The Loughran Gallery’s January Group Show on Cadogan Gardens is currently showcasing works from:
Charlie Barton, Corinne Dalle-Ore & Damien Hirst, as well as Dale vN Marshall, Dave White,Frédérique Morrel, Jessica Zoob, Nick Jeffrey & Piers Bourke.
The group show will come to a close on January 29th, marking the last exhibition in their four-month Cadogan Gardens residency.
This week debuts the 2016 London Art Fair at the Business Design Centre in Islington, running from Thursday January 20th – Sunday the 24th.
Find out what’s being said about this year’s Fair – #LAF16
The London Art Fair 2016 features 126 carefully selected modern British and contemporary galleries, displaying work by over 1,000 artists covering the period from the early 20th century to the present day.
> Preview main Fair galleries
> Preview Art Projects galleries
Highlights include:
Thursday 21 January including Thursday Late in association with Peroni Nastro Azzurro
The Fair stays open until 9pm for a special programme including a performance and a PLAY ART DATA MONEY game jam. More information
Friday 22 January
Find out how artists are responding to today’s migrant crisis and whether London’s international reputation as a city of culture is at risk due to soaring rental prices. More information
Saturday 23 January
Key stakeholders in the UK contemporary gallery sector discuss the affect that increasing adoption of social media is having on art buying behaviour and Magnum photographer Olivia Arthur reveals her Desert Island Pics. More information
Sunday 24 January
Family-friendly workshops inspired by Julian Charriere’s current exhibition at Parasol unit for contemporary art. More information
Opening their 2016 exhibition programme, the Lawrence Alkin Gallery welcomes STATIC to host a solo exhibition presenting their unique layered glass reinterpretations of 8-bit video game graphics.
The show has been born out of the duo’s massively successful Game On! image released early 2015. Press Play reflects on the sub-culture of gaming and how since its inception in the mid-twentieth century it has carved for itself its own sub-culture and global following, which now has far reaching influences. The new work and exhibition also reflects back on how these early graphics have come to influence and inspire contemporary design.
Featuring images from a host of well-known, iconic, games from both arcade machines and early home entertainment systems such as Tetris, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Super Mario & Pac Man, this show promises to start your year with a bang!
Pam Glew is a well-established, contemporary British artist, best known for her unique bleaching technique on fabric, vintage flags, and handmade vintage quilts. We’ve written about her previously and are excited to again with her fourth London Show since 2011, Wanderlust Hotel.
Inspired by the goings on in legendary hotels such as Chelsea Hotel and Hotel Marmont,’Wanderlust Hotel’ is a fictional guest house frequented by illicit overnight guests and dark secrets. Self-staged photo shoots make up the majority of the subjects.
Populated by the weekend girlfriend, the bride, the maid, the mixologist, the sleeping porter, the receptionist and the VIP guest all swapping roles and sweeping in and out of the pictures frames.
Formerly trained in Theatre Design, in this series the artist explores an imaginary world; a fictional hotel, an invented environment and a narrative where the players in the hotel encounter each other within the hotel. The archetypes are empathetically reflected on in the Bellboy sleeping, and the melancholic maid, sometimes humourous (the Call Girl on a visit to Vegas encounters the ‘Glitter Gulch’ signage), and turned on their head (the bride has a revolver, who is also the same model as the call girl).
Acting is a common theme, and the ‘play’ idea is explored in the miniature hotel model. Here the hotel is bereft of people as if the residents are now only present in the paintings. The models in the work occupy more than one role, as a metaphor for how fate and luck play a part in our lives. In ‘Sisters’ the artist explores a meeting of 2 estranged identical twins. One of which is the maid, one the VIP. An imagined rift is between them as if they have not spoken in years. The heavy quilt is embellished with swarovski crystals which appears to elevate the characters appearance, the maid’s headpiece appearing more like a crown.
The medium Glew uses is dye and bleach. The use of fabric, and dyeing, washing and sewing is used as a metaphor for ‘women’s work’. Glew celebrates women in the history of art who have been overlooked due to an element of ‘craft’ in their work. Sourcing antique and vintage american quilts and national flags, the fabric of the work is as important as the image itself. Using quilts to insinuate sleep and slumber, the textiles are rich in both history and texture. Decontructing large American flags to just the stars they become less about the location and more visceral.
