Hyunjeong Lim’s ‘Somewhere’
At the Beers Contemporary’s ‘Contemporary Visions IV’

‘Somewhere’ (detail) chalk on canvas,160 x 350 cm, 2012

Contemporary Visions IV presents nine international artists (selected from a pool of nearly 1500 applicants), who represent a host of disciplines and perspectives in contemporary art. Even through the artists use unique methods and mediums, they exhibit a desire to question traditional modes of artistic consumption. Here, notions of aesthetics and the politics of looking are always under scrutiny. Many of the works offer reinterpretations of art historical canon, simultaneously venerating and veering away from their antiquated source material. One senses a reverence for historical precedent, as well as a drive to reinvent contemporary ideas of artistic practice. Also of significance are the themes of fantasy and transformation. Through metamorphosis of the human figure (and the spaces it inhabits), these artists challenge preconceived notions of artistic authority, and pave the way for a new understanding of the impact of contemporary art. Continue reading “Hyunjeong Lim’s ‘Somewhere’
At the Beers Contemporary’s ‘Contemporary Visions IV’” →

Art Circus Spotlight
‘Remembering the Mountains’ by Ester Svensson

‘Remembering the Mountains’, as the name implies, is about remembering a landscape. Remembering, longing for something which may no longer exist. Much of my work takes personal experiences as a starting point, and so do these pieces. My parents are Swedish, but i grew up in Pakistan. I went to boarding school in Murree, at the foothills of the Himalayas, surrounded by mountains. In the summers, we often went walking in Northern Pakistan, getting much closer to them – the Himalayan, Karakorum, and Hindu Kush ranges. I left Pakistan when i was 19, and since then i don’t see many mountains. But when i think of my childhood, they are always there. Much has changed since then, of course. The mountains i have in my memory have changed – glaciers melting, new roads, less forest, more houses. Other things have also changed – greater political and societal unrest, drones and terrorism, water shortages and floods, to name a few.

First, i made the mountains in clay, and then made a mould from them. Then we put the moulds in a kiln, and the RCA glass technician Anthony Harris filled them up with molten glass. Since they are big and solid, we had to wait for one and a half weeks until we could take them out of the kiln, and crack open the moulds. I usually work in ceramics, but i made these in cast glass; clay was too solid and physical. Glass seemed more transient, translucent, intangible – like memories.

See more work by Ester Svensson

‘Réflexions faites’ by Romain Trystram

‘Réflexions faites’ is a series by French illustrator Romain Trystram. Romain’s smooth illustration style takes you round a slick, unknown metropolis, catching the city’s late night workers, commuters and strays through a rainy neon night, then drops you off as the city wakes up to a refreshing sunny morning. Continue reading “‘Réflexions faites’ by Romain Trystram” →

Helena Clew’s New Paintings
On Show In ‘N22 Open Studios’, The Chocolate Factory

Helena will be showing a collection of her new paintings at the N22 Open studios this weekend. Helena’s practice explores the possibilities of painting in the liminal space between abstraction and representation. She is constantly intrigued by how visual information – such as colour and gestural mark making – can allude to something that is difficult to define or identify clearly as a particular thing in the world, whilst at the same time being recognisable aesthetically as an ‘abstract’ painting. She pays close attention to the ever-changing possibilities that the fluid medium of paint offers in the moment of being worked and manipulated. But the paintings are also affected by her intuitive responses to the specific objects and collages she uses as their starting point.

The N22 Open Studios is now in it’s 15th year and has 120 artists displaying works over all mediums. The studios are open from the 8th to the 10th November 2013 at the Chocolate Factory, Clarendon rd, Wood Green, N22 8XJ

Art Circus Spotlight
‘Arab Autumn 2011’ by Agnieszka Kolek

The idea for the series of three photographs “Arab Autumn 2011” has been growing in me since my involvement in the work of One Law for All and Passion for Freedom London Art Festival. I was following the events in the Middle East and what struck me the most was the sheer enthusiasm on the side of Western media and commentators. It all looked so simple. The headlines claiming that internet through Twitter and Facebook are bringing freedom and democracy to all the countries involved in political unrest. I was thrilled too, yet I could not believe the headlines. The news stories started to look more like mere fantasies than actual events. Maryam Namazie, the activist leading the work of One Law for All (an organization campaigning against the Sharia courts operating in Great Britain) was receiving numerous e-mails from Egypt and Tunisia in particular telling the other side of the story. The persecution of secularists and atheists, the pressure to introduce Sharia law for all citizens whether they are believers or not.

I started to think how does it feel to lose your own freedom, how does it feel when you are forced to slowly submit yourself to that power? The images started to play in my mind. The final result come to me in Madrid. Only after seeing the result I have noticed that the body posture changes dramatically with every step of submission. “She is not the same, she’s broken”.

See more work by Agnieszka Kolek

The Art Circus Looks At – The Portrait

Having a portrait painted was once a luxury afforded to the elite. The wealthier and more powerful the subject, the larger the painting and the rarer the colours used. Dressed in fancy attire and shown amongst their wealth, their property or their land, this was the way the subject would be remembered through history – dictated by themselves with very little evidence to contradict.

With the introduction of photography and the belief that it would replace drawing and painting, some portrait painters switched to photography whilst others became obsessed with capturing the sitter. Rather than having a paying sitter, the artist would use family, friends, muses, lovers and quite often, the artist themselves. To stand out, many artists established a niche behind their practice whether the style and medium of the work or type of sitters from whom they took their inspiration. Continue reading “The Art Circus Looks At – The Portrait” →

Q&A with Eleanor Watson

Eleanor Watson graduated from Wimbledon College of Art in 2012 with a BA in painting.

You’ve said ‘The absence of the inhabitants is important because it allows for the room and its contents to describe a story’. Do you feel it would be possible to create stories with the absence of a room and contents with only people remaining?

Yes absolutely, and that is exactly what my boyfriend paints. I have been more interested in the distortion of a narrative, or of a potential narrative, which is intrinsic to an empty room. Whether the drama has already taken place or perhaps they are a set for a dreamed life. I have more recently been playing with images with people, but they are more like the figures of Bonnard; handled in the same manner as the rest of the image. But it is early days for them. Continue reading “Q&A with Eleanor Watson” →

Art Circus Spotlight
‘Interior’, ‘Black Grid’ and ‘Praxis’ by Ed Smith

My prime interest is in spatial configurations of pure form and colour. To heighten this, I employ a rigorous hard-edge geometry, eliminating any obvious signs of brushwork, while favouring an extended family of hues that includes cerulean blue, prism violet, eau-de-nil, pinks, teal and, above all, black and white.

There are two distinct types of work – the static or “inclusive” and the “dynamic”.

The painting “Interior” is one of the former, an enclosed space in which the forms are self-referential, locking into each other in ways that raise the question of exactly what is interior and what is exterior, and whether it is in fact no more than just an arrangement of form and colour where the title is, in fact, misleading. By contrast my “black” paintings, a short series of four (an example being “Praxis”, shown below right), are “dynamic” in that the forms are not bound by the picture frame, but by using strong diagonals and large partial forms, have the capability of continuing virtually to infinity in some black void.

“Black Grid” (shown above left) lies somewhere between the two – an hommage to Mondrian, perhaps, but using my palette and the black background, the white grid also has the potential to extend beyond the frame, while the blocks of purple, teal and white are locked into their position between the verticals and horizontals, static, immovable, unable to shift even a fraction without destroying the balance of the composition.

I work entirely in acrylic on canvas, most paintings to date being no larger than 76 x 102cm to keep a sense of unity, but with a view to increasing the scale – and the palette – in the near future.

Ed Smith’s paintings are exhibited at Bistro 51, which is shared between 51 Buckingham Gate and adjacent Crowne Plaza St James, until the end of January. A viewing can be organized if visitors ask at the concierge desk.

A Fabric Toilet, Fridge and Oven by Do Ho Suh

Korean artist, Do Ho Suh is known for constructing site-specific installations which play with the ways viewers occupy and inhabit the structures and spaces. For his upcoming exhibition at Lehmann Maupin, Suh has created delicate and ghost like sculptures of common household items made out of polyester fabric.

Art Circus Spotlight
‘Simon’ and ‘Nina’ by Annie Hall

My aim is to make work which is ambitious. These large scale portraits (typically 1.14 x 1.63 metres) needed to be contemporary but not lose any of the sophistication of the skill involved in making them. The scale needed to be larger than work made previously and this paved the way for a number of changes in the way I thought about the work. I began thinking about each drawing as an object in its own right, moving swiftly away from the more conventionalised approach used previously. A new approach allowed me to focus on investigating the relationship between myself and the subject through a rendering of all the qualities that make up a subject’s personality. Previously the portraits resembled an overly stylised version of the person rather than having the strength of gaze which is at once captivating and sober. Technically, the surfaces of my drawings now hold much more visual information and investigate the nuances of each facial feature. Charcoal is quite an unpredictable medium but I enjoy its texture and the challenges of working it into and around the paper.

There is a tense look to some of these drawings which is not just an indication of the subject’s mood at that moment but also a result of the mutual relationship between artist and subject and this tension is magnified by its ‘larger-than-life’ size. Chuck Close has been a source of much inspiration in terms of the scale of the work being produced. His work is a lot larger than these but I am dealing with many similar issues such as how the viewer becomes involved in the heightened intensity of a large direct gaze. Equally fascinating to me is the idea of ‘mirror reflex’ and ideas to do with looking and being looked at. When Simon saw his portrait he stood in front of it for a long time apparently caught off guard at seeing his own mirror image, i.e. seeing himself as others see him. The disparity between the scale of the features in the portrait and the sense of scale the viewer normally has further heightens the intensity of this act of looking. My selection process is generic. For me, it’s not necessarily about gravitating towards people with features which are obviously striking or pleasing to the eye. I suppose the criteria are simple: a face that I know I can render well enough for the viewer to glimpse something of that person’s life or disposition. This is what I aim to capture and so how I choose my subjects is often down to who is around me when I’m making that decision. That being said, I want to see how the result would differ when drawing a complete stranger. I think there must be some discernible difference because I do not have any real connection with that person.

A main consideration for these larger pieces is the method of displaying them. Initially, I considered using MDF board to mount the drawings, making them even more substantial as objects. After testing this out with a smaller drawing I decided against it because the result was clumsy and the board took away from the intriguing quality of the edges of the paper. I decided to use magnets as this would avoid damaging the paper. Using disc magnets along the front top and bottom edges was too visible and the magnets became too much of a feature, not to mention the expense involved. After extensive research, I decided to use magnetic tape and steel strips running along the top and bottom edges, creating a bold and flush framing mechanism.

I think these portraits manage to retain a heightened sense of realism whilst not attaining a state of completely photographic realism. The last four years have yielded work that I am happy with and I have met some very supportive and honest people in that time. I feel like there is much more to this journey and I am excited to see what work I have yet to create.

See more portraits by Annie Hall

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