All posts by Pierrick Senelaer

Founder of the Art-Pie site. I design and code websites and apps Monday to Friday from 9 to 5 and enjoy drawing, painting and visits to museums and galleries at night and weekends.
CONTEMPORARY ART, REVIEWS

The Unknown Room at Red gallery

Click to enlarge

We managed to get a glimpse of The Unknown Room at Red gallery. This installation was put together to coincide with Close Eyes to Exit, an exhibition at Red Gallery in London (2nd – 18th April) which celebrates the launch of the fifth issue of  LE GUN as well as number 6 of its sister publication: BARE BONES.

Le Gun and Bare Bones are two independently published paper funded entirely by its contributors. No editorial or commercial restraints, you and I with ideas can contribute and your work may get featured in their next show.

The Unknown Room stands right in a middle of the first room on the right when you get into the gallery and you get thge feeling that you are up for some bizarre and quirkiness but this would not surprise RED gallery regulars.

Luckily, a massive help to understand what you are looking at is right there on the wall – the briefcase of a certain George Melly was randomly find in a basement and its contents were right there on display. No more needed to be said, a quick spin round and I was looking at my first skull and tramp juice bottle.

PREVIEW

Literal-eyes at London Miles

London Miles is proud to present an all-new group exhibition that takes a closer look at the content found inside the dusty book covers of iconic written works by great literary masters from across all generations. Literal-eyes concentrates specifically at the ways in which great writers have inspired this hand selected group of young and emerging European artists to be the painters they are today.

London Miles will be looking into the depths of the artist’s psyche; their individual artwork will reveal their way of thinking which maybe totally disparate to how we visualize the same text. This comparison will be explored individually by the viewer and will allow great scope for various levels of interaction during the exhibition.To mark this special exhibition, London Miles will be taking over a white wall gallery space in East London, an exciting pop up space divided onto two floors and over 1000 sq ft; situated off Brick lane.

When
Opening reception: Thursday, May 12th 2011. 6pm to 11pm.
Exhibition on show: May 13th to May 16th 2011

Where
65 Hanbury Street | EI 5JP (LONDON MILES GOES EAST!)

GRAFFITI

Street fonts – graffiti alphabets from around the World by MadABC

German artist MadABC has opened her show at Pure Evil gallery tonight in London. This coincides with the launch of her book – “Street Fonts – graffiti alphabets from around the world”. You can buy this book here on Amazon.

The work on display will feature a series of different alphabets on canvas and wall, MadABC is mad about letters. In preparation of the show, she painted a huge alphabet wall of about 5m x 25m Wenlock Road in Hackney which you can see photos (by Marco Prosch) and video of below.

MadABC show runs until the 1st May 2011 at Pure Evil gallery | 108 Leonard street, EC2A 4S, London

MadABC

CONTEMPORARY ART, IN THE NEWS

Jaybo Monk – I need a dollar

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This is this kind of event which propels creativity to the next level, this is when a collaborative effort becomes Art.

American R&B artist Aloe Blacc, musician and music-maker Mihalj “Miki” Kekenj and artist Jaybo got together and put on a what have been an amazing night at Berlin’s creative space MADE.

Aloe Blacc´s original music was interpreted by Miki and his string-quintet which transformed the soul and funk style of Aloe into classical music compositions. Jaybo got involved and took his inspiration from the lyrics of Aloe’s song “I Need a Dollar”and converted it into his own visual interpreation – one of the best piece of art I have seen so far this year!

Jaybo’s painting was put on dispolay for the first time during the event at MADE where Aloe and Miki’s quintet performed a bunch of aloe’s repertoire. The film below shows this performance and tell us about the project.

Hats off to MADE for pulling such a great show where great talents from different art disciplines get together for everybody’s delight.

I need a dollar by Jaybo Monk
Aloe blacc Jaybo Monk miki at MADE
Aloe Blacc - Jaybo Monk - Miki

CONTEMPORARY ART

Erik Sommer or painting with cement

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Mediums you can use to paint are countless, it is only down to the artist to use them or not. Meet Erik Sommer and his very original and unique way of painting with cement. We talked to Erik to find out a bit more about him and his work.

ART-PIE: How did you come to use cement in your work?

Erik Sommer: I’ve been using cement in my work for several years. I like its urban grittiness, especially as I live in NYC and am surrounded by buildings and cement. My work is about the passing of time, and beauty and chance and control. It is about capturing the passing of time, and the beauty found within its accidental natural effects.

A-P: Most of the work I can see from your website are using mixed medias? What are they?

Erik Sommer: Most of my work is mixed medium on canvas. I use cement and plasters, acrylic pastes, gessos, some acrylic and oil pants. Most of the materials are home modeling materials which happen to be white, which make the most recent pieces white, although I do use colors as well. The various layers of material act as different stages of time. The work is very three-dimensional and comes off of the canvas. It is very industrial and physical.

A-P: What are your inspirations?

Erik Sommer: I like everyone from Rudolf Stingel, to Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Andy Goldsworthy, Basquiat, etc.

Any upcoming shows?: I am represented in NYC by Rooster Gallery, and am beginning to work with Arch 402 in London as well. I have a piece in a group show/ auction with Arch 402 in April, and then hopefully will be doing more with them later this summer. My next solo show with Rooster in NYC will be next year.

Related link
Erik Sommer’s website – www.erikjsommer.com