I recently stepped out of London’s unusually baking sun to enjoy an afternoon visit to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. On reaching the courtyard, the whole place seemed to be in high spirits with Barry Flanagan’s bronze hares prancing around and the ordinarily stern permanent statue sporting a floral sash.

Photograph by Naomi Law

During the largest open exhibition in the UK, the labyrinthine rooms of Burlington House play host to a swarm of artists, from the unknown to the infamous, waiting to surprise visitors around every corner. Everyone is welcome to submit work to the exhibition each year, resulting in a diverse collection ranging from painting to architecture, and sculpture to film. The majority of the works on display are for sale, and although the prices predictably reach the astronomical, there are several pieces accessible to those with more modest purse strings if you take a closer look.

This year’s theme is Raw, which according to David Chipperfield, co-ordinator of the architecture room, signifies ‘vitality, risk taking and a necessary sense of adventure.’ Stephen Chambers, the main co-ordinator of this year’s show, states that raw art is ‘fresh, new, visceral and affirmative. Some of it is fairly scary too’.

Perhaps one of the most talked about pieces in the show is David Mach’s Silver Streak, a ferocious larger-than-life gorilla made entirely from wire coat hangers. These are surprisingly effective in creating a sense of weight and movement – he’s an imposing figure!

David Mach’s Silver Streak, illustrated by Paul Shinn

Mach appears again just behind the gorilla with Babel Towers, a huge and complex collage of an outlandish seaside town with the mountainous ‘tower’ ascending into the clouds.

On entering many of the rooms, your eye is dutifully drawn to plenty of bold and large-scale works. Somehow the flamboyance of these pieces drew my attention to the smaller or less immediately-noticeable pieces, and this is what I have largely chosen to focus on.

My childhood fascination with anything miniature (and consequent hours spent creating minute little things from Fimo) was happily indulged by the collection of architects’ models and drawings in the Lecture Room.

Visitors are treated to views of buildings in their ‘raw’ forms, as seen through the eyes of the architect. The methods of construction and presentation of these models is as fascinating as the designs themselves.

It will come as no surprise that I spent the longest time in the Small Weston Room, which is filled with over two hundred smaller paintings, some no larger than a postcard.

Several otherwise everyday scenes are beautified in oils: Francis Matthews’ The Coombe depicts a Dublin street corner whilst Josephine Greenman uses the familiar blue and white of a traditional dinner service to render miniscule domestic settings in Silence I & II.

Amazing craftsmanship can also be seen in Claire Moynihan’s Moth Balls, 2010; dozens of moths are intricately embroidered onto their own Alpaca wool felt ball.

In the Large Weston Room, David Borrington predicts the state of the high street in 2020 if a certain supermarket is allowed to continue its invasion of our neighbourhoods. Globull Internashll Tescgoows 2020 is a stark reminder of the need to find an alternative.

David Borrington’s Globull Internashll Tescgoows, courtesy of the artist’s website

Just around the corner Oran O’Reilly’s beautifully comic Rizla, after Hokusai shows the famous Great Wave surging from a pack of cigarette papers. Maybe not such an odd pairing considering the prevalence of Hokusai’s wave in poster form in student accommodation up and down the country (admittedly including my own not so long ago).

Also currently on display at the Royal Academy, and well worth seeing, is a collection of work by academicians who have passed away over the last year. I was particularly taken with Michael Kidner’s painstakingly drawn geometric forms in No Thing Nothing.

If you can’t make it to the Royal Academy, you can see work from A-level students selected for the online exhibition here.

All photographs courtesy of the Royal Academy, unless otherwise stated.

All artworks courtesy of Boo Saville. Indefinate series, Oil on canvas, 2008

Boo Saville’s show at the Trolley Gallery on Redchurch Street isn’t the kind of thing that tomes and volumes can be written about. But I’ll see how far I get. This is certainly her most confident work yet.

How do we feel?, Bleach on black cotton, 2010

The white backgrounds are gone, so has the ball-point pen. Instead we have richly dark spaces that exert magnetic and religious forces on the viewer. Where once we were separated from the subjects by a very stark distancing, we are now fully empathetic.

Bog man, Biro on paper, 2006

Subject has become self for Saville. But there’s more than just one idea here. The imagery that might zip through your mind ranges from the intensity of being buried alive to the irreverent madcap guffaws of Noel Fielding. Sometimes it’s like finding a number and jet Francis Bacon in an archaeological dig. But that’s really about it for wordy analysis; this is simply work you have to look at (unlike most of Redchurch Street at the moment).

Ghost, Monoprint, 2009

It’s great to see Saville’s CV getting better and better. Boo Saville studied at the Slade School of Art, London. From 2003 she formed part of the WOWOW! collective in south London with the artist Matthew Stone. In 2007 she was a nominee for the Sovereign Painting Prize, and in the summer of 2008 she worked on a residency in Paris at the Cite des Arts. Her first solo show was at Martin Summers Fine Art in 2008.

The Explorer, Bleach on black cotton, 2009

Her work has recently been acquired by the forthcoming Museum of New and Old Art, Tazmania. She was recently featured in Francesca Gavin’s book ‘Hell Bound: New Gothic Art’ and her forthcoming book on British artist under 35 years old. In January 2010 she was featured in Vogue’s ‘British talent’ special, ES Magazine, The Times and The Independent. After Trolley her next solo show will be at Studio Visconti, Milan in September 2010. She lives and works in London. Definitely tipped for the top. Three of these six canvases are stunning. Go see. For a virtual tour, visit here.

Shi, Biro on paper, 2008

The Boo Saville exhibition runs from Fri 05 Feb 2010 – Sat 13 Mar 2010

The address is Trolley Books, 73a Redchurch Street, London E2 7DJ  tel +44(0)20 7729 6591   fax +44(0)20 7739 5948

Andrew is a 32-year-old accomplished illustrator who currently lives in Bude in Cornwall. After having taken a year off to restore/rebuild a derelict house, he is back in business. Andrew meets up with art editor Valerie Pezeron and reflects on his successful career and the state of the illustration industry.

Valerie Pezeron: Hi Andrew, how has it been getting back to the daily grind of illustration business?

Andrew Wightman: I’ve been sending emails and got interviews…but no money yet!

VP: There is a recession at the moment and many illustrators are struggling. How has it been for you?

AW: Well, I took a year off to build a house…not from stones from the ground. An old man had lived in there and it was really in a horrendous state. It was a full-on project. I was trying to make some money on the house but it’s probably not going to happen now so I’ll see! So this is I getting back into it now, I didn’t want to just have a hammer in my hand all day long.

VP: So you’ve moved to Bude? Did you do some illustrations while in Cornwall?

AW: I didn’t know any body there before I moved! It’s good in the summer but not so good in the winter. You pay a price. I have done some new work, took the commissions that came to me but did not look for new work until now. I do think I need to spend more time doing promotion even though I can almost get by not knocking on too many doors. I’ve always wanted an agent, I think it would be a good idea but they say “Not quite right for us at the moment, thank you”. I think if you don’t have an agent and you are making money, you feel good about it because you don’t have to give them money. I have horror stories of people who have agents who got them no work at all. But all they’ve got they have to put through the agent so they have lost money. Overall though I would say I am in favour of them as they can get you work from somewhere you’ve never heard of; I’ve got friends who do work for agencies and they’re designing for this littler known Scandinavian bathroom company.

VP: What do you think of online portfolios?

AW: It’s strange how people don’t seem to meet each other anymore. When I fist left college in 2002, you would very much make calls, knock on doors and physically show your portfolio. Some of the paid ones like The Book seem to me like a con: $700 or something and no guarantee of work…

VP: Did the work you created for Amelia lead to anything?

AW: Yes. I’ve done two things for Amelia’s magazine. I got jobs doing covers for the Guardian because of that and a spread for a book publisher. Sometimes doing work for free opens doors if done selectively at the beginning of one’s career. If you are too proud to do work for free at that stage, it won’t help you. If you have a genuine artistic temperament, you should do something anyway. Even when you reach a certain level of success, you might still want to do stuff for nothing, especially if the paid work is painting something not that fun. And then you might have some outlet for it.

VP: Where did you grow up?

AW: I grew up in Scotland, in Fife. I’ve lived in a few places. I came from the top and gradually made my way to the bottom. I‘ve gotten as far away from my parents as I can! (Laughter) Where next? California? I’m going west, more sunshine!

VP: So you graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2002. And before that?

AW: I went to Liverpool Art School.

VP: Why become an illustrator?

AW: When I was young, I liked drawing.

VP: Were you one of those cool kids at the back drawing on the textbooks?

AW: Yeah, pretty much. I finished my books quite soon because all the back pages were full. I drew war and punk rockers when I was seven but I was confused, I called them Mods; I drew them with big Mohicans. I now quite like drawing old men with loads of wrinkles on them. I drew airplanes and I still do.

VP: What do you like to draw most?

AW: I like to draw buildings from above, from aeroplane viewpoints. I like to draw people as well. Now that I am in the countryside, I am about to sit down on the field and draw some hills just to see what happens. I went to the Van Gogh show yesterday and some of the landscape drawings were inspiring. There are certain things I don’t draw at all. I used to be really into fine art, the masters,  but I have grown out of that.

VP: Did you always consider that you would go into art?

AW: Not really. I didn’t really know you could. Because I maybe thought you could do architecture. When I was 10, I said I’m going to be an architect. When you are at high school, you do work experience and I went to the architect office. I thought this is ok but I wasn’t that excited. I did a lot of science at school; I didn’t really do art at the end.

VP: Art education is important, isn’t it?

AW: I do think maybe you could afford to spend more time on it. When you do maths at A’ Levels, it’s so specialised! Surely we’ve done enough of adding the numbers! I’ve been worried about the arts budget being cut down in schools. I used to work for a company that did educational software; kind of like interactive computer games and we were really doing fun things for schools for all the different subjects. This is all being cut down apparently and it will be worse with the conservatives.

VP: Do you think you would have benefited from those games when at school?

AW: Not really. I don’t mind looking at really boring textbooks. My work is quite detailed and it is a reflection of the fact that I like science and facts and figures, numbers and details.

VP: Tell us about your drawing process.

AW: I just sit down and start drawing something and I’m off. I won’t think about too much and just draw a bus and then something will happen, the bus will be in context. It’s important to not sometimes think, “oh, I can’t think of anything to do, so I won’t do anything.” I use pencils, scan into Photoshop and colour digitally. I hate Illustrator.

VP: Your work would fit animation perfectly.

AW: I used to do animation. When I was at college in Liverpool, I did animation for all of my third year. I always like doing things that aren’t always stories so much but I could think of details of stuff. I would do interactive things so it was presenting a lot of information.

VP: Do you feel you fit in with a certain trend of quirky and humorous illustration/animation?

AW: I don’t, no. If I go to the degree show at the RCA, I am always a bit surprised by how many people don’t just do illustration? The animation department is quite traditional still. One of my school year mates, Rob Latimer was in that department. That department was full of little people doing great things and I kind of liked that. It always seems lately people presenting boring information in a graphical format. But that’s not interesting. Or people who have a good graphic design portfolio and then they go to the RCA and then they decide they want to become a film –maker. Of course things are not very accomplished; you graduate with a Masters Degree and you’ve done bad filmmaking. That’s a bit strange. There is not as much straight illustration coming out of there but…

VP: So content is very important to you.

AW: Yes! I did not even realise that until I got to the RCA. I would concentrate on style and textures in my paintings and then the tutors would ask me what are these for? And then I realised I should do something with them. I used the paintings like backgrounds. I spent hours on them; I like having an intense amount of details that you see for just a few seconds as if it was an animation and it gives it a sense of weight. And it is something I remembered from doing animation. You can improve an image a lot by spending five more extra minutes on it. That’s been the case with my new website.

VP: So what else did you get from the RCA?

AW: Oh, I really liked the RCA. It’s very hard to separate it from the fact that I had just moved to London to go there. It was really a honeymoon period. Everybody in your class was really into it and the standard is pretty high. With hindsight, I think one would benefit from going there after having worked a little bit so you wouldn’t take it for granted so much. I did some times: I would sit down and go “this is fantastic”. There were a lot of opportunities from outside companies to do something for free. It was a good way to do real work, to have some practice. Art school business in general is a great way to make a living; I’d love to do some teaching. I’m going to Liverpool in a couple of weeks to do a lecture with a friend of mine on our careers.

Andrew likes:

Favourite movie: Ghostbusters

Favourite TV: Nothing too intelligent

Music: Rolling Stones. I like to work in my shed in silence.

Radio: Radio 4 or clever people’s conversations. I don’t like plays on the radio.

Jared Schiller with David Byrne

All photographs and videos courtesy of Tate Shots except where otherwise stated.

Back in 2002 whilst still a skint student, I started what was then my idea of a dream job: ticket seller at Tate Modern and Tate Britain. I got to see great art and even meet the odd artist or two. I remember Gustav Metzger insisting he paid to see Barnett Newman, and Tony Oursler successfully blagging a freebie to the Turner Prize. Bridget Riley even gave us a personal tour of her exhibition. Fast forward five years and I’ve landed a job helping Tate Media launch a new video podcast: TateShots. These days I produce and commission the TateShots series, in which we interview artists about the business of making art, and talk to famous gallery-goers about their favourite art shows. The job has given me the opportunity to nervously meet heroes of mine like Jeff Koons, Laurence Weiner and Martin Creed, as well as artists I’m less familiar with but who become firm favourites.

We’ve made 150 episodes of TateShots so far, and it now comes out weekly. This week we launched a new strand called Sound & Vision. The series took the films’ director, Nicola Probert, and I, all over the country to interview musicians who make art. Billy Childish, Lydia Lunch, Mark E Smith, David Byrne, Jeffrey Lewis and Cosey Fanni Tutti all helped us with our enquiries about where art and music collide.

Jared Schiller with Jeff Koons

Billy’s interview was probably the most memorable. We filmed him in a cramped bedroom he uses as a studio in his mum’s house in Whitstable, surrounded by stacks of paintings. There was hardly enough room for him to paint, let alone for us to film.  Billy’s musical and artistic reputations arguably couldn’t be more different. As a musician he is cited by bands like The White Stripes as an influence – his dedication to lo-fi recording and performance make him the very definition of authentic.  On the other hand, as an outspoken critic of conceptual art, his standing in the art world is a little harder to pin down. Because of this big difference, Nicola had the idea to get Billy to interview himself.  So Artist Billy asked Musician Billy questions (e.g. “Do I have an influence on you?” Answer: “No.”), and explains how he went through a ten year stretch of only painting to the music of John Lee Hooker (almost). The whole experience made me think that it’s only a matter of time before Billy Childish is unmasked as the ultimate conceptual artist…

Going forward I would love to make more videos about pop stars with a taste for art. Before we embarked on this series we had already spoken to Alex James from Blur about Ellsworth Kelly, and John Squire from the Stone Roses about Cy Twombly. Apparently Jay-Z is a massive Richard Prince fan, so perhaps he should be next on my list.

Jared Schiller photograph courtesy of Simon Williams/O Production

What Jared likes:

Places: Moel-y-Gest, a hill near Porthmadog in North Wales

Food: Pizza. My dream is to build a pizza oven in my back garden. It will never happen but I keep hold of the dream..

Drink: An Islay Whisky is the perfect late night tipple.

Website: http://www.tate.org.uk (of course)

Music: Currently the new Four Tet album.

Books:  Currently reading ‘Then We Came to an End’ by Joshua Ferris. I mainly have a weakness for any kind of exhibition catalogue or artist’s monograph.

Film:  I’m looking forward to Chris Morris’s ‘Four Lions’.

Shop: Alter 109 is a really good men’s boutique in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

]]> http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/art/tate-shots-jared-schillers-dream-job/2010/02/01/feed/ 0 http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/art/angels-of-anarchy-at-manchester-art-gallery/2010/01/25/ http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/art/angels-of-anarchy-at-manchester-art-gallery/2010/01/25/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:19:15 +0000 Amelia http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/?p=8802 Courtesy of George and Betty Woodman and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York

When I hear the word Surrealism, instantly the likes of Salvador Dali, André Breton, André Masson and Max Ernst come to my mind. Well I can now add Frida Khalo, Leonora Carrington, Eileen Agar and many more female Surrealist artists to that male dominated list, thanks to Manchester’s Art Gallery! Their current exhibition, Angels of Anarchy, sets out to not only celebrate the works of female artists but to educate and inform those who know little (people like me) or nothing at all about the important role females played in the Surrealist movement. How about that?

Courtesy Private collection, Dilbeek, Belgium © DACS 2009

The exhibition covers five main categories within Surrealism – Portrait/Self-Portrait, Landscape, Interior, Still Life and Fantasy; the medium used ranges from sculpture to photography to film and the more traditional oil on canvas. Thanks to Salma Hayek’s performance in the eponymous film, Frida Khalo -who features in both Portrait/Self Portrait and Interior – is probably the name most will recognise but you will not be disappointed with the other lesser-known artists on display.

Courtesy ADAGP Paris, Musée National d’Art Modern – Centre Georges Pompidou. Courtesy Photo CNAC / MNAM, Dis. RMN / courtesy  Jacques Faujour

The most interesting piece comes in the form of film by photographer/filmmaker Lola Alvarez Bravo -who incidentally went to school with Frida and was one of her closest friends. The 30 seconds (approx) of rare footage is left untitled but is captivating from start to end, not least thanks to the presence of Frida herself; the artist is more stunning on film that I had imagined. There is no audio in this eerie film and it’s quite foretelling that Frida is welcoming death into her home in the shape of an innocent looking girl; this was shot when Frida was in ill health and I thought this was one of many nice surprises within the exhibition. Bravo documented much of Frida’s life and she went on documenting even after her death; there is a poignant shot of Frida’s room after her death (Frida’s Room 1954), where her wheelchair, paintbrushes, a self-portrait and a picture of her husband are strategically placed in order to sum up her life. This particular scene left a lump in your throat!

Courtesy Manchester Gallery

Another big name featured in the exhibition is Eileen Agar – whose Angel of Anarchy (1936-1940) mixed media head dress is featured alongside its opposite number Angels of Mercy (1936-1940) – only two surviving pieces of four, are portraits of Joseph Bard (her husband) and to see them both is quite magical. Angel of Anarchy is wrapped in rich African bark cloth decorated in Chinese silk, beads and osprey and ostrich feathers and has a decadent aura about it. Angel of Mercy is quite the opposite but none less impressive to its corresponding part, using only her skills to sculpt the piece and her hand to paint it.

Courtesy Manchester Gallery

Whist big names like Kahlo, Agar, Oppenheim and Cahun are used to encourage people to visit the exhibition the lesser known artists really do shine and in some cases surpass their well known counterparts. Kay Sage’s beautiful black and white, landscape photography will lead you into the word of the extra-ordinary within the ordinary – her vision of seeing something interesting within what seems to be an ordinary landscape impressed me a great deal! Leonora Carrington’s self portrait (1937-1938) will immediately grab your attention as it did mine; I faced this one particular piece for a good10 minutes and I must admit I was truly transfixed and consumed in my trail of thought! This, in my opinion, is by far was the best self portrait (oil on canvas) in the entire show. I felt deep sympathy for Carrington and I was left wondering and wanting to know more about this wonderful talent.

Courtesy Banco de Mexico Deigo Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico DF / DACS 2009

The exhibition is over teeming with beautiful oils on canvas and sculptures that include a rarely seen Lee Miller torso cast that has only even been exhibited once before. Surrealist literature is present in the form of Leonora Carrington’s En Bas ( Down Below 1945) a memoir of her emotional journey after Max Ernst is arrested by the Nazis which leads her to being institutionalized in a mental hospital in Spain. There are video instillations by Francesca Woodman documenting herself exploring the female form and a beautiful interpretation of ‘There was a Miller on a River’ (1971), by Eva Svankmajerova. This old folk song tells the story of a young soldier returning home after 20 years. His parents do not recognise him, rob and murder him; once they realise it was their son they take their own lives. Such a brutal act is given a beautiful lease of life in Svankmajerova’s gorgeous illustrations.

Courtesy Manchester Gallery

Another nice surprise is the room ‘Teenangels’ in which the Manchester Art gallery has teamed up with art students from Levenshulme High School who have came up with their own Surrealist inspired artwork. I would have happily been left to think they were part of the Angels of Anarchy exhibition had I not seen the sign! Seeing interaction between a prestigious art gallery like Manchester’s and GCSE art students topped the exhibition off perfectly.

All in all this was a good exhibition which ran from the 26th of December 2009 to the 10th of January 2010. Penny Slinger describes her work as ‘a protest against females being seen as mere objects at a male’s disposal’. This exhibition sets out to break the notion that Surrealism is a male dominated movement and it does so successfully. Without the likes of Frida Kahlo, Claude Cahun, Edith Rimmington, Meret Oppenheim and the rest of the female Surrealist featured in the exhibition I doubt very much that women in art would be where they are today. They helped the female cause for decades to come and paved the way for equality in Art. They proved that chicks can do what guys do… and dare I say in some cases even better? If you were one of the lucky few who visited the show then you surely came away enlightened, informed and inspired by those surrealist amazons…just like I did.

Visit www.manchesterartgalleries.org/angelsofanarchy for more information.

Loaded © Sweet Tooth

The invite for Black Dog Books was intriguing and slightly misleading… a number of nice surprises beckon when I arrive at the venue to meet with the people involved in Black Rat Project. Finding the venue is a puzzle in itself and I find my way through the back of Cargo into this character full venue, an old railways arch dating back from the industrial revolution.

Photographs © Black Rat Projects

A tin man sitting in front of a bookshop greets visitors to the show. He doesn’t have a name individually and is one of three robots called “The Drunkards” by artist Giles Walker. Walker must have a great sense of humour; he came up with the idea after being annoyed with city boys with a lot of money being able to buy into the art world. His robots now happen to be on display a stone throw from Liverpool Street and are the ideal anti-establishment statement. The robot I am looking at shouts at you and has a good rant about ‘them city rats’, a good laugh in a time of recession like ours. And then it’s onto the bookshop itself, with quite an extensive array of books by people Black Rat Gallery represents.

Black Rat Projects is the new name for young East End gallery, The Black Rat Press. They specialise in installations and exhibitions by some of the world’s most exciting contemporary artists. In the last two years Black Rat Projects have put on over 20 projects that have gained widespread media attention including features in The Guardian, CNN news, CBS news, BBC London, The Sunday Times and The Telegraph amongst others. The gallery’s focus is on representing artists who undertake ambitious projects that other more traditional galleries might not facilitate. Works by artists represented by BRP – such as Nick Walker, d*face and Blek le Rat – can be found in many public collections including the Brooklyn Museum and the V&A.

The idea of creating the bookshop came when the Black Rat owners slept in the gallery one evening many years ago and were woken by the toilet flushing and books falling from the office bookshelves. Thinking they were being burgled, they turned the lights on only to find the gallery empty. Asking around, a local landlord mentioned that the gallery had been used to store the stock of legendary Victorian book dealer F. J. Williams who disappeared in 1903 and is rumored to haunt various pubs and houses around the East End.

Revolutionary Woman © Shepard Fairey

The bookshop feels like the creation of an eccentric and well-read individual; all the books in the bookshop are on sale and a few of the selection come from Black Rat owner Mike; second-hand books, fanzines by Swoon, Burning Candy and Brian Adam Douglas. The bookshop is fully functional and complete with customer assistant, working antique till and books available to buy. It has been designed by Will Randall and Giles Walker and can accommodate up to 10 people at a time. And then a plant shakes in the corner and it’s Poltergeist all of a sudden…

Irena © Swoon

Two original collages by Shepard Fairey (he of the Obama campaign fame) dominate the wall. “Hand Painted Multiples” is a limited edition of 20 prints but each one is slightly different. Swoon is on the wall opposite; from Brooklyn, she is the only one of a generation of street artists to have been embraced by the traditional art world and she is already in the Tate and MOMA.  Swoon uses interesting techniques such as screen-print pasted onto wood and life-size woodcuts, which she makes in the street. Other artists taking part are Cyclops (Lucas Price) who is part of London’s most prolific graffiti collective Burning Candy and über-talented cross-dresser extraordinaire Grayson Perry.

Timms © Matt Small

A striking triptych of what appears to be a young tormented black face stares intensely at me. Matt Small’s work is breathtaking. Trained at The Royal College of Art and winner of a BP Portrait award, he uses a mixture of oils and water-based paints to create random thick textures. Small works a lot with found objects and builds up his canvases with pieces of metals bolt together to create interesting shapes and symmetry. Painting transcends the 2D flat image to become wood art and sculpture object. The frenzied strokes of paint are pulled from the center of the face and converge outwards in a heady sense of movement. Matt Small is an incredibly brave painter. This is a picture that the viewer could regard as aggressive but I thought I saw sadness in the Somalian model’s eyes. Small tries to give a platform through his painting to anonymous faces that are rarely portrayed in the art world. Young people are constantly undervalued and looked down upon. Everyone has got something valuable to give.

Photographs © Black Rat Projects

This gallery tries to explore all sorts of artistic voices from painting to graphic work and art with substance; but it’s all pulled together in a thrilling and successful way. Consumer culture has no place here. The displays are a throwback to conventional ideas with a human interactive connection. But traditions can be modernised; the old materials, the subject matters, everything is given a modern makeover. A must see!

Exhibition runs from Monday – Saturday 10am – 6pm, through Cargo Garden, Arch 461, Kingsland Viaduct, 83 Rivington Street, London. EC2A 3AY. Nearest tube– Liverpool St / Old St. Entry is free. Information: 020 7613 7200.

To examine artists on display in regards to their own sense of what is intangible; what is the unbeknownst? Cecily Brown (one of the five artists displaying), once elucidated of her method; ‘Often, I find it really hard to see what I’m doing when I’m in the thick of things (painting).’ This seemed a resonant befall to take into the exhibition, and one that permeated throughout; the artist’s blindness filtering down to the viewers’ perception.

All photographs by Stephen White, courtesy of Parasol unit

On entering the chic industrial space of the Parasol Unit, the viewer is introduced to Katy Moran’s installations of small, yet expressively fueled paintings. Ambiguous and ethereal spaces, you are inserted into a void of instability. She is emphatically a cannon for the abstract. Sometimes unsettling, occasionally frustrating (primarily by the evasive titles), but most of all, her paintings are enchanting. Staring into a framed space of colour and shape, for example Daniel, the warped style within the pieces allude to envisions of nothingness that are quite remarkable.

Shaun McDowell, renowned for his part in the Peckham art squats, uses colour and technique in a vast and expansive means. Glaringly bright and expansively detailed, what initially looks like a lot of fun swiftly augments to a somewhat dark and unnerving visage. Strolling slowly past his paintings, I became ever more hypnotised as the images took on a pseudo stereogram quality. In seeing what wasn’t there, McDowell emulates invisibility by somehow tricking his viewer into complacence, before revealing his true mien.

Spotted throughout the gallery, Hans Josephsohn’s sculptures have a weird (for want of a better word) presence. Remindful of Easter Island Moai, the veteran sculptor’s cast brass creations have a transcendent quality. Although clearly based upon the human form, they seem to capture their own timeless space with an omnipresent earthliness.

Cecily Brown and Maaike Schoorel probably make for the biggest contrast within the exhibition. Feasibly the crux of the collective display, Brown’s paintings are entirely mesmerising. Sensual and figurative, each image draws the viewer in. A lieu of strokes, the paintings seem to shift with every glance, yielding an ever more desire to look. Saturated with existentialist sensibilities, her works exude human instinct. Counter to this, Maaike Schoorel seems to take a much more apathetic stance. Her bleached canvases denote a controlled and methodical temperament. Her works certainly evoke the invisible, and after forcefully adjusting to her palate, figures and landscapes subtlety emerge.

Salters Ridge by Katy Moran

Visible Invisible invites the viewer into an uncomfortable world where a desired truth is obsolete. Each artist takes their own stance on how to barrage their audience with a distinctive underlay. Irritating the senses, the exhibition leaves you wanting for something that evades, and, insofar, wanting more.

Visible Invisible: Against the Security of the Real is at the Parasol unit, Foundation for Contemporary Art, 14 Wharf Road, London, N1 7RW from 25.11.09 – 07.02.10. Gallery opens Tuesday to Saturday 10 am to 6 pm. Sunday is 12 to 5 pm. First Thursday of every month, open until 9 pm. Admission if free. Please note that from 6pm on Friday 18 December 2009 until Tuesday 5 January 2010 Parasol unit will be closed for the holidays.

Cut Out + Keep, the online craft community has just celebrated the 30,000^th member joining the site! For a site which began as a personal craft blog for journalist Cat Morley and has been custom built for the purpose of sharing craft tutorials, this online hub of arts, crafts and entertainment is leading the way in the craft craze. 

Members and celebrity ‘Crafty Superstars’ inspire fellow creatives by posting their own sewing, baking and making efforts to the site. And with 15,000+ step-by-step tutorials to chose from ranging from a ‘burlesque bustle skirt’ to rainbow cupcakes, there’s lots to learn and little to lose. And the fun doesn’t end there. Cut Out + Keep’s blog, competitions, chat board and online magazine, Snippets inject further fashion, music, art and craft kudos in to the site.

Photograph courtesy of  Cut Out and Keep

Cut Out + Keep creator, Cat Morley tells us her about her amazing journey:

If you had asked me in high school what I wanted to be when I was older, I wouldn’t have been able to give you a straight answer. Today, I’m 24, living in London (my favourite city in the whole wide world) and somehow I’ve ended up with my dream job.

While I was at university in Scotland, I started a blog called Cut Out + keep where I would post tutorials for the crafts I was making. After posting over 250 projects, the site had become really popular, so with the help of my web designer boyfriend Tom, we turned the site in to a community where everyone could make and share step-by-step tutorials.  By the time I graduated, CO+K had become a full-time job and today, the site hosts over 15,000 projects for making every imaginable type of craft – cooking, sewing, paper craft, jewelery, fashion… you name it! Every morning I wake up to discover all the amazing new projects that have been added over night and I’m still amazed by how unique and creative they are.

Photograph courtesy of  Cut Out and Keep

I have always love being crafty and creative. When I was young, I used to help my Mum sew my Halloween costumes and loved cooking up a storm in the kitchen and feeding my family. When I went to university, I studied computer art and got really in to film making. I also started working as a journalist and photographer for a couple of music magazines. When I started CO+K, I wanted to combine all of my passions, so with the help of a bunch of super creative writers I had found online, we started Snippets, an online entertainment magazine to accompany the site. Snippets has allowed me to meet some amazing people and interview my heroes, including bands like Placebo, Chicks On Speed and Ladytron, comedians Adam & Joe, and even my favourite comic book character, Emily Strange.

Photograph courtesy of  Cut Out and Keep

Our members tend to be young, hip and love to show off their individual style. We get a lot of tutorials for revamping and customising clothes, making personalised gifts and recycling and re purposing junk and unwanted items. The most popular projects have been a recipe for baking rainbow coloured cupcakes , turning a jumper in to a skirt , a tutorial for sewing a guitar shaped bag and melting a vinyl record in to a bowl. The nice thing about the site is there is a project that everyone can make, from really complex sculpting to simply applying homemade designs to t-shirts, shoes and accessories to personalise their wardrobe. We also have a section called Crafty Superstars, where creative celebrities and the big names of craft share some of their expert projects.

Photograph courtesy of  Cut Out and Keep

I really love living in London, it’s so vibrant and exciting and there’s always something going on. I like to hunt through the event listings in Time Out and head to all the free events. I also love walking and seeing where I end up and what new places I discover. I live in Maida Vale, which is so pretty with the canal running through it and there’s lots of good brunch spots (check out Plan 9 – an American run cafe that does tasty pancakes on a Tuesday). I also love hanging out in Soho, the South Bank and shopping in Camden and Brick Lane.

Photograph courtesy of  Cut Out and Keep

I’m really looking forward to seeing what 2010 will bring for the site – hopefully thousands of amazing projects, interviews with exciting celebrities and maybe a couple of adventures overseas. I have never been or wanted to be a businesswoman and never thought that I would end up working for myself. I would encourage anyone and everyone to peruse their dream job, because if I can do it anyone can!

Photograph courtesy of  Cut Out and Keep

What Cat likes:

Art: There’s an amazing Parisian artist called Nathalie Lecroc who is painting women handbags and their contents. She plans to paint 1001 and then publish a book of them all.

Music: Bright Eyes, Ben Kweller, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Martha Wainwright and the Manic Street Preachers.

Blog: 1000 Awesome Things

Website: Stumbleupon.com – it leads to so many wonderful finds (I have mine set to show crafts and recipes).

Shop: Muiji – it always has such awesome stuff and it has made me really organised.

Food: Sushi.

Drink: Absinthe, root beer or alcoholic hazelnut milkshakes.

Papers or printed magazines: Bust, Venus & Amelia’s Magazine of course.

What I would like for Christmas is: A Vivienne Westwood tiara, which is a pair of horns encrusted with crystals.

Illustration by Holly Trill

Haven’t got that Christmas present sorted? Here is an idea; Holly Trill is a student at Middlesex University’s BA Hons Illustration course. Her fellow students and staff at the University’s Illustration programme are throwing an exhibiton celebrating the vitality and diversity of Camden’s inner heart, Holborn and Covent Garden. The art is all available to buy and all money raised from this exhibition goes towards the degree show in the Truman Brewery, Brick Lane next June.
Why not come down to he private view on Tuesday 24th November, from 6.00 – 8.30pm?

Kingsgate Gallery
110-116 Kingsgate Road
London
NW6 2JG

Open daily 12.00 – 6.00pm from 24th – 29th November 2009.

DEV HYNES, aka Lightspeed Champion – Hello, My Name is Dev

Photograph courtesy of Devondra Hynes flyer

How about being the first to see photos that have never before been exhibited in public? This exhibition documents the life and travels of British musician Devondra Hynes, aka Lightspeed Champion over the past two years, both at home in New York and on tour around the world. Dev is this type of artist with boundless creative energy that tackles every new ventures, be it comic books or video installations, with gust, originality and breathless artistry. There will be performances and DJ sets from Dev and his friends during the evening. Fancy an evening of drinks and music to celebrate the opening with Dev and co.? Then head over to the Legion on Wednesday!

The Legion, 348 Old street,London, EC1V 9NQ

JAMES MAJOWSKI- GIFTED CHARITY ART AUCTION

Illustration by James Majowski

‘This the festive season to be merry…and charitable! So how about heading to Devonshire Square for a charity art auction? Aside from work by artist James Majawski, contributing artists include Pablo Picasso, Rankin, Chrissie Abbot, Mr Bingo and Jimmy Turrell, so it promises to be a fantastic night! All the revenue raised from the art on auction is to support Kids Company and Teenage Cancer Trust. So this is a perfect opportunity to plan that extra special Christmas present. The auction day is 26th of Novembre and the exhibition runs from the 23rd to the 26th of Novembre.

9A Devonshire Square, London, EC2M 4YE, just opposite Liverpool Street station.

URBANART – Burning Candy + Panik’s new work
OLLY BECK – The Impossible Room (project space)

Photography courtesy of Urban Art

There are a lot of artists out there doing good work being part of and supporting their community.  Panik, ‘Burning Candy’ at Sartorial plain air and Jeni Snell’s inflatable bunker ‘Fortress Sartorial’, are part of a local community graffiti interactive event with the participation of South Camden Youth Access Point and Corams Fields Youth Resource Centre. These open workshops events are supported by the Arts Council, Camden Council and O2 It’s Your Community.

Olly Beck’s chosen title for his debut show at Sartorial Contemporary Art ‘The Impossible Room’ is taken from JG Ballard’s experimental and seminal book ‘The Atrocity Exhibition’ written in 1970. And like Ballard coming out of the 1960’s, Beck’s recent painting precludes a decade of millennial hope tainted and occluded by extreme political, cultural and domestic crises. For Ballard and his contemporaries it looks to us like this sudden dystopia was written on the wall for all to see – and thus responded to (within the luxury of our retrospective insight) in a unified way. But our current experience is bizarrely more subtle and full of detached and unending ambiguous irony. Who or what we believe in becomes less and less clear. Beck’s work contains and runs with these lines of upended meaning, and his reading of Ballard’s notion of a room or a space with its ‘psychotic’ apparitions is perhaps an epitaph of our ‘silent rage’ and unattended loss…

Private View Thurs 26 Nov Open from 27 Nov to 19 th Dec 2009

Sartorial Contemporary Art, 26 Argyle Square London WC1H 8AP + 44 (0) 20 78371013

RITAM BANERJEE – Mumbai: The City that Talks to Me

Photography by Ritam Banerjee

Here at Amelia, we’re an international bunch. So let’s head to India. How about being moved by a bard? For Ritam Banerjee is a poet, albeit a soulful one. “For over a decade now, all that I have been doing is to turn negatives into positives.” In light of recent tragic events, his photographs are a poignant and fitting ode to the slain city of Mumbai. Banerjee believes in artists with a social conscience and is the worthy recipient of the coveted ‘Karmaveer Puraskar’, an Indian national award for Social Justice & Citizen Action commissioned to recognize individuals who have been pivotal for leading change. The awards are given to individuals from various sectors for their contribution to promote social justice and action. For those of you in Mumbai, here is something not to be missed.

Photographs will be on display till Wednesday, December 2, 2009.

Gallery Art & Soul
1 Madhuli , Shiv Sagar Estate, Worli, Mumbai 400 018.
Tel : 022 – 24965798 / 32536266
Email : galleryartnsoul@gmail.com
Web: www.galleryartnsoul.com

MARISTELLA COLOMBO – My Body  Landscapes

We’re continuing with the international exhibitions to head over to France and Italy and have a look at photographer Maristella Colombo. Matieres Sensibles is an international photo festival now in its 3rd Season; its current theme is CORPS, IDENTITES, TERRITOIRES, FRONTIERES ( Bodies, identity, territories, frontiers). Since 2007, in Novembre, this French alternative event organised by artists exhibits in restaurants, bars and book shops. The concept is an interesting one: take artist installations and musicians and mix it with performance to get the sort of vibrant happenings we, at Amelia, really get excited about!  This year, there is an exchange with Milanese artist Pomezia Uno and more of the exciting blend of sculpture, fashion, music and fun for what looks to be really fun shows!

Photography courtesy of Matieres Sensibles

Amelia’s Magazine interviews CSM MA Womenswear Graduate Yang Du about the research and process behind producing a runway collection. Unsurprisingly for one who has studied with Vivienne Westwood, Giles Deacon and John Galliano and whose inspirations are Victor & Rolf and Castelbajac, Yang Du’s collections are the epitome of surrealist fashion design.

Yang Du presented her SS10 collection as part of On|Off (see previous Amelia’s Magazine coverage at London Fashion Week). The collection of bold coloured oversized dresses are an eclectic interpretation of everyday clothes, whilst representing the possibility of fun to be had when adorned in the following garmets.

The press release mentions that her “previous two collections are like my travel diaries…” Subsequently this interview started with the following question:

What was the inspiration behind the new collection and did it involve an aspect of your recent travels?

In April I visited Ecuador for three weeks; I spent a few days in the rainforest and hung out with the local children. We sang, danced and drew together, it was wonderfully peaceful. Those kids live in very basic condition; they all were these over-sized T-shirts which were left by previous visitors. These discarded and re-used t-shirts were the starting point of my collection. They are fun designs that I see people wearing.

How was London Fashion Week as part of On|Off?

It was a great experience to work with OnlOff and they have been incredibly supportive through the whole process of Fashion Week, I was able to go to Paris as of the On|Off showroom. There has been great encouragement to work with someone who are special and inspirational to you.

How was Paris?

The high light for me would be going to the JCDC Show, and meeting Castelbajac back stage.

Can you expand on the influence of Franco Moschino for me?

I love the idea of fashion sending a message into life, the possibility of it it making a statement.

How did the exhibition Soho happen?

A friend of mine Tian Tian Zhu, a sound artist who runs the organisation TIEN, who I had met a few times accidently as we both went to the same gigs, the last being Yoko Ono. We started to talk about working together at the some point in the future and now she is curating my solo exhibition at Assembly Room, it is a very sweet place.

You were previously a Painter, studying at Central Saint Martins, how was the transition to Fashion Design?

Like many designers I trained at art school first, but I have always been interested in fashion. My mum studied pattern cutting, and made all my clothes when I was young.

Where did the ideas of the hats in the SS10 Collection spring from?

I was in the flower market, taking photos of everyday people and there was suddenly a moment where carton images appeared in my head. Everyone became a different kind of plant according to their look and what they wearing. It is from this place of imagination, that the cacti hats came from.

May I ask about your design ideology?

My ideology… I am very open-minded to new things, and mostly, look at things from a very different angle. I often go on trips, where I take lots of photos and meet lots of people. When I come back to London, I always have so much in my mind, some of them like stories which I really want to share through the clothes I design.

How did you decide to produce your designs through knitwear?

It was the right material to work with at the time according to the concept. The use of wool produced the right mood for that collection. I want to find a media that translates my painting without literally knowing what it is that is being translated.

Yang Du currently has an exhibition titled “Falling in Love is a Risk” at the Assembly Rooms in Soho, I thoughly recommend a trip that provides the opportunity to view her sketchbooks and most recent designs. The exhibition runs until November 27 2009.

All photographs (except the last image) are from the SS10 collection: Mr Right Town. Look book by Bella Howard and styled by Grace Woodward, make-up, Andrew Gallimore, hair, Bianca Tuovi and was produced by Platform