Come and take some photos of the new wall (insert catchy name of random overseas visiting “street art superstar” who has an exhibition coming up in a London gallery or work to be consumed at some great big corporate “urban” art fair here) has painted, a feature would be great ahead of blah blah blah’s show…  We’ve had several invites and e.mails along these lines in the last couple of weeks as the so called London Art Season and corporate the fairs kick in once more. Invites from art gallery people or  their appointed PR companies employed to tell us how in touch with the street and the local communities said galleries and big corporate art fairs are (and yes, “superstar” was the actual work in the description, “street art superstar”),  at least the monster that is the Frieze Art Fair is honest about what they do and what they’re about, no pretending to be in touch with the people or the street or the local community, no bulshit about supporting artists or galleries or giving a flying toad about anything other than their own word. Bring on Frieze and a bit more honesty, is there anything less exciting than the latest “street Art Superstar” painting an East London wall as a publicity stunt ahead of their latest gallery show or corporate urban art fair appearance. Thankfully the last thnig Naomi Edmondson was thinking about when she painted her walls was her next gallery show, Naomi does her thing the right way……

five more art things then, all London things this time, for that is where we are….

1: NAOMI EDMONDSON has a show called ‘Survival Techniques’ coming up, “an exhibition of artworks by Naomi Edmondson opens at Atom Gallery on 7th October, and the opening party will be on Friday 6th October from 6-9pm. All are welcome. These paintings and screenprints are of positive and uplifting statements and actions that aim to bring a little light to people having a dark day”. The exhibition will then run from 7-28 October (Wed-Sat 11-6) and a percentage from sales of Naomi’s work will go to the Rethink Mental Health charity.  Atom Gallery is at  127 Green Lanes, London, N16 9DA   (Facebook event page) Naomi’s work was recently seen as part of the Cultivate show Interact her work really comes to life and makes you smile when you see it on a wall on a street or canal bank though, you can read a small interview here  

2: RISING opens this Thursday September 28th (6 – 9pm), Rising is an exhibition ‘exploring the anthropogenic impact on our coasts and seas’. I’m really excited to be installing my ‘Kaleidoscope’ series (which I have made new pieces for) in this beautiful Grade I listed building – St John on Bethnal Green (200 Cambridge Heath Road, London, E2).  There is also an artist film screening on the Friday 29th starting at 6:30 and the exhibition continues over the weekend” so said Hayley Harrison, one of the participating artists..

More on Rising: “Pale Blue Dot Collective presents its inaugural exhibition, Rising, exploring the anthropogenic impact on our coasts and seas. The sea provides an apt metaphor for our tumultuous political times. The exhibition title refers not only to rising global temperatures and sea levels but also us, standing together in protest for an alternative against the politics of denial and short-term solutions, which favour financial rather than the sustainable. The sea has often been the artist’s muse but we hope to present in Rising a thoughtful, sometimes funny, but always imaginative take on the state of our oceans. And whilst doing so have as little impact on our beautiful planet as possible.

There will be an artist film screening to accompany the Rising exhibition on Friday 29th September starting at 6.45pm.The screening will open with Ben River’s post-apocalyptic science fiction film, Slow Action; Katie Goodwin’s new film, The Morrow, a watery ode to settlements lost to the sea; Jessica Sarah Rinland’s latest film The Blind Labourer, a continuation of her whale themed narratives; Sujin Lim’s The Missing Scenery and the Missed Event; David Morgan-Davies’ The Crossing and a collaborative work by Gen Doy and Lynn Dennison. The main Rising exhibition will be open slightly later than usual for the screening audience to have a chance to see it. We would like to dedicate this exhibition to the late artist Chris Wainwright whose work and ethos we much aspire to”.

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3: BEN SLOW – A Line Is Drawn – Jealous Gallery say they are “thrilled to announce our upcoming exhibition “Ben Slow: A Line Is Drawn”, a solo exhibition at our Shoreditch Gallery space, running from 28th September until 1st October 2017”

 

Ben Slow’s solo exhibition ‘A line is drawn’ features new original works, created and re-created over the past year. The title signifies the artist’s own battle with his practice, breaking away from the work he has become comfortable and synonymous with, and creating truly expressive works, which have evolved through Slow’s persistence and dedication in pushing himself outside of his comfort zone. Slow quickly became a well-known name in the art world thanks to his large-scale and commanding black and white murals across London. Being continuously fascinated and inspired by chance meetings of colourful characters, his street work focused on celebrating local personalities, immortalising them in the locations they’re closely connected with. Do also join us for the private view on Thursday 28th September from 6.30pm-8.30pm at Jealous East, 53 Curtain Rd, London, EC2A 3PT.

4: FEMALE TROUBLE – is a large scale exhibition of three London-based sculpture and installation artists; Sarah Roberts, Lucia Quevedo & Pallas Citroen, The show opens on September 28th and runs until October 8th in the gallery at The Bomb Factory Art Foundation

The exhibition’s title is derived from the 1974 cult film by director John Waters. Waters is well known for irreverent films often featuring drag queens in female roles that break boundaries and subvert heteronormative assumptions. The oppositional elements of glamour and abjection, interior and exterior, real and fake are important elements in Waters’ oeuvre, and are further explored by the artists in Female Trouble. Water’s catalogue of work celebrates characters that break free from their social constraints, his films focus on overcoming repression and smashing the normative values and constructs that seek to subdue individual thinking and expression.

Citroen, Roberts and Quevedo are unique artists that have carved out individual styles discernible by humorous and theatrical elements. The artists employ installation as a means to explore their shared and abiding interest in surface and façade. Citroen, Roberts and Quevedo have very different styles and concerns and yet similarly are artists that utilise visually seductive materials that simultaneously reference the culture of the throwaway, the stand-in, the facsimile and the fake.

Female Trouble takes place in the gallery at The Bomb Factory Art Foundation with supporting 2D works displayed in local shop fronts in and around Archway. The exhibition closing party will take place on Saturday October 7th with live performances by the artist Liv Fontaine. ​

The show is open daily: 12-6pm, the exhibition preview is on Thursday 28th September (6-9pm). The Bomb Factory Art Foundation is at Unit 2 9-15 Elthorne Rd, London, N19 4AJ

5: SAM WINDETT – For his fourth solo exhibition at The Approach, London-based painter Sam Windett will be presenting a set of new works that draw on memories of motorway travel.

“The Approach is pleased to present London-based painter Sam Windett’s exhibition Motorway IV. The title is a nod to the M4, surreptitiously evoking themes of time, movement and repetition resulting from the artist’s drives around the South West of England but also reflect on more globalised notions of travel. The paintings are caught in a strange hinterland between abstraction, narrative and figuration. Windett’s distinctive variations of mark-making and textured surfaces has developed into his characteristic collaging style that involves the application of paper, charcoal and acrylic, spray and oil paints.

The paintings are like broken landscapes. Scrambled black and white surfaces reflect the wet road or the static of a car radio and the surrounding darkness of a night drive. References to radio compound not only through painterly representations of white noise, but in dial-like forms and the repeated letters FM and AM. The recurring motif of the disc doubles up both as suns and moons or the headlights of approaching cars. In the smaller canvases, cell structures resemble the veins of leaves, plants or invented ribcages. Seemingly organic forms contradict their evolution from the motif of fragmented mechanical bodies in earlier paintings of aeroplanes or drones.

Dusk or twilight travel becomes a permeating presence within these paintings. Windett’s exhibition makes oblique reference to Christopher Petit’s film Radio On (1979), a British road-trip movie which uses both the M4 and the A4 as its unremarkable backdrop. The film’s stark monochrome aesthetic is interpreted in the paintings with punctuations of dark blues and vibrant reds and greens”.

The Approach gallery is kind of hidden upstairs behind an annoyingly unmarked door above the pub of the same name (almost as if they didn’t want you to go up and have a look), 1st Floor, 47 Approach Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 9LY