Lava Gallery has been cranking out quality shows on a week by week basis, this time, Co-founder and art director of the Lava Gallery Ashes57 presented her new body of work entitled “On the wild side”.
This show is simply good fun, the centre piece being a huge 3d installation featuring her trade mark line drawn city scape’s and characters like the sitting dog. Ashes’ line drawing style has a great flow and creates allot of depth, You will discover something different in her work every time you look at it.
The show features a collection of hand drawn city scape’s, hand painted canvases and limited run prints, a good mix of work and plenty to keep your attention.
There was a great vibe and good turn out on the night, plenty of drinks were had and a few tunes grooved to courtesy of live DJ’s.
See the rest of the pics from the opening night here:
Abstract painter Sandra Blow’s new show at Fine Art Society is entitled “Eleven Works” and is opening on the 9th January 2017.
“Stripes” by Sandra Blow | detail
The Fine Art Society will present eleven large- scale canvases by the English abstract painter Sandra Blow RA (1925-2006). Spanning a period of almost 30 years, the show will include a number of works which have never been exhibited before.
A pioneer of the abstract art movement in the 1950s, Sandra Blow is best known for her monumental canvases experimenting with abstract form, rhythm, light, space, and texture. Blow introduced a new expressive informality into British art, combining cheap, discarded materials such as sawdust and plaster with the more conventional medium of paint. Her unique manner of abstraction was strongly influenced by the Italian artist Alberto Burri, who she met in Italy in 1946.
Arriving on the London art scene in 1950, Blow quickly received international recognition and went on to exhibit throughout Europe and America alongside the most important artists of the day. Her canvases became increasingly graphic, colourful and exuberant as her career developed, as did her ambition of scale.
Blow moved from London to St Ives in 1994, but continued to participate in every Summer Exhibition at Burlington House, fulfilling her role as a Royal Academician, which she was elected for in 1971. St Ives and the sea inspired the strong but subtle use of colour that characterises a number of canvases featured in this exhibition.
“The Swimmer” by Sandra Blow, Acrylic On Canvas | Click to enlarge
The artist John Mclean described Sandra Blow as “the most amazing colourist and the most original composer of a painting we have had in recent years”, comparing her to the likes of Matisse and Mirò. Indeed, the grand statements presented in this exhibition suggest that her importance is yet to be fully recognised.
Sandra Blow’s work is included in a number of major international private and public collections including the Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. An exhibition to celebrate Blow’s 80th birthday was held at Tate Britain in 2005.
Thanksgiving is one week away and we again browsed the web in search of street art related to the American public holiday. We included some of our findings below
Happy Thanksgiving!
1. New Haven (USA)
This piece is located in New Haven and on Water street (USA), well it was back in 2009 so we are guessing it must be gone. Great piece though. We like the way the lettering works has become dishes like details of the artwork
About Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a public holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States. It originated as a harvest festival. Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, after a proclamation by George Washington.
It has been celebrated as a federal holiday every year since 1863, when, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November.
Together with Christmas and the New Year, Thanksgiving is a part of the broader holiday season.
I always wondered if I could appreciate ‘digital painting’ as much as more traditional painting, what I mean by that is art which is made with brushes or pencils on some panels or canvases as opposed to via a computer.
Call me old fashion but I like thinking about artists spending hours in their studio, stroking or splashing paint on canvases but I must admit, I now also get exciting with this computer assisted method of painting that we call ‘Digital painting’
Simon’s paintings and stories take place in an alternate version of Sweden in the 80s and 90s. The central location is the countryside of Mälaröarna, a string of islands and half islands just west of Stockholm. The background is this:
In the 1950s, the Swedish government orders the construction of a large particle accelerator. The state agency RIKSENERGI is tasked with developing this massive project. In 1969 the The Facility For Research In High Energy Physics is ready, located deep below the pastoral Mälaröarna-countryside. The local population soon calls it THE LOOP.
From it’s inception to it’s closure in 1994, The Loop was the largest accelerator in the world. The thousands of staff: scientists, engineers and maintenance workers, all serve Riksenergi during these years – and makes possible tremendous scientific advances. But the power of the Gravitron, the heart of the accelerator, proves difficult to control. The side effects of the project are dramatic. Strange sightings and bizarre rumours taints the scientific image of The Loop.
In the shadow of the weird machines filling the countryside, life continues as normal. The kids of Mälaröarna grew up living above the technological marvel of The Loop, but for them it was just a part of their very ordinary lives. Until strange beasts from another time showed up, that is.
About Simon Stålenhag
Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag burst onto the art scene in 2013 when his first series of paintings were shared on the Internet. His original blend of naturalistic landscape paintings with science fiction elements and a very low key recollection of growing up in the eighties struck a chord. Not just in Sweden, but all over the world.
Based in Stockholm, Sweden, Simon uploaded his first digital paintings onto the Internet in 2013, since then he has become something of a phenomena in the art and sci-fi communities. Simon shares his time between a small cabin at Mälaröarna (the setting that inspires his work) and an apartment in Stockholm.
“Lacan revises and enriches the myth of Narcissus, so passionately in love with his image that he plunges into the water and is drowned.”[1]
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Bathroom, (c)2011 Hayley Harrison
The mirror holds peril. Revealing truths unwanted or enticing the loss of the self to an objectified world. The creation of our self-identity begins with how we respond to our image in the mirror in infancy. We either recognize the ‘other’ and begin the process of socialization or we retreat to find the maternal object and become locked in the death wish.[2] Psychoanalytical theory is of course more complex and involved than that simple description. But the significance in the simplified description is the relationship of self to object. We begin to understand we are an object which occupies space, distinct from others or we seek the comfort and reassurance of objects to satisfy our longing, beginning to see everything as an object available to satisfy us.
In Kleinian theory, the ‘internal object’ is “a mental and emotional image of an external object that has been taken inside the self. The character of the internal object is coloured by aspects of the self that have been projected into it. A complex interaction continues throughout life between the world of internalised figures and objects and in the real world…the state of the internal object is considered to be of prime importance to the development and mental health of the individual.”[3]
Her, (c)2011 Hayley Harrison
We are bound to objects as a means to understand the world, ourselves and the complex relationships we have throughout life. Any kind of exploration of self and identity must perforce include a discussion of objects. This ‘Me’ of Mine has delved into several aspects of this ‘object relationship’, through the work of Kate Murdoch and memory association with personal identity development, Annabel Dover and the complex personal codes and emotions imposed on objects, Cathy Lomax and objects which represent self-image and emotional states and now with the work of Hayley Harrison and her use of objects as an expression of an inner self:
“I think we have to be in the ‘right’ place both internally and externally and that’s when a conversation occurs. For me self-recognition through the external is experienced in its ‘purest’ form when we are here, now, rather than through our pasts or futures. We can be taken off guard by something, something perhaps poetic that throws us into the present. Whatever that something is, we just have to come into relationship with it. When we experience one of these rare conversations between the internal and external I believe we come back to ourselves, much like Jacques Lacan’s famous discourse with the sardine can. Ultimately within these moments we are looking into a mirror.”
Tokyo has always been a mistery to me, one of these cities that will you blow away for sure. What follows would certainly water my eyes. At the occasion of the Tokyo Hotaru festival that just happened, one of a kind of installation was made where LED lights were the main ingredient. LED lights are awesome, aren’t they?
100,000 LED lights, that is what it took to give to the onlookers an astonishing spectacle. The aim here was to suggest hotaru (fireflies) with those lights that floated down the Sumida River through central Tokyo.
Beyond the purdy effect, let’s note that the LEDs were designed to light up upon contact with water and were 100% powered by solar energy. Let’s also mention the reference to a long gone practice were people used to to gather, it seems, around clean, running water, searching for these luminous creatures.
First seen on www.spoon-tamago.com. All credits to the pictures below can be found on this website
Detail of “Hofbauergasse” | This piece will be in our next show
We were thrilled to receive James’ submission for our upcoming edition of The Creative Bubble, a multi-discipline pop up event atRoxy Bar and Screen, London. James has been following us for a while and we are delighted to give him the opportunity to showcase his work.
We asked a few questions to the man about himself and his art –
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Art-Pie – Can you tell our readers about yourself in a few words?
James Kinsella – I am Visual Artist, practicing and living in Vienna, Austria. I received my M.A. in Visual Arts Practices from IADT Dun Laoghaire, Dublin.
I have an ongoing work The Socialmaterialbank project, it is an art platform that identifies and maps critical issues that are of immediate concern to our global community. We present the public with questions on these issues and invite the participants to share their responses on the Socialmaterialbank. We collect and document the participant’s responses and collective instructions, on our platform – the Socialmaterialbank. Website at www.jamespkinsella.org
Through painting and screen-printing I explore how we build and perceive our concept of home by ‘investigating’ my subconscious and unconscious records and views of Vienna!
Art-Pie – Can you tell us about your creative process and where does your inspiration come from?
James Kinsella – I believe that through art we can engage with local communities and through participation, commoning and consensus arrive at and create a better and more sustainable world. I paint, draw, photograph and create instillations and I have a social practice (Participatory) where I use my varied art skills to engage with local people at festivals, events and galleries here in Vienna.
Art-Pie – Give us the name of three artists you admire or like?
James Kinsella – I really like all artists as they dedicate so much of their energy to the arts. But as I presently live in Vienna, here I admire Egon Scheele, Gustav Klimt and Viennese Actionism – Brus, Mühl, Nitsch and Schwarzkogler.UK artists, Tracey Emin, David Hockney and Lucian Freud
Art-Pie – Street art is something we like at Art-Pie, what is your take on that form of art?
James Kinsella – Street art has always engaged and impressed me, it occupies public space and is an ancient effective, low cost, un-censored way of communication with the public. To me it’s sort of a democratic way of claiming public space and questioning the statuesque. My wife is a Roman Archaeologist and I had the privilege to attend a lecture by an American Lecturer, that included text on Roman graffiti and street art – it was amazing, shocking, surprising and beautiful lots of sex and erotica. I really admire Art- Pie for their consistent exposure, support and promotion of Graffiti artists, please keep it going as support is needed.
Art-Pie – Are there any other projects or shows that you will be involved with for the rest of 2015 that you want share with us?
James Kinsella – I post my up and coming shows on my website: www.jamespkinsella.org I am organising a number of shows presently but no fixed dates at the moment.
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WHAT – The Creative Bubble, POP UP Art Gallery, Spoken Word, Poetry, Short Films, Music & Networking WHERE – Roxy Bar and Screen, 128-132 Borough High Street, London SE1 1LB WHEN – Wed 29/4/2015 (POP UP art gallery opening night) / Thursd 30 (Spoken word)
We strolled through the London Art Fair for the fourth consecutive year and as always stumbled upon remarkable artworks from ever so talented artists.
In this series, we will tell you why we liked a particular piece from these artists as well as posting more works. We hope you will also enjoy it as we did.
Feel free to comment too at the end of this article. Let’s get started….
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Shaun Doyle & Mally Mallinson
We stumbled upon the piece called “Sumo Ergo Sum(I shop therefore I am)” – cast bronze, edition of 9, H 42.5 x W 45 x D 56cm.
Click to enlarge
The skeleton sculpture, like any other ones to be honest, tickled our eyes right away.
Looking at the skull face expression, it was clear to us that it conveys a strong social message which was confirmed after reading up about the artists – keep on reading below.
About the artists
Our work deals with political and social thought. The forms we use to articulate our ideas often come from popular culture or are second hand, borrowed from another source. The way we put things together is witty, cheeky and aggressive; it mirrors the way we talk to each other. Context within our work is deliberately inconsistent. That inconsistency is our attempt to accommodate the messiness of the real world and allows different audiences different readings.
The lived-in, shabby aesthetic employed reflects the environments that excite us – the underfunded regional museum, the car boot sale, the dump; places where value systems are fluid, more confused or don’t exist at all. In these situations, forms and ideas have the potential to acquire alternate meanings and take on a new life. Through re-imagining objects and their identities we explore the processes of cultural transformation that take place after an object or idea has served its initial purpose. This re-cycling is a means of distilling useful agents; elements approaching redundancy are stripped down, re-formed and re-packaged. The results challenge the cleaner more commercial concerns of some other art forms and celebrate the possibilities of extreme behaviour and belief.
“If there is value which is of value, it must lie outside of all happening and being so. For all happening and being-so is accidental.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
6.41, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus
This quote from Wittgenstein is a profound statement on the nature of occurrence and existence – ‘happening and being-so’. Whichever way we look at it, occurrence and existence is accidental. The beauty and simplicity of Wittgenstein’s statement sweeps away the clutter of chance and places value squarely in purpose. It suggests circumstance (context) is a force of chance. This ‘Me’ of Mine asks if purpose can challenge the force of chance.
Wittgenstein’s rational view makes folly of the attempt to find meaning in happening and being-so, but he leaves the door wide open to search for meaning in value and purpose. Kate Murdoch does just this through her work. She encourages her audiences to explore their purpose. Through her interactive exchanges, Kate presents situations which involve an active interchange between the public and her work, often with the public’s participation the greater force in the creation of art. Her audiences not only participate, they actually become part of the art through their active purpose. The generosity of this, both on Kate’s part and on the part of the audience, breaks down the barrier of the ‘art experience’ and presents an experience of art.
JB: …It could be said the value we associate with an object is in relation to the depth of emotion we experience in any given situation. Do you feel this to be true and what have you observed about this relationship through the interactive aspect of your work?
KM: …The emotional attachment we make to any given object can determine its worth in emotional terms as opposed to its monetary value. The very act of bartering adds an emotional reality to the process of exchange that currency somehow lacks…
This ‘Me’ of Mine is very proud to call Art Pie our Media Partner.
We are equally proud to call the four galleries below our Venue Partners. Click on a logo to find out more about the good work these organisations do.
