Saturday 18 July 2015

English Magic at New Art Projects

I am delighted to be showing my new NEVER AFRAID paintings, along with some from the orignial series, at Fred Mann's stunning new gallery - New Art Projects
















































ENGLISH MAGIC
New Art Projects
6D Sheep Lane, London, E8 4Q
Opening hours:
Wednesday - Friday 11-6, Saturday 12-5
or by appointment e: info@newartprojects.comt
: +44 (0)207 249 4032 
 
Exhibition runs18 July - 23 August








PRESS RELEASE: ENGLISH MAGIC

Fred Mann is delighted to announce the first exhibitions at his new gallery, New Art Projects.

ENGLISH MAGIC will be made up of four solo shows by painters James E Crowther, Fergus Hare, Sarah Sparkes and Geraldine Swayne.

The exhibitions will explore the fine line between the real and the sublime in contemporary British Painting, looking in particular at what happens when the English landscape is distilled through the eyes of artists. A magical realm is created.

James E Crowther

“Gabba Gabba Hey... We accept you, we accept you. One of us, one of us, welcome to the Circus!”
Tod Browning’s, 1932, pre-censure Hollywood, movie Freaks

James E Crowther has carved an extraordinary series of figures from MDF, the choice of material for the coffin the maker. These are then meticulously hand painted and each are unique, having their own individual story. These figures are his Pinocchios, life is breathed into them and as they multiplied in his studio they began to create a visual noise.

He has created a modern day freak-show, a sideshow that grew into a celebration. It is a celebration not just of our shabby imperfection, our humanity but also of our shadow-side and weaknesses. Through out the narrative his characters create a burlesque undercurrent detailing the lives of the sideshow performers.

Fergus Hare

Fergus Hare makes oil paintings of the Sussex landscape; however a visual transformation is underway. Rather than paint from the landscape on his doorstep, these works stem from the imagination. With a firm nod to the fantastical “valley of vision” of Samuel Palmer and the mysticism of William Blake, Hare re-imagines the landscape as a dream-scape, on the edge of twilight. Alongside his paintings we will also exhibit an extraordinary series of charcoal drawings of the moon and planets. A solar system of the imagination.


Sarah Sparkes

'NEVER AFRAID' is a body of work that artist Sarah Sparkes has been creating over the past decade and is an attempt to both invoke and exorcise the memories embedded within her childhood locations. The title “Never Afraid” refers to the small village of Aldworth in the Berkshire Downs and a legend passed down to her by her mother's family about the four magical Aldworth Giants: John Long, John Strong, John Never Afraid and John Ever Afraid.

The 'NEVER AFRAID' works are an investigation of these stories, symbols and fragmentary facts that she has used to try to communicate with an idea of the past. She observes “NEVER AFRAID is a challenge made on a threshold before crossing into a symbolic, supernormal space; 'NEVER AFRAID' is a magical incantation to both summon and defend against forces outside of our understanding.”

Each of the ten works are painted with acrylic and mixed media on wall paper from one of her childhood family homes.

Geraldine Swayne

Geraldine Swayne takes her subjects from a wide rage of sources; from pornography, landscapes and portraits of friends and musical collaborators. She describes a creative and complex world that bridges artistic and musical creativity. As a member of the celebrated band 'FAUST', Swayne incorporates painting into her on-stage performances and often documents her experimental performances in her paintings. Her small enamel paintings have all of the fascination of historical cabinet miniatures; small, intimate, often sexual imagery is rendered in jewel-like colours on tiny metal panels.

Her fascination with life and the personal landscapes she encounters comes from the margins of society, her works describes the edge of or a bridge between obsessive worlds and the day to day.

Sunday 5 July 2015

POOL at Cafe Gallery Projects London

POOL

CGP London
Southwark ParkLondon SE16 2UAUnited Kingdom
8-26 Jul 2015



 My installation Jane Conquest Rings the Bell is included in the POOL group show at CGP London.

A Bermondsey Artists’ Group Exhibition
Exhibition: 8 - 26 July 2015 | Wed-Sun 11-5pm
Preview: Sunday, 5 July 3 - 5pm
Elisa Alaluusua | Caspar Below | Cecilia Bentley Bortoluzzi | Claire Blundell-Jones | Frances Coleman | Jane Colling | Jane Deakin | Gail Dickerson | Sean Dower | Stephen Dunn | Beth Elliott Tony Fleming | Charlie Fox | Michèle Fuirer | Caroline Gregory | Vivien Harland | Jonathan Hood | Sophie Horton | Malcolm Jones | Daniel Lehan | Miyako Narita | Anne Robinson | Louise Sheridan | Sisters from Another Mister | Harald Smykla | Lewis Paul | Martin Pover | Sarah Sparkes | Sarah Taylor | Karin Wach | Carla Wright
The buried presence of the Southwark Park Lido (1923-1986) mirrors recent transformations of North Bermondsey/Surrey Quays (née Docks); a ghostly trace marked by the decommissioned fountain and the presence of the original lido café (transformed into a gallery by The Bermondsey Artists’ Group in 1984 to become what we now know as Cafe Gallery - totally rebuilt in 1999-2000). The extraordinary history of the Pool of London and the growth of industry it supported has been slowly erased, to be re-built in another form. Nevertheless, the traces and scars of this story remain to be revisited, retold and remade.
POOL refers to this exchange and transformation; how the intersections and collaborations between artists both describe and resist the story of this transformation. The pooled activity of artists can sometimes offer other potential histories hidden beneath the surface: the watery world of Anthias (Sisters from Another Mister) suggests another world where the lido swimmer plunges underwater and begins to dream; threads pull apart just as they seem to pool together, echoing the contested artistic histories and ideas that have been born out of thirty years of working with and within Southwark, illustrated by Malcolm Jones’ local mural study for a painting commission that is now erased (Water Table/Estuary, 1985). Other works allude specifically to these marks of change and socio-economic transformations such as Carla Wright's banners and Karin Wach's photo traces of now demolished buildings and Anne Robinson’s Thrashing in the Static which explores psychic time travel and disorienteering The Thames.
POOL offers insight into how conversation and dialogue can cluster together ideas that can be both nourishing but also resistant creating a dialogue amongst works that re-present the world back to itself, creating allusions and ideas that ripple from the centre and bounce back. Looking down into the mirrored surface of a pool we begin to see other possible worlds beneath the surface.

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Fluorescent - Soho Open House Arts Festival

My installation 'You are Here' is included in Fluorescent - Soho Open Arts Festival this year.

This is an exciting new festival, which pairs up and coming and more established artists with some of Soho's established and much loved businesses.

Fluorescent
4 July 11 - 7pm
and 5 July 11 - 5pm
Various venues around Soho.  Check website for full details: http://sohofluorescent.com/