A few months back, Amelia’s Magazine was asked to produce a piece of artwork as part of a collaboration with the housing and homeless charity Shelter for their House of Cards campaign. The aim was to highlight the issue of Britain’s housing problem; this year alone, 65,000 people will lose their homes, joining the hundreds of thousands on the streets already. It became somewhat of an in-house event. Amelia’s cousin Simon French, an animator at Framestore, created the hard hitting images of houses and buildings, flimsy as a pack of cards, fluttering away in the breeze. Created in association with the Leo Burnett Agency, all involved, including the directors Dom and Nic; Radiohead, who provided the soundtrack and Samantha Morton as the narrator, provided their services for free to support the cause.
Our submission was entitled Two of Hearts. We asked that it would be made up by contributions from illustrators and received a deluge of submissions. The artwork was put together like a patchwork quilt of cards in many different styles and designs, all depicting the two of hearts. It was big too, A0 size, and perfectly displayed the different styles of our illustrators.
Last Thursday we were finally able to see the fruits of our labour – and of the hardworking illustrators who answered our brief. Held at the Central London art gallery The Haunch Of Venison, the event also served as an auction, with all the artworks available to bid for. All proceeds were to go the Shelter Charity. Given the high caliber of work, and the high profile artists who were involved, its a given that the bidding would have achieved a fever pitch. Lending their names to the exhibition were artists such as Marc Quinn, David Bailey, Damien Hirst, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Rob Ryan, Giles Deacon and Nick Park, who had all designed a card in either the Hearts, Clubs, Spades or Diamonds suits. All involved were given free reign in creating a new design, and as our pictures show, imaginations ran riot.
Ace of Hearts by Damien Hirst
Queen of Spades by Vivienne Westwood
King of Diamonds by Rankin
Eight of Spades by Ben Flynn
The event was filled to the rafters, and it was wonderful to see so many of the illustrators for Amelia’s brief attend. The Two of Hearts submission had a continuous crowd gathered around; a mixture of spectators and proud illustrators. We managed to get plenty of pictures with our illustrators, as you can see.
Hannah Lewis, Emmi Ojala, Thereza Rowe, Sarah Kirk, Rosalie Harris – other illustrator, please get in touch and remind us of your name!
Illustrators include Tabitha Mcbeth , Nozomi Inoue and Chris Cox. Other illustrators, please get in touch and remind us of your names!
Sina Becker, Jenn Pitchers, Leona Clark
Amy Rhian, Louise McLennan, Roberta Boyce
Amelia Gregory strikes a pose
I’m fascinated by Polly Morgan’s Ten Of Diamonds
The auction was held a few days ago, with every piece of art work receiving a bid. Our Two of Hearts submission, which had been estimated to go for between £1,000-£2,000, ended up selling for £2,200 to a mystery bidder. We are so pleased with the results, especially as that goes towards the £100,000 that was raised for Shelters campaign through the auction.
While the exhibition was only on for a short time, it is still possible to purchase a limited edition A5 replica pack of the final exhibited pack of cards. Only 1,000 packs will be produced, so it is likely that they will sell out soon. Again, all profits will go to the Shelter campaign. The cards cost £70 and will be on sale at the Haunch of Venison gallery, and online, through Shelterhouseofcards.org.uk.
Tags:
Haunch of Venison, House of Cards, shelter, Shelter auction
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