"Body & Portrayal”

An exhibition of works by students of the University of Westminster

 

Private View: Friday 2nd of May from 6 pm - 11pm (artist talk from 7.30pm)

Exhibition runs from: 2nd of May to 8th of May 2008

Gallery Opening Hours: Monday – Wednesday: 2.30 pm - 6.30 pm

Last day of Exhibition - 8th of May: Open from 11 am to 5 pm!

Martyn Hester

Leigh-Anne Galloway

Natalie Bennett

A group of media and arts students from the University of Westminster are pleased to present an exhibition supporting emerging contemporary talent.  Leigh-Anne Galloway, Martyn Hester and Natalie Bennett, amongst other artists, investigate their own interpretation of portraiture, concentrating on the female figure and its visual representation.

This show brings together a group of promising students that offer through their work a fresh and cutting-edge angle to portraiture. Poignancy, skill and thought are at the heart of the exhibition, showing well-executed and thought-provoking art. Talks will be given at the private viewing from Leigh-Anne Galloway and Natalie Bennett, in an attempt to bring you closer to understanding a student’s artistic mind.  Leigh-Anne will be talking at 7.30pm and Natalie 8pm

Leigh-Anne Galloway: ‘My self portraits elicit an obsession with the discourse of meaning, articulating an incongruity between image and realism, body and portrayal.  The often confrontational and provocative nature of my work and her occupation with subjective interpretation gives my work much of its poignancy and evokes comparisons with Valie Export and Sarah Lucas’

Natalie Bennett:  ‘I am a fine art practitioner, with particular emphasis towards photographic arts. Since 2005, my work has evolved to looking objectively into ideas of psychoanalysis, cultural studies, gender studies and the nature of constructed photography.  I work with identity from a personal, sociological and theoretical perspective, playing with issues of construction of character and the nature of beauty within society.  The work I produce is an entwined web of ideas which often take on quite a classical form’ 

Martyn Hester: ‘My work focuses on changing the perception of the beauty myth by questioning the boundaries of ‘beauty’, showing something that is overtly repulsive and frightening.  My unique work discovers a new observation in female portraiture in a different mode’

 

 

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April 2008

 

An exhibition of printworks by Anthony Broad, Mallatratt & Scarlett Massel

 

Private View: Friday 25th of April from 6 pm - 11pm

Exhibition runs from: 25th of April to 1st of May 2008

Gallery Opening Hours: Saturday, Monday – Wednesday: 2.30 pm - 6.30 pm

Last day of Exhibition - Thurday 1st of May: Open from 11 am to 5 pm!

Mallatratt

Scarlett Massel

Anthony Broad

 

Sharing a passionate need to explore the possibilities of Fine Art Printmaking as an expressive medium to describe their interest in human interaction, wood, metal and stone are the raw materials for their printmaking. The peculiarities of each material inform their practice.

 Anthony Broad

From Stoke on Trent, Anthony Broad graduated with distinction in Ceramics at North Staffordshire Polytechnic. After working as Curator at the Video Access Library in the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, he pursued a career in bespoke Exhibition Design. As a practicing lithographer, Anthony Broad exploits the transparent nature of the medium to layer different coloured drawings on top of each other. These drawings, developed from mono prints, are generated mainly from images of sportsmen. They explore the nature of masculinity, male interaction and sporting theatre. The figures at the heart of the work are avatars expressing anger, hope, joy, loss and sometimes tenderness.

 

Mallatratt

Originally from the US, Mallatratt studied Graphic Design at Central St. Martins. After 15 years of working in communication design in London, the artist turned to painting and printmaking. Absorbed with woodcutting in printmaking, Mallatratt has developed a technique combining a painterly intuitive reductive approach with the more traditional Japanese pre-planed woodblock approach.The work focuses on the urban environment partially Clerkenwell, where Mallatratt finds a sense of home evocative of Manhattan in the sixties. 

 

Scarlett Massel

French Guyanese born, Barbadian bred, Scarlett Massel attended the Acadamie Julian in Paris and later trained as a potter in Lund, Sweden, and in the Loire Valley, France. Her career as a print-maker is relatively recent and after studying with Richard Chester from Atelier 17 in Paris, she graduated from Winchester School of Art with a B.A (Hons) in printmaking. “I feel that my itinerant life has instilled in me a feeling of both belonging while at the same time not doing so, wherever I may be. I am interested in what makes us who we are, what makes us individual and unique and at the same time, in the greater scheme of things, just one among many.”

 

For further information: www.wood-metal-stone.co.uk or e-mail: printmakers@wood-metal-stone.co.uk

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"Curiosophy” …the study of things curious"

An exhibition of works by Cara Nahaul, Rebecca Moore, Natascha Nanji, Marie Thams & Emily Whitebread

 

Private View: Monday 21st of April from 6 pm - 11pm

Exhibition runs from: 21st of April to 24th of April 2008

Gallery Opening Hours: Monday – Wednesday: 2.30 pm - 6.30 pm

Last day of Exhibition - 24th of April: Open from 11 am to 5 pm!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crafty combos of cabinet like curiosities, mixed and melded and worked and welded and captured and cast – curisophy reveals the reality in which conception lags behind…

 

Cara Nahaul’s animal/insect hybrids are created from the world of the unknown. Her imagined hybrids do not act as a canvas to subject our anxieties on to but allow the spectator to consider new forms of existence. 

Rebecca Moore’s mix of sounds, props and projected images create a theatrical multimedia experience to allow the spectator to become a performer within the work, confusing the links of flow and narrative. 

 

Natascha Nanji creates eerie moments of tension, drama and mystery confronting the unknown; constrictions of meaning and form releasing lines of flight. 

 

Marie Thams’ sculpture and abstract installations question the value, and our perception of everyday encounters, dramatising the banalities of daily human life to challenge the viewer’s participation in the staged illusion. 

 

Emily Whitebread’s found images and film footage confuses the lines of distinction between one’s own memory and an experience with the unfamiliar in an attempt to subdivide reality. 

 

Cara Nahaul. Rebecca Moore, Natascha Nanji, Marie Thams, Emily Whitebread and Red Gate Gallery courteously invite you to come and share in this curiosophical adventure.

 

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"Pueblo de London "

 

An exhibition of works by Pedro Theye

 

8.30pm to 9pm live interactive body painting performance for public to join in

Private View: 18h of April - 6 pm to 11 pm

Exhibition runs from: 18th of April to the 19th of April 2008

Gallery Opening Hours: Friday 18th from 06.00 pm - 11.00 pm

Saturday 19th of April: Open from 02.30 pm to 11.00 pm (Fully licensed Bar on site)

Red Gate Gallery cordially invites you to: “Pueblo de London” an exhibit of video projections onto painted canvases.  In his latest artwork we dive into the surreal world of artist Pedro Theye.  This multimedia series records a glimpse of life in the city (pueblo) of London, touching on a variety of themes from the changing environment to immigration.  Pedro’s art aims to allow the viewer to unfold underlining themes whilst sipping on a Rum cocktail.  Originally from Miami, Pedro’s laidback exhibits are full of music and fun. The exhibition will also be featuring a few pieces from his previous series "Elements of Utopia"

 

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"Second Skin"

An exhibition of works by So-Ha Au, Alexander Bates, Alice Cunningham, Lorna Giezot, Jacqueline Morreau & Axelle Russo

 

Private View: 11th of April - 6 pm to 11 pm

Exhibition runs from: 11th of April to the 17th of April 2008

Gallery Opening Hours: Sat, Mon, Tues, Wed: 11.00 am - 6.30 pm

Last day of Exhibition - Thursday 17th of April: Open from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm

mage: (from L-R) Alice Cunningham, So-Ha Au, Alexander Bates,

Jacqueline Morreau, Lorna Giezot and Axelle Russo.

 

Second Skin brings together an engaging show of work by six painters and sculptors: Work that explores clothing and its notions of identity, the body and memories.   With the artists depicting, reconstructing and referencing 'clothing': looking at its relationship with our bodies; how we identify ourselves and how others perceive us; provides commentary on everyday narratives; symbolises our psychological spaces; conjures and promises associative memories; and maps our absence and presence. 

Alice Cunningham's previous work has been concerned with investigating and highlighting natural processes in an attempt to describe andunderstand the cogs of our existence on a universal level.Cunningham is fascinated by the hidden and basic truths around us.The installation for this exhibition was made as a discussion of theemotional and social process of growing up, the transition into themainstream working world and understanding its substance andstructures.

 

So-Ha Au is interested in exploring the themes of mapping memories and the layering of time, as a way of mediating personal histories and identity.Expressing ideas of absence and displacement, tracing and retracing.She is using diagrams of dressmakers’s patterns to look at the interior spaceoccupied by the clothed body. Deconstructing the shapes, like displaced limbs.Reconstructing them again, almost as flat plans for referencing an unoccupied,internal space of the absent and displaced.

 

Alexander Bates: Messy Bedroom is a series of photographs or snapshots made with disposable cameras that document paintings of discarded clothingalongside their real life counterparts in situ, making the labour intensive seem casual.

Jacqueline Morreau first used a coat as a symbol of ambivalence in her 1980s series “Divided Self” but has since returned to it to symbolize thepush and pull between two women closely identified with each other:twins, rivals, mothers and daughters, friends - all searching forseparation. The idea came to her from seeing, in Camden Town, twoschoolgirls struggling to get into the same coat. As models, she used twoacrobats from Circus Space in London, whom she already knew. Theirsense of playfulness and willingness to try out many ways of 'sharing thecoat' encouraged her ideas. 

 

In 1999 Lorna Giezot began a body of work which stemmed from an interest in how our relationship with clothing and the notion of dress isperceived.By removing the human form as the central structure for the clothing andreplacing it with objects devoid of gender, or any need or social purposefor dressing, she aims to approach the impact dress has on the psyche.Garments, costumes, uniforms awaken nostalgia, represent cultures, agesand races, simply by their colour, texture, age or smell.The pointless act of ‘dressing’ the shells, juxtaposing the domain ofclothing and the discarded, asexual shell, is an attempt to displace andmanipulate the specific connotations both these items exude. In doing soshe aims to encourage reflection upon what we see and how we canperceive it.

 

Axelle Russo started working on Burkas (Afghan Women’s outdoor veils) in 1998. "The ghost like shape of any Muslim veil is familiar to the viewer but I play with theform to raise questions about women’s identity and the clothing as a simile of thatidentity. Clothing, in any of its expressions, is a language and this hiding veil thatis supposed to mask or disguise the self becomes an identity statement. I like toplay on the paradox and conflicts raised by traditions and politics that impose aconstrained (veiled) image of women and the way the self is inevitably appearingbeyond the veil. You can see these women as victims, but also as Iconsrepresenting archetypal aspects of women’s identity and sexuality. Beyond any geographical limits, religions or race."

 

For further information on the artists, please email So-Ha Au: info@sohaau.com

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"Fusion"

An exhibition of paintings by Steven Haddock

Private View: Friday 28th of March from 6 pm - 11pm

Exhibition runs from: 29th of March to 4th of April 2008

Gallery Opening Hours: Monday – Saturday: 2.30 pm - 6.30 pm

Last day of Exhibition - 4th of April: Open from 11 am to 5 pm!

 

Steven Haddock is a London based artist who communicates strong expression through the use of colour which on his canvases translates into free flowing textures and layers of paint. Haddock’s art is a mood inspired documentation of what he sees and feels around him. Observations of the ordinary things and of every day situations that surround the artist are passionately poured into the canvas, drawing inspiration from the multitude of graffiti art that has visually informed his childhood years whilst travelling the underground tube network.  

Bright colours and free expression liken the canvases to the environmental influences of graffiti art. The unconscious feelings for the subject are included in the image that is created. Of much importance to the artist is his love of the process. He is currently studying for a BA degree in Fine Art at University of East London.

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"Fragile Existence"

An exhibition of works by Tin Fish

Exhibition runs from: 15th of March to 28th of March 2008

Gallery Opening Hours: Monday – Saturday: 2.30 pm - 6.30 pm

Last day of Exhibition - 28th of March: Open from 11 am to 5 pm!

 

Carina Hall

Danielle Ward

Marie Hart

 

By Tin Fish 

We think,

we make, we do....

A thought, an image,

a creation captured in time,

and time is scarce,

our existence is fragile.

Tin Fish is a group of four individual artists including Carina Hall, Marie Hart, Danielle Ward and Becky Metcalfe.  ‘Fragile Existence’ is Tin Fish’s first collaborating exhibition whose aim is to share their diverse styles and ideas with the public in an exhilarating way.The group produces their work in a variety of different mediums and between them they have backgrounds in Fine Art, Textiles, Photography and Sculpture.  They produce Art that is pure, subtle and focuses on their own deceptions of the surrounding environment.

 

Carina Hall: www.photoescape.co.uk  hall_carina@hotmail.com  - Carina documents fragile moments found in nature where she illustrates the effects that reflections, light, movement and water have on landscapes and underwater scenes. This heightens the surreal feel she likes to portray in her images. Carina enjoys discovering patterns created under the surface of the water; the way in which sunlight, clouds and colours of the underwater landscape move and are reflected back onto the water.

 

Danielle Ward: danielle_de_bie@hotmail.com www.danielle-ward.co.uk As a student in her native Holland Danielle always found herself drawing and painting, when her grandfather hand made her an easel, there was no going back. Through the years, the inspiration behind Danielle’s contemporary art comes from the elements of nature combined with the fantastical realm of the imagination.  

 

Marie Hart: marie@thefairyandtheneedle.co.uk www.thefairyandtheneedle.co.uk - Marie studied Contemporary Textile Design which has equipped her with tools to approach her artwork with an almost limitless array of materials and techniques.  For Marie, her artwork is led by her love for textures, constructed surfaces and a passion for exploring new ways of employing everyday materials.  Nothing is restricted, it is all open to never-ending possibilities.  Scale, media and dimension are Marie’s playground as she fuses contemporary stitch with print, paint, felt and glass .

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Buddhist Meditation - Space and Joy - by Wolfgang Poier.
Wolfgang has been practicing Diamond Way Buddhism for

over 20 years and has a wealth of experience and stories to