Celebrating South Asian Art: Interview with Annoushka Hempel, founder of the Colombo Art Biennale

2nd December marks the opening of the much anticipated, 4th annual Colombo Art Biennale (CAB), the world’s largest and most significant celebration of contemporary South Asian art and culture.

Attracting over 2,500 visitors in its last edition, this year’s CAB, which is themed ‘Conceiving Space’ is curated by Alnoor Mitha and seeks to reimagine traditional concepts of the ‘spatial’ in relation to boundaries and engagement. It will focus on emerging talent, including over 60 international and local artists, among them Faiza Butt (UK/Pakistan), Cristina Rodrigues (Portuguese) and Chila Kumari Burman (British/Asian). 

Dr. Priyantha Udagedara

Abdul Halik Azeez

The event itself, was founded by gallerist and cultural ambassador Annoushka Hempel in 2009, its mission being to raise the profile of artists in this fast developing market. We are so happy to have had the opportunity so speak with Annoushka about the upcoming edition and to have her insight on what is certain to be among the top cultural experiences of the year!

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Never-before-seen Paintings by Keith Cunningham Come to Hoxton Gallery in Exciting Exhibition

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.

Danny Rolph comes home: ‘East Central’ at CNB 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.’

‘Be kind. Be resilient. Remember that mistakes are part of the process.’ – ArtAttack Interviews SOLO Award winner, Victoria Lucas

After following the progression of this year’s SOLO Award since the competition was first announced, we are so thrilled to share that a winner has been selected!

Hopefully, you had a chance to view the incredible shortlisted artists’ works on our ArtAttack App, which we were honoured to exclusively showcase on the ‘Curated Art’ page. Well, one of these talented creatives is now the big winner! We are thrilled to introduce Victoria Lucas!

Victoria Lucas, ‘Lay of the land (and other such myths,’ Detail of installation, Dimensions variable, 2016.

Victoria is a Sheffield-based artist represented by Mark Devereaux Projects. She received her BA (hons) in Fine Art (Sculpture) from Norwich School of Art and Design in 2004, followed by her MFA Fine Arts from the University of Leeds in 2007. Currently, she is a Fine Art Lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston.

Victoria’s artworks are often initiated by a physical encounter with a place, site or landscape. By concentrating on these contexts and their current or former inhabitants, she develops conceptual narratives that subvert and categorise events and myths using a site’s materiality as a catalyst.

We had the chance to speak with Victoria about her SOLO Award victory and greater artistic practice.

Cultural Connection: ArtAttack Gets the Inside Scoop on the Incredible National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan

‘…At the National College of Arts (NCA), we imagine a world. Not one world, but many. One for each of us, one from each of us, with these we write the autobiographies of our times, in objects, in lines, in mortar, and in perishable clay. In tracing ourselves, we leave traces. These are the traces that make our cities. Turn us inside out like pillowcases with that remembered smell, like shed skins. These are the traces that populate our nights, and from these traces we dare to dream again…’ – Excerpts from NCA teacher-students conversations

The National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan is a global centre for creativity, talent and artistic tradition. Originally founded as The Mayo School of Art in 1875, and rebranded the NCA in 1958, debate and discourse are encouraged amongst the students and faculty here, and this leads to a culture of understanding, individuality and tolerance. The art that comes out of this incredible place is some of the best in the world, the training exceptional and the diversity of the students in background, identity, ideology and language a major strength.

Teachers at the NCA nurture and push their students so that each one rightfully values his and her creative ideas and pushes their artistic practice to reach its height.

All this happens in a country who’s value is often overlooked by the international community; a country who’s goodness is glossed over for its’ bureaucratic corruption and troubled political history. It is easy to forget, if your only connection to Pakistan is watching the news, that this country, one of the cradles of civilisation, actually has an astonishing cultural and artistic history practically unmatched in the world. The NCA connects all their students with this rich history, as we hope the following interviews will connect our readers with it as well.

We are honoured to have had the chance to speak with three outstanding female NCA alumna, Class of 2016, Amani Iqbal, Sameen Agha and Komal Tufail, about their time at this esteemed institution, their artistic practice and their future goals within the art world. Suffice to say, these are powerhouse women and we can’t wait to see what incredible strides they take!

ArtAttack Meets the Artists Presenting at Latino Life Group Exhibition

Jealous Gallery is delighted to be working alongside Latino Life, the UK’s leading Latin Culture Magazine, as part of this summer’s Crouch End Festival 2016. There will be an extensive number of artists exhibiting their work at the gallery with a diverse range of mediums and styles to attract all.

The exhibition, which shares a name with the magazine, will present original pieces from established artists Silvina Soria, Sonia Ciruelo and Alex Vargas, forming a vibrant collection of mixed media work ranging from iron wire sculpture, collage on canvas and photographic prints of manipulated digital photography accompanied by video performance. Coinciding with Crouch End Festival, which runs from 10 to 19 June, the group show will celebrate bursting creativity and talent within the Latino community.

In this unique interview, we were lucky enough to be able to speak to all three artists presenting in the exhibition.

THE ARTISTS:

SILVINA SORIA – Soria is an Argentine Sculptor who works with different materials, each of them exploring the diverse particularities of the three dimensions.  Searching for the subtlety in sculpture led her to work the line in the space, with iron and wire. In 2009 she was invited to participate in an Artists Residence in Paris where she worked during three months on a wire drawings series in between the two and three dimensions. The theme of movement, flowing, the transformation inherent in the passage of time lies beneath all her work, enriched by the experience of travelling. 

ArtAttack: How did you become involved with the ‘Latino Life’ exhibition? Is there anything in particular that drew you to the project?

Silvina Soria: I was invited to participate as one of the Latino-American artists living in London.

ArtAttack X Rosie Osborne: Rosie interviews Nicolas Hugo

ArtAttack is thrilled to be collaborating with Rosie Osborne, founder of one of our favourite blogs, Free Spirits. This creative hub is home to countless fascinating and inspiring interviews with some of the art world’s most interesting minds and we are so happy to be able to share a few of them with you!

For our first of Rosie’s interviews, meet Nicolas Hugo, young Parisian gallerist and champion of emerging artists…

Nicolas Hugo founded his own art gallery in Paris in 2012, at the age of 23. More than three years on and 20 exhibitions later, he represents young, emerging artists from all over the world and is a rising star on the art scene. During his sell-out first exhibition, ‘I Ran with Iran’, which showcased works by young Iranian artists, his energy and initiative sparked a frenzy of press interest. Since then, he continues to innovate. His shows now demand a larger space and there are plans for a third international pop-up gallery, in London this year. In our interview, we discuss his childhood inspirations, his mission to break the mould, and the power of the sharing economy in the art world.

Nicolas Hugo in his home. Photo by Rosie Osborne.

‘I feel it is essential for art to take on serious issues and to reflect our societies and the issues of the day’ – ArtAttack Interview Graeme Messer

ArtAttack first came upon artist Graeme Messer‘s work at this year’s The Other Art Fair in London. We were drawn in by his witty and unique mirror works made for the fair and knew instantly this was an artist we wanted to watch.

After requesting to interview him for this very blog, Graeme let us know about a special project close to his heart; We R is an upcoming art exhibition exploring the meaning of LGBT identity and celebrating difference. Launching during Pride Week London, the show at Espacio Gallery will include nineteen artists from all different cultures and nationalities contributing to a really authentic representation of the diversity and fullness of the LGBT community.

The goal is to to reach out to the many people who find it difficult to be their true selves and to challenge viewers to believe and remember that being different is an inalienable right.

In the words of exhibition curators, Bettina Stuurman and Joao Trindade, ‘We always talk about equality and whilst it may be important to have have the same rights, we really wanted to show how you must celebrate difference. We are proud of this collection which reminds us to think about the present representation of the LGBT community. We want people to leave the exhibition feeling positive, excited and remembering their own unique nature – and this is what we hope the art has captured.’

We decided to chat with Graeme about We R as a preview for our readers to this sure-to-be powerful and moving exhibition.

A Moon for all – Artist William Leach Builds a Moon for Prison Inmates

Most of our readers would probably agree that art can be a powerful tool. Art can touch people in innumerable ways; it can make people laugh and cry. It can make them think. It can stop them in their tracks and push them to action.

In the case of William Leach, it is not only the art itself that is powerful, but the mere fact that someone thought to create it. As inspiring as the work may be, I find the artist perhaps even more so.

I discovered William Leach through Facebook. Our mutual friend had just posted photos he’d taken of Will’s latest project. The post read: ‘My friend William Leach lives opposite HM Holloway Women’s Prison, with the wall literally in his garden, and supplying the view for the inmates’ cells. Will realised the inmates couldn’t see the moon from the North wing, so he decided to build them one (on his roof).’

Photo by Jake Elwes

As soon as I read those words I knew I had to speak to Will, and I am so honoured he agreed to this interview. Here is someone whose incredible work has reminded me how profoundly art and the artists behind it can make a difference.