art Fair, ,London Babel, ,Long & Ryle, ,Mark Thompson, ,Matt Smith, ,Palestine Gaza, ,Paul Scott, ,Roland Corbin, ,Simone Lia, ,Spaceship Earth, ,The Contemporary London, ,The Division of Labour, ,TinT Gallery, ,Tom Butler, ,Tower of Babel
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