ART REVIEWS
Some years ago, a friend of John Kirby developed a brain tumour which made him both depressed for his friend and depressed for himself. It was around Christmas time and the pair pulled a cracker which contained the regulation paper hat. “I looked totally miserable wearing this pink or yellow hat. It’s a kind of move towards enjoyment without getting anywhere near it,” he tells me.
Continue reading “John Kirby – All Passion Spent”
Multi-prize-winning Austrian ceramicist Thomas Bohle has acquired a reputation as one of Europe’s most gifted potters. His beautifully crafted bowls and vessels have been exhibited the world over in exhibitions, museums and private collections.
Continue reading “Thomas Bohle – New Work”
At first glance, the world depicted in Land of Mortimer is a peaceful mythological idyll in which naked or semi-clad figures, in seemingly perpetual recreation, share their surroundings in harmony with animals and nature. They appear to be in what Jean-Jacques Rousseau described as “the indolence of our primitive state”. Furthermore, the skies are all blue, the trees are in leaf, ducks swim, deers frolic and sheep graze.
Continue reading “James Mortimer – Land of Mortimer”
With an array of paint spray cans, French-Tunisian artist eL Seed, has adorned many a building wall the world over with his personal brand of graffiti art. His works carry a message – not confrontational as with a lot of this street genre – but more of reconciliation.
Continue reading “eL Seed – Tabula Rasa”
Alice Browne is a young artist who recently graduated with an MA in Fine Art from London’s Royal College of Art after which she has featured in group and solo shows in the UK and as far afield as Norway and the US. Primarily an abstract painter, she creates in her works obscure, imaginative spaces that she dots with floating objects that play with perspective and often intrigue with potent symbolism.
Continue reading “Alice Browne – Found”
British artist Mark Thompson has acquired international acclaim for his bleak, barren landscapes, with their empty buildings, cavernous hallways and panoramic snowscapes. Created painstakingly with layer upon layer of oil paint and glaze on wood, they create a hint of a scene or place, charged with memory that is hazy and imprecise. Based in Sweden, Thompson brings to fine art that Nordic-noir aesthetic that we see so often these days on our TVs. His new solo exhibition at Proud Central in London comes 20 years after he first showed there. I spoke to him at the gallery and asked him first to explain the exhibition’s title, The World Distilled.
Continue reading “Mark Thompson – The World Distilled”
American artist Peter Gronquist draws on a wide range of media for his works – fabric, metal, ceramics, frosted glass, mirrors, even taxidermy. Working from his barn by a lake near Portland, Oregon, his oeuvre is multi-disciplinary – sculpture, painting and installation.
In whatever medium, his themes have revolved chiefly around American obsessions with material wealth, consumerism, guns, and religion. He once said, “Our culture puts money and violence on way too high a pedestal. I think these days people no longer see the line between entertainment and reality.”
Continue reading “Peter Gronquist – Shape Shifter”
Robert “Groovy Bob” Fraser was a charismatic gallery owner and art dealer who, in many ways, embodied the spirit of the so-called Swinging Sixties. He was the handsome, dedicated follower of fashion in the clothes sense, but a leader of fashion in the artistic sense by embracing the British pop art movement and championing many of its artists. He was the King of Cool, the archetypal party-goer who befriended many of the top musicians of the day including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, members of whom who would mingle together with artists at his Duke Street Gallery or his Mount Street flat. That marriage of pop and pop art seemed one made in heaven, or at least in Mayfair.
Continue reading “Robert Fraser’s Groovy Arts Club Band”
Brightly coloured horses rear, sharp-toothed lions roar, a blade from a cubist figure flashes, a French policeman appears (what’s he doing there?), helicopters and swans and cruise missiles hover while drill bits hang ominously above computer error messages.
Continue reading “Philip Colbert – Hunt Paintings”