This Saturday 1st July sees the opening of Lubaina Himid: Warp and Weft, a survey of works by the 2017 Turner Prize nominee at Firstsite gallery in Colchester.
A key figure in the Black Arts Movement, Himid first came to prominence in the 1980s when she began organising exhibitions of work by her peers, who were underrepresented in the contemporary art scene. Her diverse approach disrupts preconceptions of the world by introducing historical and contemporary stories of racial bias and acts of violence inflicted upon oppressed communities.
Thursday 24th May sees the opening of RobertPerkins: The Written Image at Benjamin Spademan Rare Books, the first of a two-part exhibition of the American artist’s 45-year collaboration with poets.
From Seamus Heaney to Allen Ginsberg, Perkins has worked with the best of the best when it comes to the world of poetry. In fact, his journey began back in the 1970’s when he was a student at Harvard University and took poet, Elizabeth Bishop’s creative writing seminar. Perkins explains that when he told Bishop that he’d always wanted to be an artist, she wrote out a copy of her poem TheFish and asked him to illustrate it.
This assignment launched The Written Image, which Perkins describes as ‘self-portraits of the poet in the moment.’ To begin a work, he takes the poet’s hand-written text and then melds it with his own imagery, thus constructing a visual representation around the words.
On Friday 19th May Gallery DIFFERENT will present 35-year-old contemporary painter, Tarek Sebastian Al-shammaa’s debut solo show Fall of Europe II (until 22nd May).
We at ArtAttack stumbled upon Tarek’s artwork last year and have been great admirers of his painting practice ever since. His painterly use of space is quite extraordinary, filling the canvas with symbols and figures that tell stories of our world within the greater context of mythology. Each tiny element he chooses to include says something powerful. No iconography is wasted.
Thanksgiving, 2017, Acrylic and oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm
The artist’s main practice is history painting as he explores historical and mythological subject matter juxtaposing it with the harsh realities contemporary Western society. Within each of the epic paintings he presents the viewer with poignant psychological insight into his own life and heritage; Al-shammaa is half French and half Iraqi, and so has found himself straddling two oft-opposing cultures throughout his life.
Recurring themes across the young artist’s paintings include consumerism, war, love, lust and political oppression, as well as the opposition and even conflict of Western and non-Western culture and ideals. In the body of work on view, Alshammaa depicts everything from iconic myths like that of the Tower of Babel to mythical iconography such as Mother Earth, all within a present-day context.
ArtAttack contributor, Franzi Gabbert, had the chance to interview Al-shammaa in regards to his upcoming exhibition as well as his general practice.
Coming soon to Hoxton Gallery is Unseen Paintings, 1954-1960, a thrilling survey of works in oil by the late British artist Keith Cunningham.
This will be one those exhibitions where perhaps the story is just as fascinating as the works themselves. Keith Cunningham was one of the most promising artists of the 1950’s, graduating from the Royal College of Art, studying alongside Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff, even being approached by Beaux Arts Gallery and showing work with the prestigious London Group. For all intensive purposes, Cunningham was going to “make it.”
Selection of works by Keith Cunningham. Courtesy of Bobby Hilson and Hoxton Gallery.
British painter, Danny Rolph, comes to London with East Central thanks to CNB Gallery this September. The exhibition is made up of four large-scale paintings, all of which have been inspired by the areas of London in which Danny grew up, namely EC1, EC2, EC3 and EC4. As a child he would stand in the kitchen of his parents’ high rise flat just off the City Road staring at the city below, and in these works, which unite painting with collage, he has recreated those memories in abstract forms.
EC2, 2016, Mixed media on Triplewall
Of the works, he says: ‘I grew up in the sky, one hundred foot above City Road. The view from our kitchen window contained sunset and sunrises of the type that Tiepolo imagines populated by architectural silhouettes of St Paul’s, the Old Bailey and the Post Office Tower.’
After winning last year’s prestigious HIX Award, Canadian emerging painter, Ally McIntyre, is back in London with a solo exhibition at CNB Gallery.
The Sun Poppped, which opens 25 May, challenges the age old concept that there can be a ‘perfect’ in painting, blending traditional genres, iconographies and artistic processes to create an alternative mythology in a new painterly age.
Ally McIntyre, Robespierre, 2016 c. Ally McIntyre. Courtesy of the artist and CNB Gallery
The paintings on view present an alternative to traditional heliocentric (male/patriarchal) worship, instead making nature, animals and the cosmos the receivers of praise and the central figures of faith. And whilst the theme and vibe of the work itself is very much mythological, it strongly alludes to the contemporary feminism, as well as the protection of nature and animals.
Keith Coventry‘s latest exhibition at the Pace Gallery in London, ‘White Black Gold,’ will be on view at the ground floor galleries of 6 Burlington Gardens until 28 May 2016.
The artist archly monumentalises the bleak debris of our cultural landscape with an exhibition which ‘ennobles the ignoble’.
Destroyed Shop Window (2016), Bronze
McDonalds ‘Golden Arches’ are now a well-worn emblem of late capitalism, so programmed into the popular imagination, that Coventry need only depict a colorless fragment of the golden ‘M’ for his audience to be bombarded with a litany of red, yellow and white memories – of bombastic adverts, Happy Meals and any host of relatable motifs that have come to represent 20th Century American capitalism.
ArtAttack is proud to present our latest ‘Artist of the Week’, Louis-Nicolas Darbon. Artists of the week are selected by the ArtAttack team from the diverse and eclectic group of artist users on our app.
Parisian born, London-based artist, menswear & lifestyle blogger, Louis-Nicolas Darbon stands out from the crowd with a mixture of his two worlds of art & fashion colliding, sartorially influencing gentlemen around the globe.
I had the chance to talk to Louis about his career so far, and find out more about his artistic practise.
ArtAttack‘s next The Other Art Fair artist interview is particularly unique and will undoubtedly capture attention due to artist Christian De Wulf‘s original trade, psychotherapy. De Wulf uses this background extensively in his creative process, interpreting his understanding of the psyche into imaginative pieces of art work.
The Belgium-born artist believes that the underlying psyche of an individual is not easy to determine and in his work, looks at what happens if you magnify those inner-most thoughts, emotions and feelings.
Personally, what I find most interesting about De Wulf is that he is not just an artist/art lover, but works alongside seemingly non-art related personal interests to create his works. Of course, his collections resonate in modern society due to the extensive connection between art and therapy and the contemporary use of art therapy.
What first appears quite simple — acrylic paint and canvas — involves a great deal more than meets the eye and we are delighted to share this with you.
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