Due to popularity the exhibition has now been extended until Friday 11th 7pm, giving more people a chance to see their work.
Remi/Rough and Steve More are leading a new school of post-graffiti artists and this will be the first UK exhibition to showcase the movement.
A is an exhibition at the forefront of an urban abstract movement whose roots come from a time before the hype of street art. Interest in this movement is steadily gaining momentum and Remi/Rough and Steve More are amongst its finest exponents.
The introduction video to this show was produced by fellow Agents of Change member Timid and shows the works and artists introducing their new direction of Urban Abstract.
Where – Blackall Studios, Leonard Street EC2A
When 1st till 12th February 2011
Centre for Recent Drawing presents the first UK solo exhibition of artist Maxime Angel. Through a highly physical and performative relationship to her drawing practice, Maxime Angel mines a deep held fascination with human sexuality and mortality in her intensely beautiful yet disturbing works on paper and card.
Angel’s personal interaction with her medium and her ability to project the internal and external machinations of the artitst’s body onto the 2D plane create a deeply visceral viewing. She lies, sleeps, smudges, interacts, destroys, scars, crumples and lives with her work, upon which she inscribes her fears, experiences and realities. Thus the drawings become an artifact of her life, laid bare in an intimate exchange of imagery and symbolism that sees the viewer not only connecting with Angel but reading something of themselves in the work.
The fragile nature of the medium reflects the works powerful grasping for fleeting beauty, as young vitality morphs into decay. Angel deploys these images as a metaphor for AIDS and our constant slide towards death, although she regards the act of drawing as itself a way propagate life, a Dorian Grey like exorcism of the inevitable.
Maxime Angels work traces a long and complex historical line of queer drawing, from tattooing to gay erotica, yet cannot be described simply as pornography. Her erotic illustrations mesh together both personal and cross-cultural references in uneasy yet sublime cohesion, while her beautiful and complex compositions recall traditions of Vanitas and still life. In doing so she subverts and utilizes the gay sub cultures, religion and pop iconography that have so influenced her life, exposing and exploring perceptions of gay narcissism.
Capturing what Angel describes as the ‘perfection in decay,’ these works entice the viewer with a rich visual language which is at once highly distinctive to the artist yet ultimately recognizable and truthful. We are reminded of our own mortality, but also of the cyclical and uplifting nature of life.
Maxime Angel will be working on a large site specific drawing in the gallery space in the weeks leading up to the show- feel free to come visit and watch Angel’s process on 28-30th April and 5-7th May 12-6pm. The show is curated by Paul Kindersley.
Words by Paul Kinderseley
Where – C4RD | 2 – 4 Highbury Station Road, Highbury Islington, London.
When – opening reception on Tuesday 10th May 2011 from 6 – 8pm. The exhibition will run from 11th May to 17th June 2011
Untitled Nude, (c)2011 Shireen Qureshi, oil and charcoal on canvas
I recently interviewed London artist Shireen Qureshi for This ‘Me’ of Mine. Her ‘Untitled Nude’ is a compelling expression of the struggle in the violence of existence; of being flesh and bone. We discussed an interesting point of the Deleuzian ‘event’…
Jane Boyer: Deleuze suggests we are an event; meaning that out of a chaos in which conditions have come together to form a ‘one’ or have passed through ‘a screen’ which allows something rather than nothing to happen.[1] There is a sense of ‘event’ in your tableaus and the figures are that ‘event’, as if we are witnessing the coalescing of a self, how do you see this? Do you feel the passage of time is relevant to the self?
Shireen Qureshi: It is interesting that you suggest that we are witnessing the coalescing of a self in my work because in my mind I am more interested in breaking down the body, of rupturing boundaries. I often initiate a painting by making it look real and then trying to break it down, by overlapping bodies or breaking apart skin and bone, I suppose in that sense the aim for me is towards chaos rather than from it. But I think that this is a very interesting idea, especially the sense of an ‘event’ you describe in my work, forcing my viewers into the role of witness. I think that if the paintings have created any sense of inescapable drama pinning both my figures and viewers in place, then this is an achievement in itself. From my point of view, the passage of time is interesting because it is within a space of time that metamorphosis and transformation can occur. I would like to create a sense of movement, an undulation within each of my paintings as if they were bubbles of captured space and time. I think that time is inescapably relevant to the self because it is within time that a self is built or deconstructed, subjected to the violence of existence, and within which the self moves, inevitably, towards death.
Fall, (c)2010 Shireen Qureshi, oil on canvas
Whether we think much about it or not, we live every moment of our existence with the thought of our extinction – every one of us could cease to exist at any moment. This latent threat is one aspect of the ‘violence of existence’ mentioned by Shireen. From her point of view the violence exists in the visceral reality of living in flesh and bone, a violence we understand first hand. Often through serious illness or accident, the loss of loved ones or violent personal threat we realize the fragility of our existence and the latent threat of our extinction become a conscious reality. Once aware of this imminence our sense of self undoubtedly alters; we become a self with limited time.
The visual breakdown of bodies, flesh and bone is an interesting interpretation of this psychological awareness of our mortality. The ambiguity of whether the bodies in Shireen’s paintings are coalescing or breaking down is indicative of the struggle in the moment of ‘difference’ described by Deleuze, and as such, is also the ‘violence of existence’ Shireen speaks of. Deleuze said, “Indifference has two aspects: the undifferentiated abyss, the black nothingness, the indeterminate…in which everything is dissolved – but also the white nothingness, the…calm surface upon which float unconnected determinations like scattered members: a head without a neck, an arm without a shoulder, eyes without brows. The indeterminate is completely indifferent, but such floating determinations are no less indifferent to each other. Is difference intermediate between these two extremes [the undifferentiated and the determinate]? Or is it not rather the only extreme, the only moment of presence and precision?”
Hand in Hair, (c)2010 Shireen Qureshi, oil on canvas
He continued, “There is cruelty, even monstrosity, on both sides of the struggle against an elusive adversary, in which the distinguished opposes something which cannot distinguish itself from it but continues to espouse that which divorces it.”[2]
Living is difference; it is the precision of presence. Living with the imminence of our extinction is the violent struggle of divorcing that which continues to espouse us; a struggle “within which the self moves, inevitably, towards death,” as Shireen says.
Read more of our interview, ‘Straight from the Nerves’ on the This ‘Me’ of Mine blogsite.
We recently had the chance to get ourselves to Oslo and were eager to discover the street art scene the city could offer and came across the wonderful pieces below.
Liz McQuiston‘s new book ‘Visual Impact – Creative Dissent in the 21th Century’, is out now. It is a richly illustrated exploration on art and design driving major social and political change in the 21st century.
Loads of events, such as Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, etc., plus social issues like poverty, equality, gun-control and more, have given rise to what is known as ‘activist’ or ‘protest’ art.
Visual Impact highlights the extraordinary power of art and graphic design to affect social and political change. Generously illustrated with over 400 images, this is a visual guide to the most influential and highly politicized imagery of the digital age. Read more about the book
To celebrate the book and all dissident artists, we’ve included some famous and striking images below from artists conveying a strong (and often) political message.
The Lenticular Rabbit by ROA, London, UK, 2009. Photo by RomanyWG.
Artist: unknown
From Visual Impact: Creative Dissent in the 21st Century
Artist: Princess Hijab
‘Hijabizing’ intervention in the Paris Metro by Princess Hijab, France, 2006-11. From Visual Impact (Phaidon, 2015)
Artist: Blek Le Rat
Stencilled poster of US soldier by French artist Blek le Rat, pasted along the route of anti-war march in Paris, France, 2003. Photo by Sybille Prou. From Visual Impact (Phaidon, 2015)
We just finished a ‘spring cleaning’ in the office and stumbled upon a spare copy of Dan Baldwin’s latest book and guess what? We thought, we’ll give it away to you readers! What you only need to do is to fill out the form below. Easy!
The book is a visual retrospective of the artist’s career from art school through the struggle to become a full-time artist, to his current international career. Featuring a foreword and quotes from Baldwin, an essay by Dr. Ben Cranfield, an exclusive interview with the artist and over one hundred carefully selected images- including original paintings, ceramics, sculptures and prints.
Baldwin has worked closely with CCA to create this overview of his career so far; carefully selecting pieces for inclusion that best show his artistic progression. The book will include images of early works and studio photographs, as well as new pieces that will be seen for the first time as part of his 2013 solo show Fragile.
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It’s a rare thing for a young artist to come along with a style and visual language fully formed. But this is definitely the case with Bael (AKA Michael James Bell). Still in the early stages of his career, his work has a confidence and clarity that many other, more experienced artists would envy.
Having briefly flirted with an art college education, Bael found the whole experience less than inspiring and decided to go it alone. The results seem to have proved that this was a wise decision. Looking at his intense, spare, highly personal artwork you have the distinct impression that they would not have been produced with such single mindedness, if he had been bombarded with the ideas and prejudices inherent in an art college education.
Private View: 13th January 2011, 6 – 9pm
Where: Signal gallery (London) – view on Google map
When: Open to the public: 14th January – 5th February 2011, Tuesday – Saturday 12 – 6pm
We are big fan of artists using what they can find around them to help them making art or in Nick Gentry’s case, using floppy disks to be his support for his art as well as being integral part of his end product – mainly portraits.
Nick Gentry uses wood panels layered with floppy disks which he might paint or not, but one sure thing is that they are fully integrated in his pieces. Using the round bit of the floppy disk as the eyes is a recurrent occurrence in his art. Nick Gentry portraits all these imaginative or not, I do not know, characters which behind that scruffy brush stroke comes to live.
