A Postcard From London

Dazzle London - three printmakers

Dazzle is a contemporary jewellery exhibition running every year for nearly thirty years at four different venues. Since last year, in addition to jewellery, Dazzle displays work of three chosen printmakers. Few days ago I visited the show at National Theatre in London.

Jakie Field

Jackie Field specialises in unique woodcuts and relief prints. Her recent work focuses on architectural constructions of different glass houses in Britain and Europe. The prints are almost as monumental as the buildings pictured; some of them measure even three square meters. The artist uses limited palette of colours, sometimes just two tones of the same hue, but because they are intensely deep, brilliant colours the effect is stunning. The size of the picture, colour and the amount of detail contained in these prints made me study and enjoy them for long time. I really admire the geometrical perfection and precision with which Jackie Field produced each woodcut.

Davida Smith

Pamela Hare is an artist and printmaker living and working in Islington. Her work is influenced by urban cityscapes, people and man made environment. Her recent work involves photo-screen printing technique, and than each print is hand painted using vibrant colours. My favourite image is Cold Harbour, depicting a sunset over Canary Wharf, yet the colours are so exaggerated it seems that the buildings are on fire.

Pamela Hare

The third printmaker is Davida Smith, whose work is influenced by topography of Rye in East Sussex, where she currently lives. Smith uses etching and aquatint techniques to produce beautiful and very delicate abstract countryside landscapes. It is excellent opposition to the work of two previous artists.

Leonardo

hand-painted
photoetching

Dant on Drink: Drawings about Drinking in Britain

Drinking is the main theme of Adam Dant’s second solo show at the Hales gallery in East London. Dant on Drink: Drawings about Drinking in Britain, as one can imagine, is neither a didactic show promoting healthy leaving nor a guide through new range of deliciously fruity J2O juices. Instead the artist focuses on the nation’s favourite sport, second after football of course (although these two have a lot in common), which is ‘getting hammered’!

The drawings are vast but filled with a great detail and all executed in sepia ink and tempera on paper. At first glance they seem like historical illustrations or some old documents, but closer inspection reveals contemporary subject. In four huge drawings Dant explores the relationship between politics, history, environment and ‘the bottle’. From drunken orgies among royal family members to the total mayhem caused by weekend binge drinkers in the streets of East London. These themes mirror William Hogarth’s British drunken landscapes in his Beer Street and Gin Lane engravings, as well as the carousals of the middle class men in A Midnight Modern Conversation.

My favourite is the Redchurch Street series containing of eight medium-seized drawings, in which artist depicts booze fuelled romps that take place on the streets outside his studio in Shoreditch. It is truly the circus of insane out there! People dancing, fighting, being pushed on shopping trolleys, sleeping in piles of rubbish, having sex in random places with random people, urinating, vomiting, defecating… and dinking even more! Dant’s documentary take on the subject is very objective; the artist doesn’t try to moralise and leaves the final judgment to the viewer.

Looking at these images most of us would say: “yea, yea… been there, done that!”(only those who are unlucky to remember the happenings of ‘the night before’), but still it is quite funny, or maybe sometimes rather scary to see oneself from a different perspective. If you happen to wonder around East London with lots of time on your hands than Dant on Drink is an exhibition definitely worth a visit.

Panoramas finally finished:)

Canary Wharf Panorama - the view from Blackwall DLR station

University of East London Library Panorama

'Create Your Own Jewellery' Poster - final version

'Create Your Own Jewellery' Poster

Poster promoting my girlfriend's stall in Spitalfield Market..today is her first day!. good luck, baby:)

Collage made from hundreds of gemstones, silver balls, Swarovski crystals and other pieces, which can be used to make homemade jewellery.

-= WORK IN PROGRESS =-

Aquatint

I was wondering around National Gallery the other day, when suddenly I saw this picture! It is baby Jesus, detail from a massive medieval painting by Vincenzo Foppa "The Adoration of the Kings".

It is a really spooky baby Jesus:)

Fourth Plinth proposals

Fourth Plinth, situated in Trafalgar Square, was designed by Sir Charles Barry in 1841 to display an equestrian statue, but due to insufficient founds for more than hundred and fifty years it remained empty. Since 1998 Fourth Plinth is the home to the biggest contemporary public art commission in central London. The six new proposals for the plinth are exhibited in the Foyer of the nearby St Martin-in-the-Fields church.

My favourite submission is the Cock by German artist Katharina Fritsch. It is a stainless steel sculpture of a giant rooster painted in vivid ultramarine. The rooster is a symbol of pride, strength, honesty and courage, but also flamboyance and arrogance. ‘The proud master of a chicken yard’, the rooster, as an animal, is a parody itself. Since Cock literally refers to male genitals it is a great irony to place it among all the Trafalgar Square’s sculptural celebration of masculine power, especially next to the most phallic Nelson’s Column. The sculpture is a great satire on British patriarchal society and history. Despite its socio-political connotations the Cock as an object, and because of its strong colour, would bring a surreal accent to the mostly grey architecture of Trafalgar Square.

Powerless Structures, Fig. 101 by Elmgreen & Dragset, another interesting proposal, is a brass sculpture portraying a boy on a rocking horse. Placed among Trafalgar Square generals this piece may have different meanings. On one side it is a portrait of a child elevated to the status of a historical hero. Rather than glorifying the past it celebrates the heroism of growing up, the expectations and future. On the other hand the little boy on the wooden horse breathes life into the cold, dehumanised military statues. It reminds us that all this figures aren’t just some detached, fictional characters on the pages of history books. They were alive, and they too ones were innocent children themselves.

Little Me photoetched..

Little Me:)

Family Album
Shoe Box Project
3D Collage

Jack in the Box

etching, steel plate

V&A Museum of Childhood

I went with my son to run around the museum and among all the weird toys my attention caught this creepy Jack in a Box.

Newspeak: British Art Now @ Saatchi Gallery

Newspeak: British Art Now is the new exhibition at Saatchi Gallery which, like Saatchi’s Sensation in the nineties, is supposed to breed new generation of YBAs. The result is rather headache triggering mix of different styles, approaches and not always fresh ideas. Fortunately there are few hidden gems in this visual cacophony that highlight the show.

MacKinven Et Sick In Infinitum

Alastair MacKinven’s Et Sick In Infinitum (End is Forever) series is definitely one of them. The series contains of four vast oil paintings depicting variations of Penrose staircase, an impossible architectural construction familiar from the work of MC Escher. The crooked structure build from vivid colours and thick impasto is contrasted by perfect grid set as the background of the painting. These geometrically chaotic forms remind claustrophobic fortress-like buildings: jails, maybe mental asylums. There is a palpable threat, that if one would be placed inside, there would be no escape.

Quinn Dad with Tits

Ged Quinn’s Dad with Tits is a humorous transformation of the iconic portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart. Here the ‘founding father’ is pictured with a pair of boobs as the breastfeeding mother of the nation. The sign on the Washington’s chest reads “PAPA”. Quinn underlines the autopsy of the old painting by picturing the first American president as a rotting corpse. The bird sitting on his shoulder symbolises departing soul. The volcano eruption seen through the window in the background is yet another sexual insinuation.

Daniels William Blake II

Another recycled image is William Blake II by William Daniels. Based on the portrait by Thomas Phillips, the painting is executed in oil and uses very interesting and original technique of working from constructed model. Daniels, similarly to Quinn, depicts his ‘reused’ subject as zombie-like dummy, or some futuristic robot made from origami, but his portrait lacks vivid colours and uses just cold grays.

Wilson 20:50

The only permanent installation at Saatchi Gallery is Richard Wilson’s 20:50, which has been continuously shown in each of the gallery’s venues since 1991. It is an extraordinary illusion created in a space by flooding its floor with thick, pitch-black engine oil, which mirrors the room’s architecture, doubling its size. There is a waist deep walkway that extends into the pool and places the viewer at the centre of the artwork. Unfortunately at the time of my visit the walkway was closed and not accessible to the spectators. Hopefully it is not a permanent decision of the gallery’s management.

The Judge

etching, soft ground on zinc plate.

The Judge - etching & sketch

I came up with this idea after a visit to Royal Courts of Justice. I saw this mannequin showing traditional Judge's uniform and it remind me the ass-faced judge, that Gerald Scarfe drawn for Pink Floyd's "The Wall":)

Old Man Silver Card Print

It is my first print using simple Silver Card technique.

I deliberately "recycled" this old image to remind myself about one of my successful yet still unfinished projects!

I find printmaking absolutely fascinating, it requires great patience, but it suits my detailed style..I've got the feeling there is potential for a flourishing relationship:)

Hell's Half Acre @ Old Vic Tunnels

The collaboration between the Lazarides Gallery and the Old Vic Tunnels brings the extraordinary Hell’s Half Acre, a group exhibition inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. The show takes place in the abandoned railway tunnels beneath the Waterloo Station. As we enter the vaults we are greeted by the looped video of a madly barking pit-bull, which like Cerberus guards the entrance to the underworld.

The Heretics’ Gate

One of the first rooms hosts Doug Foster’s The Heretics’ Gate, a video installation, which is one of the highlights of the exhibition. The crowd of people gathered in front of it seems to be hypnotised by the Rorschach-like flame explosions. The animation doubled by its reflection on the greased floor and surrounded by complete darkness looks like suspended in space. It gives an impression of a portal to a different dimension or a gate to hell indeed. It is visually very powerful and impressive piece.

For What We are [...]

Jonathan Yeo, known for his porn collage portrait of Gorge W. Bush, displays a three-dimensional collage For What We are About to Receive portraying two naked women kneeling in prayer. The image is made from adult mag’s cut-outs spread across six Perspex sheets, and hung the way that it can be seen entirely only from a certain angle. The execution of the piece reminds plastinated cadavers and animals cut into slices by demonic German anatomist Gunter von Hagens for his Body Worlds exhibitions. ‘Things are often more beautiful if they’re disturbing and they’re more disturbing if they’re beautiful.’ – says Yeo about his piece.

Zac Ové The Time Thief

Among all the sculptures in the show the most eye-catching are the voodoo statues by Zac Ové. These dramatically lit life-size figures made from found material, strangely terrifying when approached on short distance, seem that at any moment may break the stillness and attack the viewers gathered around them.

Each artwork is more intriguing than the previous one as we move through the space. Beginning with mad hound and finishing with Tokujin Yoshioka’s ambiguous vision of Heaven as the Swarovski incrusted disco ball. Hell’s Half Acre is definitely one of the most exciting art shows that I had pleasure to attend.

Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? -=2010=-

My own response to the same question, but set in 2010..

Digital Collage using Photoshop and Google-found imagery.

Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?

1956

1992

Richard Hamilton's original collages "Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So

Different, So Appealing?"

It's a Jungle Out There, Baby!

A4, pencil, pen, aquarell crayons
21/09/2010

The Adventures of a Little Red Car

A4, pencil, pen, aquarell crayons
18/08/2010

Landscape

A4, pencil, pen, aquarell crayons
09/08/2010