Tag Archives: London

London: Harland Miller – One Bar Electric Memoir

July 10, 2017 butterfly

UK artist Harland Miller, renowned for his satirised Penguin paperback paintings, is returning to the White Cube this summer for a new exhibition called ‘One Bar Electric Memoir’. Featuring two series of paintings, the works on show are a continuity of Miller’s investigation into the relationship between viewer, text and image.

The first series of large-scale works is based on Miller’s extensive archive of psychology and social science books, dating from the 1960s and ‘70s. Characterised by their bold and colourful abstract covers, these books embraced a positive attitude and the possibility of ‘fixing’ disorders through a process of self-help. The geometric cover designs reminded of contemporary abstract paintings but also provided a foil to the darker aspects of social neurosis addressed by the books’ content.

In another series of fictional book cover paintings, Miller depicts the outlines of letters in a range of typefaces and colours, intersected or layered over each other to create short, enigmatic words such as ‘Up’, ‘If’, ‘Ace’, ‘Pot’. With their bold, saturated colours, these paintings reference American abstraction and, in particular, Robert Rauschenberg and Ed Ruscha’s use of vernacular signage and motifs.

The shapes stand out from the saturated mute backgrounds, as do the paired fictional but witty titles such as Reverse Psycology Isn’t Working, 2017. In both series of paintings Miller uses his own name as author. The inclusion of his own name, not only alludes to his authorship of both image and text, but to the fine line that exists between fiction and reality.

View the full set of pics here

Harland Miller – One Bar Electric Memoir
Until 9 September 2017
White Cube, Mason’s Yard, London

London, Street, streets

London streets: Fanakapan

May 21, 2017 butterfly

Street artist Fanakapan recently completed series of murals in the streets of East London. Using a shiny silver inflatable 3D style, the artist painted a silver balloon dog, a duo of clown characters holding a smiley balloon , and a tribute to Peanuts fictional characters by Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip featuring a flying helium balloon of the bird Woodstock and Snoopy.

London

London: East End Mob

April 22, 2017 butterfly

In the last decade London’s East End has seen some remarkable changes. The wave of gentrification has forced the once industrial sprawl and urban wasteland of the area into adopting a different facade. ‘East End Mob’ presents work from iconic artists who have been actively painting in the area before and during this change, their character-driven style synonymous with the walls and landscape of the East End.

The line-up includes A.CE London,Coloquix, Dscreet, Mau Mau, Mighty Mo, Pez, Rowdy, Sickboy,Sweet TooF, Tizer, Vinnie Nylon and Cranio.

‘East End Mob’ is an authentic exhibition and much needed nod to some of the biggest pillars in East London’s Street Art and Graffiti scene.

Specially loving the Mighty Mo miniature brick wall, nod from back in 2010.

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East End Mob – Until May 14th
BSMT SPACE
5d Stoke Newington Rd
Dalston, N16 8BH

London, Shows

London: Mat Collishaw – The Centrifugal Soul

April 8, 2017 butterfly

The Centrifugal Soul is the title work and centrepiece of British contemporary artist Mat Collishaw‘s new exhibition at Blain|Southern in London.
The sculpture, in the form of a zoetrope a pre-film animation device that produces the illusion of motion through rapid rotation and stroboscopic light, animates scenes of bowerbirds and birds of paradise as they perform elaborate mating rituals. The work offers a captivating demonstration of how aesthetic diversity has evolved through sexual selection and also reflects the artist’s ongoing examination of our insatiable appetite for visual stimulation.

Elsewhere in the exhibition, a new body of work continues the examination of visual power play with twelve trompe l’oeil paintings of tethered British garden birds revisited with graffiti textured background, in a nod to seventeenth-century fashion for commissioning portraits of prestige pets.

A monumental visual installation titled ‘Albion’ presents a rotating ghostly image of an oak tree, in reference to the mythical Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, Nottingham.The image represents a living object that is trapped in perpetuity to present the illusion of life.

Throughout his work, Collishaw has examined the way in which we consume imagery and how our biology has conditioned us to respond. The exhibition reflects the consistent themes addressed in the artist’s practice and the diversity of his chosen mediums. Moreover, it questions how much choice we have in accepting what seems to be a natural preoccupation with self-image.

Mat Collishaw
The Centrifugal Soul
Blain|Southern London
Until 7 May 2017

Art Fair, London

Studio visit: Hisham Echafaki

March 15, 2017 butterfly

We stopped by the London studio of contemporary artist Hisham Echafaki as he prepares a new body of work with drawings, surrealist paintings,3D paintings and prints to be showcased at the Talented Art Fair opening this Friday.

His surrealist compositions show a real fascination for nature and the animal world through intricate symmetry and patterns with a trompe l’oeil effect.

Most intriguing are the 3D paintings. Using several layers of resin, Hisham Echafaki paints three-dimensional insects, that give the optical illusion they are taxidermy specimen embedded in resin. Each piece is a tribute to the beautiful intricacy and complexity of the insect world but also a critique of how humans are affecting and shaping evolutionary changes in animal species.