No Show(s)

Unfortunately the Barbarian Art gallery, with bases in Zurich and Moscow, didn’t make it through the selection process for this year’s Frieze art fair in London so myself, and the other four artists that they had invited to represent them, won’t be exhibiting there this time.
And as I’ve not heard back from VZ Art Gallery regarding their request to show my work at this year’s Liste art fair in Basel, Switzerland (which starts very soon) I’m guessing that plans have changed there too. Oh well – easy come, easy go!

Frieze, Basel and Venice Biennale 2011

I’m ashamed to admit it but even though I live here in London I’ve never actually made it along to any of the Frieze art fairs. But this year looks to change all that as I’ve just been invited to be one of the five artists representing Natasha Akhmerova’s Barbarian Art gallery at this year’s fair. Barbarian Art is an international gallery based in Zurich and Moscow and active worldwide.

This year looks like being a pretty good year for international art fairs. As well as being invited to exhibit at Frieze and represent VZ Art Gallery at the Liste art fair in Basel, Switzerland, I’ve just booked (OK, my mate Holly has done all the bookings as she’s the organised one and secretly loves being in charge of everything) my flights and accommodation for this year’s Venice Biennale. I went for the first time two years ago and even though I lost my mobile (and 10 years worth of none backed-up phone numbers) in one of the canals I had the most amazing time. It’s incredible how small the art scene is because at the last Venice Biennale I bumped into so many people that I knew from London – a prime example being that on our first night there my mate popped next door to see if he could borrow a cork screw and found out that we’d booked a room next to a group of artist friends from back home. This year we’ve made sure that we arrive in Venice a few days ahead of the official opening weekend so as to take full advantage of the many opening parties – oh yeah!

Melt Art Fair - Opening Party (Wed 6pm - 8:30 pm)

Here are some photos from Monday’s installation of the Melt Art Fair at the Art Pavilion in Mile End Park. The venue has to be one of the most amazing exhibition spaces in London. As well as being an architecturally stunning building (half buried under a man-made hill), it is almost magical how the light reflects from the adjacent pool and plays across the ceiling and walls of the gallery interior.
Along with 40 artists from the UK and abroad, I will be exhibiting a couple of my sculptures, Fetish and Nail Box. Melt is an independent venture, organised by Arthemisia.eu, as an alternative to the established London art fairs, Frieze and Zoo.

Although Melt officially opened today, we will be having opening party/private view tomorrow (Wednesday) from 6pm – 8:30pm (although the gallery will be open from 11am to view the artwork) so please feel free to come along and join us for a drink and a chance to meet the artist involved.

The opening times are from 11am – 6pm, Tuesday 12th to Sunday 17th October (closing at 5pm on Sunday) and the private view/drinks reception will be Wednesday 13th October (6pm – 8:30pm)
Melt Art Fair, Mile End Pavilion, Clinton Road (off Grove Road), Mile End Park, London E3 4QY

Studio Hitch

It would seem that our fledgling art collective has run into something of a hitch with regards to our new studio space in the middle of Shoreditch, London. The person with whom we had been dealing and who had assured us that we could move in this weekend would appear to have been less than well informed himself as to the actual availability of the property. Oh well, such is life.

Sketchbook Archive # 01

The City/Fetish Mutated

If asked ‘what is the first thing you would try and save in a fire?’ I imagine that most artists would say sketchbooks (OK - if they had kids, they ‘might’ say kids first) – yet when it comes to exhibitions and the art world in general, these vital documents go largely over-looked. I know that not all artists use sketchbooks but to me they are invaluable. Not only do they act as a form of external memory (one of the worst things is to have a great idea for a piece, not make a note of it, then forget what it was) that you can come back to years later and find new inspiration in, but they also allow you to work out your mistakes without having to make them in the physical world.
So, as a tribute to the ‘the sketchbook’ I decided to start a regular (well, I say regular – I imagine that there will be more than one) Sketchbook Archive post on my blog, where I show a few examples of my working-drawings and talk about what was going through my mind at the time (cue the sound of wind and tumbleweed rolling across the prairie).
So, there goes –
The images above are perfect examples of what would happen if I could cross-breed some of my sculptures. Or rather, what the outcome would be if I started mixing some of the materials and techniques from one piece with that of another. These drawings take their inspiration from my earlier sculptures, The City (made mostly of wood and found materials) and Fetish, made from human hair. Ever since I first made Fetish I’ve been both fascinated and repulsed by the use of hair as an artistic medium. I love the look of it as a material but it feels horrible when you have to mix it, by hand, with glue. However, hair is a great thing to draw as it seems to dictate its own flow. But when I start introducing the rigid structure of wooden frames and boxes into the drawing, a kind of equilibrium or harmony comes into play and the two materials start to dictate the overall form the potential sculpture might take.
In a couple of the sketches you can see where I’ve experimented with adding items that I’d previously used in other sculptures – things like tubes, teeth and doll parts. This is one of the great things about sketchbooks – you can be a playful, dark or as silly as you like. And often, some of the best pieces come from what you originally thought of as just a stupid idea or from the crudest thumbnail sketch.