Category: Artist Show

“A representation or reproduction in black and white or in varying tones of only one colour.”

In photography ‘monochrome’ may also refer to sepia images, displaying tones from light tan to dark brown or cyanotype (“blueprint”) images, and early photographic methods such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes, each of which may be used to produce a monochromatic image.

In the early days of photography, photographers had no choice but to take pictures in black and white, as it was the only available medium. In 1936 the invention of Kodachrome enabled use of colour, but black and white photography continued to flourish, many photographers regarding it as the purest form of photography. Colour can be seen as a distraction, taking attention away from texture, tonal contrast, shape, form and lighting.

The two works on show by Daniel Shiel are from a collection of photographs taken in New Mexico. They relate to how memories of locations or settings are though of as a series of views or particular details that cannot be represented as a single images. The resulting collage pieces combine to form a broader sense perspective and a deeper feeling of the atmosphere of two native American settlements.

Artists on show also include David Sault, Chris Bailey, Jon Simmons, Cowling Pinnacle, Limestone Pavement, Geoff Rushton, Mike Shepherd, Henry Meyer, Sarah Mcdade, Keith Craven, Lis Holt and Christine Cummings

Monochrome is on at the Mill Bridge Gallery until 21st December 2013.

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

‘Sprouting from a gift, for my son, of some Sylvanian Families, by my friend, artist Mat Kemp over six months ago. They sat in my studio, where they occasionally caught my eye starting to take hold, a little. So I looked at them closer. Such smoothly contoured little furry faces, lack of any emotion, stone cold. They would be great to paint. I put them to the side again unsure what excuse/concept I could make in order to construct the painting.’

‘Then I headed down to my friend’s photography studio to see if we could take some Caravaggio styled chiaroscuro photographs of the little bunnies. The idea being that I could populate iconic movie horror sets with them. I started playing and sketching whilst continuing to paint the Source of Light series.’

‘The sketching never quite worked so I decided to remove the bunnies and the iconic horror sets – which was kind of like removing the entire idea. But left I had a skeleton for what would make an interesting mood. And thus the Abandoned Dollhouses began.’

Mackie’s ‘Abandoned Dollhouses’ will be on show at The Other Art Fair at the Truman Brewery, London, from the 17th October – 20th October 2013.

16th October – 27th October 2013

Kirsty O’Leary-Leeson’s incredible and lushous drawings are on show at The Royal Society Of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London. There has been an annual exhibition in London every year since the Society effectively became operational after the end of the Second World and this year marks the 68th.  The event is an open exhibition, featuring around 300 pictures and sculptures that involves the sea and the marine environment, including harbours and shorelines, traditional craft and contemporary shipping, creeks, beaches, wildlife and everything that involves tidal waters.

11th October – 9th November 2013

‘That’s Right Mister, and How’s your Fairy Tale Coming Along’ is the first large-scale installation of sculpture and drawings that Fowler has exhibited in the UK. Steeped in the saturated glitz of golden-era Hollywood, Fowler’s work explores the contrast of the surface’s shimmer and an anxiety over the emptiness it might conceal. Citing Kenneth Anger’s ‘Hollywood Babylon’ as a formative influence, she pays due attention to what Anger called ‘the scalding reality behind the glittering facade of America’s dream factory.’ It is in this vein that Fowler’s work transcends the specific time-scape of these scenes, extending the limits of the flat, cinematic image, and revelling in the raw emotive depth contained within. These images are all the more powerful to a contemporary audience, aware of the hidden depths behind the beauty, only ever a mouse-click away from stripping back the smokescreen of fame.

For more info, please the Cob Gallery