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….
________________
Philip Braham
Click to enlarge
We stumbled upon the piece called “Ophelia Bathing” – oil on canvas, 183x122cm, and instantly appreciated the hazy feel of the depicted landscape.
It made us feel like diving in this river or enjoy a long and lazy lie down on one of its banks.
About the artist
Represented by the Roger Bilcliffe gallery at this year’s London Art Fair, Philip Braham is a Scottish artist whose paintings and photographs emerge from the Northern European engagement with landscape as a metaphor for the human condition. Recent projects reflect on the temporal nature of our existence through personal recollection and collective history, set within the slowly evolving landscape that bears us forward. Fidelity to experience is fundamental to his practice, and this brings a poetic grace to his technical mastery of oil painting and silver-based photography.
Now in its 6th year, Meeting of Styles UK took place again in London. This event was organised by End Of The Line and offer an awesome 3 days of painting and hip hop.
More pictures after the fold
We could only attend one day but truly enjoyed the authenticity of the event and were pleased to see that it was held at Nomadic Community Gardens, in the heart of East london. This area has become I hear a must-go to see Street Art in London. Other pop up spots included Allen Gardens, Pedley Street, Grimsby Street & Scalter Street.
When we got the email about this show –The Golden Age of Grotesque by SEPE (aka Michał Sepe Wręga), we immediately got very excited as we knew for sure that it would be a good one.
We have been following SEPE at Art-Pie for a while now and know he’s destined to great things and achievement in the art world.
> More pics at the bottom of this article
What is the show about?
“Lawrence Alkin Gallery are thrilled to present ‘The Golden Age of Grotesque’, the provocative and alluring UK debut solo show from Polish street artist Sepe. The brand new body of work explores current socio-political issues, demonstrating Sepe’s unique ability to cross the boundary between subjective and abstract depiction. ” Sam Rhodes, Director at Lawrence Alkin Gallery.
This is the artist’s first solo show in the UK presenting 19 brand new works prepared especially for the exhibition, most of them done in 2015.
There you have it. We unfortunately missed the opening night but to be honest, it is sometimes difficult to fully enjoy the art on display when galleries are overcrowded with people. Instead we visited the next day, only encountering one or two souls wandering the premises. This actually worked out very well as we could thoroughly enjoyed Sepe’s artworks.
As soon as you enter the Lawrence Alkin gallery, you cannot miss a rather imposing piece – “Follow the leader”
Follow the leader by SEPE | Art-Pie
Details below of the “Follow the leader” piece
You can’t help but notice the illustrative feel that Sepe’s art transpires.
The artists himself agrees on it “My paintings are strongly rooted in illustration. This way of perception works the best when supported by some kind of story behind it.”
He adds “We managed to gather all humans’ knowledge into one place. Made it available to everyone, everywhere by creating a worldwide network and we use it mainly to share sweet photos of puppies. What is it then if not The Golden Age Of Grotesque…?”
What is the underlying story behind “The Age of grotesque”?
Like many artists featured on this site, Sepe’s background lies in graffiti. He has been an active member of the Warsaw (Poland) graffiti scene where he currently lives.
This exposure to the energy of the city and its streets has definitely opened the artist’s sensitivity and increased his social awareness. Indeed with this show, Sepe wanted to emphasise how the “world gets totally dominated by the vain celebrity culture, focused on creating fake images of itself just for the show and turning everything into pop mush for sale.”
“Hunters” by SEPE | Art-Pie
SEPE’s work is centralised around you and me, around humans and perhaps it is about where we are heading to – Modern societies tend to alienate individuals;our only refuge is seemingly joining the crowd where acknowledgment matters most. We then share moments via social media, often with souls unknown to us, and yet somehow that makes us feel good, as though we somehow now belong.
Rhythm and energy
Another remarkable aspect of SEPE’s work is how well he captures life moments on the canvas: bold, energetic and rhytmic. Indeed, his way of applying fat brush strokes gives the viewer a sense of movement and that takes away the static notion of a still scene.
As we were wandering around the gallery, this in particular became more and more obvious as well as remarkable.
“Far from ok” by SEPE | Art-Pie
The artist’s vision of our current society is not that reassuring and the somewhat recurrent use of circus related elements – circus music, belly dancers, clowns on stilts, monkeys riding small bicycles and firework displays adds to it, making the whole thing very chaotic and scary.
How often are sad clowns used in movies to scare the sh*t ouf of you uh?
The show runs until the 4th July 2015. Find out more about The Golden Age of Grotesque show at Lawrence Alkin Gallery
This exhibition aims to show Chila Kumari Burman’s work from 2000 to the present. For more than twenty five years Chila has been creating powerful images of contemporary Asian Feminisms.
Born in Liverpool to a Hindu Punjabi family Chila’s art explores issues of class, gender, ethnicity, identity – but through the prism of defiance and love. Her work is informed by popular culture, Bollywood, fashion, found objects and a long-sustained examination of self-portraiture.
The exhibition will showcase a dazzling array of media: printmaking, collage, mixed media, photography, sculpture and painting. Through all of these media Chila’s aim remains steady: the provocative undermining of fixed categories.
A definite must-see show
What – MAJAJANI When – Fri 3 April – Thu 30 April Where – Rich Mix, 35 – 47 Bethnal green road, Shoreditch (Mezzanine + Lower Cafe Gallery)
I was up for a treat, a helicopter fly and guess what, I got another treat: the Great British Sculpture Show currently in full swing at Hatfield house.
After having been thrilled by the helicopter excursion, I was eager to come back down to earth and wander amongst the bronze, wood and stone sculptures set against the formal topiary of the famous gardens and enchanting woodland at Hatfield House
There was over 70 sculptures from 22 artists such as David Goode, Geoffrey Dashwood, Hamish Mackie, Ian Rank-Broadly and Etienne Millner but we’ll focus on Wilfred Pritchard for now
About the artist – Wilfred Pritchard is the “nom de guerre” for the sculptures of Eddie Powell. He is owner and curator of The Sculpture Park, works as a Photographer as Eddie Powell and Sculptor as Wilfred Pritchard and has sold many sculptures worldwide privately from The Sculpture Park and through various auction houses, including Sothebys and Christies.
Now, skeletons are the fundamental basis for teaching sculpture. Luvvie has one included in his Sculpture School for reference and many have pinned them together in various forms. Wilfried Pritchard is just doing this and you can encounter a series of rather comic sculptures like a group of dancing skeletons.
WHAT – The Great British Sculpture Show WHEN – 5 April to 30 September WHERE – Gardens of Hatfield House in Hertfordshire
