Ralph Lauren launches an open-call competition with a chance to win a commission-based award and placement within a mentorship program with some of Europe’s top talent! Continue reading Ralph Lauren ART STARS contest – creativity needed
Opening reception: Thursday 1st September 6.30 – 8.30 pm
Scream gallery will soon host Greg Miller’s first solo UK exhibition. The large-scale works artist will again use his creativity using collages.
His style is very much pop art-inspired paintings and his “Phantom Lady” got noticed this year at an Bonhams urban art sale earlier this year. See picture below.
“In his new work…Greg Miller brings the pictorial poise of Pop to the eloquent fury of street art, effecting a marriage – or at least a torrid affair – between two hot items. One item is hot today, the other has been hot for half a century, but in Miller’s hands there is no generation gap, only a spiritual union – one that generates a sky, or at least wall, full of sparks.” Peter Frank
Opening reception: Thursday 1st September 6.30 – 8.30 pm.
Please contact lee@leesharrock.co.uk for guest list
Opening times: Mon-Fri 10am-6pm; Sat 11am-5pm
Gallery address: Scream | 34 Bruton Street | London W1J 6QX
We were instantly moved when we looked at Victor Lundy’s sketchbook.
The quality of the drawings is impressive and the story behind them heart breaking : Victor Lundy’s documented his time in the army and fighting in the second world war.
We appreciate the soft yet very efficient touch in Lundy’s drawings. We feel that his drawings were done in one sitting, no erasing but a driving hand screen printing, if you like, what his eyes recorded.
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We learned that Victor Lundy was born in New York City in 1923 and very young, he showed some artistic skills which will lead him to attend New York University to study architecture, specialising in the Beaux Arts style.
Lundy did not have to be involved with war but the thought of doing his bit in rebuilding Europe once World War II was over was very strong, so much so that he voluntarily joined the Army and very quickly ended up at the very forefront of the action.
This is at that time where he would capture any faces, scenes or moments in his sketchbook.
We included a few drawings of the very evocative Victor Lundy’s sketchbook (all images below are courtesy of LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)
The Hallelujah World Tour is RETNA’s first solo exhibition in the UK. This show will present new works by Los Angeles based artist RETNA and will be hosted at the Old Dairy, London.
RETNA mixed inspirations from Asian calligraphy, Incan and Egyptian hieroglyphics, Hebrew and Arabic script to traditional UK gang style graffiti writings seen since the 1970’s in Los Angeles .
Where – The Old Dairy | 7 Wakefield St | London |WC1N 1PB
When – 9/6 till 27/6/2011 | Tuesday to Saturday | 11am to 6pm
Just watch it until the end. If you like graffiti and street art, you will watch it again.
We are surrounded by coded communications. The artists of This ‘Me’ of Mine present an interesting insight into the difference gender makes to interacting with these coded communications. Curiously, I became aware of this difference by posting snippets, sometimes almost cryptic messages, from some of the artists’ bios on Twitter. A few weeks ago I made these four tweets:
11 Sept 2012
@HarrisonHayley“a lover of objects and stories, not necessarily…historical sense but the bits that are not said. ”
12 Sept 2012
‘a set of anecdotes where meaning is levelled by celebrating the beautiful and grotesque,’ Mel Titmuss on her work
13 Sept 2012
@Captainpye on her work, ‘…a complex mixture of scientific observation and a girlish enthusiasm…’ @ThisMeofMine
14 Sept 2012
‘fascination w/passage of time…contrast between permanence of objects & fragility of human existence’ @katemurdochart
At the time, I remarked that when read together they presented a compelling view of the female point of view in art. Arguably so, yes. But then I realised something more, each of the artists in This ‘Me’ of Mine are working with, perhaps struggling with, this coded communication and there is a fascinating difference between the way the women artists explore this and the way the male artists explore it. The women speak of emptying out of memories, permanence of objects, invisible stories of objects, things left unsaid, equalizing meaning through comparison of opposites, fascination, obsession, fictions and mythologies, voyeurism, vulnerability and body language. The men speak of the limits of communicating meaning, uniforms and meaning, surprise and fear, answers just out of reach, hiding complexities within and stimulus triggering a response.
Before I go further, I want to point out there are many commonalities in the female and male views, such as removing things from context to challenge meaning, the insecurities of home, the influence of space, experience and the passage of time. So while I am not trying to create a gender-biased argument here, I was struck by the differences nonetheless.
It could be said the struggle to self-identify is the struggle to decipher coded communication. The way we go about that as males and females is indicative in the topics of importance to each group of artists. What does this say about us? Little girls are taught to believe in fairy-tales, romance and dream-come-true scenarios, encouraged to believe in the perfection of a future life, whether that is with Mr Right or more recently that we can do and have it all. Little boys are taught to believe in the importance of belonging to groups and the status which comes with that belonging, hiding their emotions, fears and all visible signs of weakness, encouraged to become providers and bread-winners. Both sexes have been taught to be competitive, in ways suitable to their sex. But if these things are to be challenged, is it really through gender wars? Wouldn’t it be more productive to realize the truth that living is hard no matter what your personal circumstances, there are no guaranteed outcomes and all you can do is the best you can in any given situation. Would prejudice and utopias disappear if we taught those simple realities to our children?
Would the message in the code change?
ROA is an artist that we are very familiar with being that he was one of the first artists we followed while in the UK. We lived around his street works and would see some of his iconic pieces on a day to day basis. We even attended his first ever solo show at Pure Evil Gallery in London. So we were extremely excited to hear that he would be extending his tour to Australia.
The focus of ROA’s work of course is monochromatic animals of epic proportions that are typically inspired by the wildlife in the regions that he visits. Australia is home to an enormous amount of native animals that cannot be found anywhere else in the world, so you could imagine that there was plenty to inspire a unique body of work.
The show was hosted by Form Gallery, a large space in Perth CBD. The installations were designed to lead you through a specific path so that you could view and interact with all of the larger pieces. At the entrance to the gallery was a ten foot high Kangaroo with two rotating doors mounted in the piece that lead you into the main room where there was a series of smaller yet still impressively interactive works on offer.
Something that was unexpected was the second large installation at the rear of the gallery, a desert bone yard of sorts, featuring walls of and a floor of red dirt synonymous with Western Australia.
ROA must have been under an incredible amount of pressure putting together this show in only 3 weeks and creating all the original pieces of art on location in Perth. The collection of recycled materials used for the pieces was just another beautiful part of the show which we later found out were mostly harvested from old warehouses in the Midlands. Yes, this Belgian artist really connected with this space and Australian culture.
This show runs all the way through to January next year, so if you find yourself on the other side of Australia, go check it out.
Check out the full photoset on flickr
You do not know what to do for Halloween. How about some zombie actions along with some pop corn and a good old classic horror movie?
Backyard Cinema Presents APOCALYPSE- a 3 day immersive iconic Zombie cinema takeover of Camden Lock Indoor Market. You should expect some live action zombies & swat teams. The courtyard will be stacked with zombies faces.
6 iconic zombie films are on the menu – ZOMBIELAND // EVIL DEAD // THE CABIN IN THE WOODS // 28 DAYS LATER // WORLD WAR Z // I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE
BACKYARD CINEMA APOCALYPSE EVENT LISTINGS:
WHAT: Backyard Cinema Presents: Apocalypse – an iconic Zombie film takeover
WHERE: Camden Lock Indoor Market
WHEN: 31st October – 2nd November
PRICE: Early Bird Tickets – £12
Full information here: http://www.backyardcinema.co.uk
Digital Media, the new solo exhibition by Skullphone, aims to bring the playfulness, obsession, irony and anxiety of the Los Angeles-based artists’ renowned street installations into the Subliminal Projects space.
In Digital Media, Skullphone examines the contradictions inherent in outdoor digital signage, demonstrating cause for both wonder and concern over the increasingly ubiquitous medium. The artist explores advertising, government and private enterprise signage, and the California landscape on which outdoor media proliferate, making permanent on panels what is removable and reprogrammable in outdoor space.
Although of the same spirit as his past work, Digital MediaIthink marks a distinct visual departure for the artist. His use of mirror-polished, black-painted aluminum panels is a cold and slick leap from past works on found wood, weathered metal, and wheat-pasted paper. Skullphone’s painting technique employs a deliberate dot grid system, and his painted color is expanded to a limited palette of red, green and blue. This shift corresponds to the artist’s recent inspirations and exploits with outdoor digital media. Through painted pointillism, the imagery dislocates as the artwork is approached.
N.B: The words above have been taken from the website www.subliminalprojects.com
Watch below the preview of the show which is currently running until the 2nd July 2010 at the SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS GALLERY, Los Angeles, USA.
ART-PIE
A document filming and following the entire Burning Candy crew is being shot right now. Their Street Art is a familiar visual encounter on the walls of London and especially in East London and on Brick Lane.
This movie is still being shot but the preview material is now ready to be shown to lucky people. Indeed, only a couple of sessions for about 12 guests each time will take place at 7pm on Tuesday May 4th and Thursday May 6th at Black Rat Projects so to get the chance to assist RSVP yourself now at and hope to be one of the randomly selected. Continue reading Dots : a Burning Candy film
