Exhibition. In a Country Far. Far Away, Mile End Pavillion, London

I have a piece in the exhibition In a Country Far Far Away, curated by Katja Rosenberg, at the Mile End Pavillion in London.

The exhibition runs form the 1st to the 17th March.
Link to details here.https://exhibitions.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/5/8/1258901/far_away_art_pav_folded_leaflet.pdf

There is a great programme of activities associated with the exhibition including film, music and drawing.

The theme was to choose and interpret a fairy story or fable from a war torn country. I choose The Calif Stork, a Middle Eastern fairy tale and have made a work in mixed media, using a large paper mache bowl.


The art work, Fragments of Reality is a bowl that has layers of images and painting, using ceramic designs from Persian pottery and other designs where people are turned into birds, such as the willow pattern.

There are painted images of the Calif and his Vizier being turned into storks and a silver moon.


The fragments are a reference to the tragedy of  the breaking of people and culture during war.

Afternoon Tea Works on Paper, online exhibition

I had one of my pieces in Chiara Williams's exhibition, Afternoon Tea   Works on Paper,in her flat overlooking the sea in Margate. The exhibition is part of the Margate Festival which runs till the 6th of August.

Chiara served lovely cakes and tea while folks looked around the exhibition on her walls.

The exhibition has now moved online for a short while and you can view the works here.

http://www.chiarawilliams.com/afternoon-tea.html

New works in mixed media

I have been working on some new pieces using print and paint and collage. In a way I like to work sometimes, I put the ink and paint on with no thought in mind, using brushes and rollers. Then look at the colours and forms and find the faces or figures in them.

In this series there emerged all sorts of figures, birds, strange creatures and faces. I used pencil or pen to just highlight the forms.

The brain is wired to see faces, so they often come first,  it seems almost miraculous when looking, finding other figures arising when moments before it was just a mass of colours. It is a particular way of looking, relaxed and not forced in any way, allowing the eye to travel across the page, and not all forms arise straight away.

These particular pieces have a folk tale sense to me. I will be continuing to work this way for a while.

Opening of Mr Lion Exhibition Turner Contemporary Gallery Margate.

 

Mr Lion opened at the Turner Contemporary Gallery last Tuesday.  It was good to see our group Blank Canvas's work on the gallery walls. Link to the exhibition here  Article in the Thanet Gazette here

 

We had been planning the show for a few weeks and my painting Call of the Wild rather than my artists book, was my choice in the end for the show.

 

We had the Lion bars, Battenberg cake, biscuits tea and coffee ready and some art tables for people to experiment with  making something.

There was an opening speech and Blank Canvas was praised for our work in the exhibition, for supporting Turner Contemporary and for being part of their vision for the gallery.

We had a lot of visitors and I think most people were interested and intrigued by the idea of Mr Lion.

The show is on till 22nd March 2015 Tuesday till Sundays 10 till 6pm

Opening of Survival of the Fittest exhibition

Visitors looking at Valerie Grove's Team MSK installation.

Katja Rosenberg who curated the exhibition,Valerie Grove and visitors to the exhibition.

Last weekend saw the opening of Survival of the Fittest, the exhibition I am part of, at the Waterworks Nature Reserve. Link to the exhibition at Art Catcher here It was great to see so many turn up and the weather was fine. The space we are in has been turned into a dining area for the campsite set up for the Olympic Games, but it still works well.

It does mean you can make a day out looking at the exhibition, visiting the nature reserve and getting a meal from the cafe.  We also have catalogues, cards and prints for sale in the shop too. Details of the Waterworks here The exhibition runs from   20 July – 1 October 2012
Mon-Fri 9am-6pm, weekends 8am-7pm

Visitors to the exhibition add to Fabienne Monnot's Knitted piece entitled Tricot 2012.

Invitation to Survival of the Fittest exhibition at The Waterworks nature reserve

One of mixed media pieces is going on show in Survival of the Fittest, an exhibition curated by Katja Rosenberg. In Papilio esoteric I was thinking about the old collectors and collections of insects and butterflies, in old science.  But the butterflies have evolved and one aspect of them shows particular qualities. I enjoyed working on the idea and produced quite a few butterflies.

The website for the whole exhibition, which has some great work in a range of mediums is
here

 The exhibition is on at The Waterworks Nature Reserve  Lammas Road (off Lea Bridge Road), London E10 7QB
Bus routes 48, 55 and 56, easy parking

  The opening is on Saturday 21st July from 12 noon with brunch bites, everyone welcome.
The exhibition runs from    20 July – 1 October 2012
Mon-Fri 9am-6pm, weekends 8am-7pm

The Right Climate

I have been sitting in my exhibition space this week, in the Changing room Gallery, which is in the park behind the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow. Thanks to the help of my friends Stavarha and Julie, the exhibition looks great. It provided quite a challenge, the range and diversity of work. For this show I brought together some more political work, looking at the Iraq war, the monopoly of Tesco the arms trade, and ecology
.
One of the pieces is a desert army shirt from the army surplus store, which is covered with badges which I made from images of war from the First World war up to the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Other work includes photographs of the sky and clouds and local graveyard, and my Buddhist paintings. Quite a lot of people wonder at first if it is a group show, and are surprised that it is all my own work. There have been a lot of positive comments and people taking away ideas.
I'm also letting people make their own badges if they want to.
I realised putting this years exhibitions on my CV, that with the Photo month Open next month I will have had work in 9 shows/events this year, and a few more planned for next year at the moment.