Artist Show
Mugshots: Sally Kindberg + Philadelphia PD

28 June – 9 August 2014

Successful portraits resist description in a way that other types of picture do not. A portrait is something other than just an image. Simple images aspire to tautology; “I am what I depict” they insist. Portraits make the precise inverse of this claim. Portraits suffer from the ravages of their sitters’ old age and dissolute characters.

See these two black and white images of a man’s head, face-on and in profile. The expression is inscrutable; is it fear, anger, defiance, resignation? That his name, aliases, the nature of his crime and the date of his arrest are listed on the reverse is of no help.

The mugshot and the passport photo are the most straightforward, the most concise and accurate of portraits. They are intended only for the purposes of identification. They describe their subjects fully and simply, yet they cannot be fully and simply described themselves. The only way to make a portrait comprehensible is to dissect it, dismember it, reduce it to a collection of appendages and features; here are the eyes, here is an elbow… Sally Kindberg goes further; she has obliterated the face altogether. With cheese. Continue reading “Artist Show
Mugshots: Sally Kindberg + Philadelphia PD” →

‘Behind the Mask’ by Ben May

Illustrator Ben May has just released his first book titled ‘Behind the Mask’, which brings together a collection of beautifully drawn masks from the movies, from the very recognizable and iconic to the more obscure and cult films. The book is presented as a game, with the reader guessing the character and their movie.. But as well as a great guessing game, ‘Behind the Mask’ shows us how a well designed mask can make the character, as well as the film, intrigue us, stick in our minds and sometimes haunt us. Take a look and put you film knowledge to the test.

Continue reading “‘Behind the Mask’ by Ben May” →

Q&A with Vasilis Avramidis

Taking care of nature and looking after gardens are often mentioned with your work. Are you a gardener?

No. I reference the life and routine of gardeners in a group of works. The gardening process seems to be somewhere close to the process of life sometimes. And this was a starting point of thought, which developed into a painting concept.

On average, how long do you spend on a piece?

Usually it takes about one month if everything goes well, but a painting may be re-worked on after a while if necessary.

How important to you is selling your work for you to make more work?

All artists are always making new work, regardless. Exhibiting is important, because it is the only way that your work can relate to other people. When a painting is acquired by a collector, it’s a way to know it’s appreciated, it’s a great way to support the practice of an emerging artist, and it’s equally positive for the artwork itself, as in this way it takes an independent course. Continue reading “Q&A with Vasilis Avramidis” →

Art Circus Spotlight
Jaya Mansberger ‘Informal Elements’

Neither solely abstract nor representational, the paintings I make could best be described as “figurative abstracts”. I aim to create paintings whose brush-strokes teeter between signalling some form of human activity or celestial body and dissolving into arbitrary painterliness. This concern also informs my actual painting process. I usually start off with a specific image in mind which then inevitably gets lost beneath layers of loose, intuitive brush-marks. In this way the original pictorial starting point becomes translated into a more personal and abstracted painterly language.

My paintings contain a certain sense of tension as they appear to be both spontaneous and highly considered. The modest size and round shape of the canvases is intended to convey a sense of delicacy and restraint and to give the paintings a jewel like, intimate quality. Continue reading “Art Circus Spotlight
Jaya Mansberger ‘Informal Elements’” →

‘The Last Man’
An Art Circus Curated Show
In Collaboration with the James Freeman Gallery

4th July – 2nd August 2014

Opening Reception:
Thursday 3 July, 6:30 – 8:30

The Art Circus is very pleased to announce our first curated group show in collaboration with the James freeman Gallery. Artists on show will include Vasilis Avramidis, Christopher Gee, Miguel Laino, Hyunjeong Lim, Mackie, Tom Shedden, Eleanor Watson.

Change is one of the few certainties in life. After death and taxes, the only thing we can be sure of is that nothing stays the same. As such, it begs the question: what happens when we’re no longer around?

Taking Mary Shelley’s apocalyptic novel The Last Man (1826) as its inspiration, this show explores the mysterious absence of humankind from the spaces they once inhabited. The ecological concerns of Shelley’s novel bring to mind: if mankind disappeared, would the natural world be free to reclaim what belonged to it? Visitors thereby get to take the place of Verney, The Last Man, in becoming the sole observer of an eerie lost world.

Seven painters come together to create this atmospheric exhibition. The unnerving images of Christopher Gee and Miguel Laino create a haunting, ominous presence, as if even before the disappearance there were clues, portents and signs. The paintings of Eleanor Watson and Mackie depict abandoned landscapes and structures like solitary markers, with empty rooms seen through external walls creating a sense of dereliction. In Vasilis Avramidis’s luscious works, green mossy hills emerge in the black of night from a subterraneous realm and morph into arms, fingers and heads. The Bosch-like theme is continued in Hyunjeong Lim’s drawings of twisted landscapes that depict a contemporary Golgotha through a cacophony of comic-book images. It is left to Tom Shedden’s paintings of an Elysian future to suggest a counterbalance of harmony with the new elements. Continue reading “‘The Last Man’
An Art Circus Curated Show
In Collaboration with the James Freeman Gallery” →

‘Pushing Paint’ at Ink_d Gallery, Brighton

13 June – 13 July 2014

‘Pushing Paint’ will showcase a set of artists using oil on canvas in a variety of different ways. From washes that have dried on the day to canvases so thick with paint, they have taken a year to dry. We will have a variety of both subject matter and style. The above list includes artists we have been working with since the gallery opened, right through to artists showing here for the first time. Several of these artists are receiving much acclaim at the moment.

Artists on show include  Jake Wood-Evans,  John Simpson,  Sarah Shaw , Garry Smith, Harry Adams,  Enzo Marra and Tim Fawcett.

‘Volkan Aslan: A Day Not Yet Lived’ at Pi Artworks, London

6th Jun – 5th Jul 2014

A Day Not Yet Lived, is Volkan Aslan’s inaugural solo exhibition at Pi Artwork, London. For the exhibition, Aslan will create an ambitious site-specific installation that will act as an unconventional platform for his well-known broken figurine series. A body of work that deals with subjects that the artist has been interested in exploring since his childhood, and that was first exhibited as part of his solo exhibition at ARTER / Space for art, Istanbul, Turkey.

Driven by nostalgia for his teenage years, the artist regularly sources and collects ceramic ornaments that remind him of the statuettes that where prominent in the homes of the village where he grew up. The artist gives new meaning to these found figures by shattering them, compiling the broken pieces, and then reconstructing them into a series of hybrid configurations. By amalgamating parts from various human and animal statues, Aslan creates nameless characters with jarring characteristics: a roaring lion’s head atop the body of an exotic parakeet or a braying stag atop a slender female flower picker. The artist uses this procedural template of breaking and fixing as the mechanism for the creation of new and unexpected beings.

For A Day Not Yet Lived, the artist has produced creatures that appear to be straight out of folk legends or mythology, yet backstories for these figures do not actually exist. They are brought into existence with no scripted journey and the artist deliberately leaves the viewer to shape their stories and interact with them free from judging eyes and minds.

For more info, please visit Pi Artworks.

‘A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby’ by Kara Walker

Kara Walker, known for her silhouette drawings and installations, has created her first public art project in the soon to be demolished Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, NY. On entering the crumbing factory, visitors are unexpectedly met with a monumental sugary sphinx, peering down at them, from the dark and becomes a mysterious and powerful tribute to the building and the commodity once created within. The title ‘Subtlety’ means a sugar sculpture made from sugar paste, marzipan, fruits and nuts, which was made to portray as well as to be consumed, by royalty. The grand sugar sphinx is on view until July 6, 2014. (Via)

Sarah Ball’s Damaged Humans
At The Coningsby Callery, London

27 May – 7 June

The work explores the definition of its own title and asks the viewer to contemplate the crimes or woes of each subject. The term, ‘damage’ can reach an understanding that in fact all humans experience damage and that this pain, woe, experience or ailment can be shown with beauty through facial expression. Ball asks not only to see the subject’s ‘damage’ but to interpret the concept of ‘Damage’ and in some cases let the portraits reflect the suffering or injustice many have endured. Continue reading “Sarah Ball’s Damaged Humans
At The Coningsby Callery, London” →

Artist Show
Lucy Atherton’s Norwegian Paintings

30th May – 30th June 2014

Lucy Atherton has recently arrived back from a 3 month residency at the Nordic arts centre, in Western Norway. During her stay, she created a series of beautiful, atmospheric works, featuring epic rolling landscapes, exposed branches, incandescent dripping skies and poised wildlife. Lucy’s Norwegian paintings will be on show downstairs at Toms Skate Shop, 76 Stoke Newington High Street. Continue reading “Artist Show
Lucy Atherton’s Norwegian Paintings” →

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