Articles Tagged with: artists

Ocean Wrestler Cowboy Bruise – Will Ballantyne-Reid

Ocean Wrestler Cowboy Bruise is a debut solo exhibition of work by Will Ballantyne-Reid curated by Helen Neven.

ocean wrestler cowboy bruise

First of all, this is not an unbiased review. The artist has been a dear friend for some time and I write about this deeply personal exhibition from this perspective. Will once told me a few years ago that if he were to change his name, it would be to ‘Ocean’. He wanted to embody the soft flux of the waves and the infinite sublime of fluidity.

This ‘shoebox’ exhibition reveals a personal archival process as a collection of imagery and objects tied to anecdotes and experiences. It demonstrates the formation of queer knowledge, the preservation of memory, and the wrestling of identity itself. Most prominent is the imagery of extreme masculine idealised bodies, which are stretched, strained, and sometimes stained with watercolour. These visceral images come together with historical artistic references to tragedy. Egon Schiele’s erotically-charged grotesque male nudes of contorting, androgynous limbs make an appearance, as well as, a Renaissance painting of St. Sebastian’s beautiful body penetrated by arrows at the moment of death.

ocean wrestler cowboy bruise

Alongside contemplative photos of sunsets, we see images of cuts, bruises, and wet tongues. The exhibition does not shy away from a sensual aggression that tells us adventurous tales of love-bruised queer trauma. Pills are fastened to the wall. Healing crystals are laid out next to torn pages from a magazine. Lighters become relics.

Indeed, ritualistic objects are laid out in the exhibition like shrines that unite within a single temple. The artist’s flirtation with the occult comes as no surprise considering associations to the manifestation of queer self-hood through magic. Here you might find refuge or escape, but most strikingly—a commitment to care and intention.

In the midst of current protests in Birmingham around the implementation of LGBT+ inclusive education programs in British primary schools, Will Ballantyne-Reid opens an exhibition that looks at his own self-education. What is ultimately presented is a tender celebration of queer identity in all its complicated and individualised forms—boundless as the sea.

ocean wrestler cowboy bruise

Ocean Wrestler Cowboy Bruise can be seen at Harlesden Job Centre (aka Harlesden High Street studios) 10/11 Stephen Mews, London, W1T 1AQ by appointment until 23rd May.
Please email hyph4e@gmail.com

 

Text by Wingshan Smith

 

For more

Making Bad Decisions – Richie Culver

The Psychology of Value – Andy Dixon


Bertrand Fournier Interview

bertrand fournier interview

Some of the works in Bertrand’s studio

 

We are very excited to be hosting Bertrand Fournier’s debut UK solo show this month, and decided to ask him a few questions about his work during the run up to what is an amazingly accomplished show for such an early-career artist.

 Why and when did you start painting?

 It was in November 2016, I started painting with my daughter. My mother had given me an old frame with no canvas, so I have buy a canvas for my daughter and one for me, just for try.

  How did you teach yourself?

 I immediately began to paint with oil because my wife had in her childhood belongings some old oil paint tubes, she explained me that it was necessary to mix a medium with the oil,  after there is not much more to know, I had to try all the mediums and all the possible techniques, trade canvases, raw canvas, glued canvases, stretched or glued on wooden panel, it is by trying we learn.

  The title of your exhibition “Some Pieces of Mind” seems to refer to your work as a nurse in a psychiatric ward.  What parts of your daily life affect your art?

I am inspired by what surrounds me, my daily life and also my job as a nurse in psychiatry emergency has strongly influenced me.  Certainly it is a very hard work where we see a lot of human and social misery but the fact of being permanently confronted with this madness, necessarily opens the spirit.  Where the common man is limited to decency, the people who work in this environment know that the human mind knows no limit.  That’s what I try to apply in my work, to refuse to lock my mind.

  Have you found a community online?

 Yes, we are quite numerous to have started at the same time to post our paintings on Instagram, I think it’s a bit like school, we are part of the same class, we will grow together I hope, I  think they will recognize but if you want some names I will give you @christine_liebich @umutyasat @wmlachance @d_a_n_i_e_l_j_e_n_s_e_n @jordykerwick @philip_geraldo @jean_baptiste_besançon @jenny_brosnski @mateusz.sarzynski @benjaminmurphy_ @clement.mancini @mariehazard @jessietaylorart @yvonnerobert_ @gabriele_herzog @richieculver @sorensejr @jonathanryanstorm

  Do you have an art community near you?

 No

  Where do you find inspiration?

 All I hear and all I see.

  What are the living living painters you admire?

 Gunther Forg.

  What advice on social networks would you give to emerging artists?

No special advices, just be yourself ! But personally i think the Social networks can become like a prison, it was very good for me because without Instagram no one could have discovered my work.  I’m trying now to take some distances from this little by little.

  What would you like to know about the art world when you started?

 I have no artistic training, I started in the process to decorate my house not in the process of becoming an artist so I can not say what at the beginning I really wanted to know about this world.  Now I have discovered enough, the other side of this world is not very glorious, I’m happy to surround myself with good people with real good intentions because there is a lot of fuck as well in artists than in galleries in this world. It’s not the Care Bears’ world.

 

We are very happy to be releasing lino PRINTS alongside the show, which can be viewed by clicking this link.

 

For more by Bertrand, click this link.


Open Call 2019 Install Photos

Thank you so much to the 520 people who came to the private view of our Open Call 2019 exhibition, and to the hundreds more who have viewed it during its two-week run.

For those of you who couldn’t make it, here are some photos of the install, and of the private view.

open call install

open call install

open call install

open call install

As always, we’d like to say a HUGE thank you to theprintspace for supporting the show, as well as another huge thanks to Crate Brewery and Jarr Kombucha for providing the drinks for the opening.

Photos of all the individual works can be seen by clicking this link


Delphian Open Call 2019 Winners

We are very pleased to announce the five Open Call winners from our 2019 show. Each of the five judges was allowed one Judges Pick, the list of these is below.

Prints of all of these, as well as the rest of the show, are available on our website. Click HERE for more.

Rhiannon Salisbury

Benjamin Murphy‘s Judges Pick, as well as being the Overall Winner

open call winners

Rhiannon Salisbury – UHH

Vojtech Kovarik

Nick JS Thompson‘s Judges Pick

open call winners

Vojtech Kovarik – Self Portrait With A Snake

Valerie Savchits

Wingshan Smith’s Judges Pick

Open Call Winners

Valerie Savchits – Dissolved Into Nothingness

Nettle Grellier

Hector Campbell‘s Judges Pick

open call winners

Nettle Grellier – Daybed

Jukka Virkkunen

Florence Hutching‘s Judges Pick

open call winners

Jukka Virkkunen – Flowers III


Radical Residency III at Unit 1 Gallery by Hector Campbell

My Top Five – ‘Radical Residency III’ at Unit 1 Gallery

 

Unit 1 Gallery and Workshop’s Radical residency returns for a third time following two success instalments last year, this time opening its doors to ten international artists, from the UK, France, Germany, South Korea and Switzerland. The month-long residency programme tackles the ever-pressing issue of studio costs in the capital by not only transforming the gallery into a large studio space but also a chance to exhibit during the resulting three-week-long group show.

By providing a communal space within with to work and develop their individual practices, a dialogue also arises among the residential artists, allowing for an artistic and creative exchange common at art schools but often lost as artists are forced apart by rising studio prices and a dearth of available spaces in general. Whilst this rich conversation no doubt contributes to each artist’s independent output, it also results in an exciting and cohesive group exhibition.

 

Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop founder and director Stacie McCormick states that “there are so many benefits to the artists working together in such an intense way, but the one that I did not anticipate, that seems to be the strongest, is the mutual respect and support”.

If you can’t make it to the exhibition, which runs until April 25th, here is a rundown of my top five artists with work on display in ‘Radical Residency III’, (in no particular order).

 

By Hector Campbell

Sooyoung Chung

radical residency iii

Sooyoung Chung, DYNAMIC SINGLE, 2019,  Acrylic on linen. Image Courtesy Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop

Sooyoung Chung recently graduated with an MA in painting from the Royal College of Art (London), having previously completed both a BFA and MFA from Ewha Womans University in her native Seoul, South Korea.

Sooyoung continues to document her daily life through her ‘Biographical Object’ series of paintings depicting individual everyday items, a process she began after moving to the UK from South Korea and finding herself having to buy and accrue the household items she’d previously taken for granted when living with her parents. Additions presented in the Unit 1 exhibition include a pencil sharpener, champagne flute, avocado and the instantly recognisable orange TFL ticket. Alongside the 18 small linen canvases, Sooyoung also exhibits one of her larger narrative works, in which she explores ideas of personal choice and taste by creating a portrait purely from the objects one surrounds oneself with.

Sooyoung’s work has featured in group exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Art (Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2018, June/Aug 2018) and the Saatchi Gallery (The Auction Collective & Presenza’s ‘Abstract: Reality’, Dec 2018), she has an upcoming residency withElephant Labin June (Open Studios June 27th)

Website/Instagram

 

Hun Kyu Kim

radical residency iii

Hun Kyu Kim, Table no.1, 2019, Traditional pigment on silk. Image Courtesy Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop

 

Hun Kyu Kim recently graduated with an MA in painting from the Royal College of Art (London), where he received the 2017 Chadwell Award, having previously completed both a BA in Oriental Painting at the Seoul National University in South Korea.

Having adopted the traditional silk painting technique common in his native South Korea, Hun Kyu subverts the conventional art form by applying it to critique the current political situation of his home country. Anthropomorphised animals inhabit his allegorical paintings that reference anachronistic art history, folkloric fairy tales and polemic political commentary, creating dark, imagined vignettes where the conventionally cute creatures are rendered riotous and violent.

Hun Kyu had his debut UK solo exhibition at The approach in 2018 (‘Eight Universes and The Machine’), and has featured in group exhibitions at The Nunnery (‘Invitation to a Rave’, curated by Mark Titchner, July/Aug 2018) and HIX Art (‘Painting Now’, July/Sept 2018)

Website/Instagram

 

Lucille Uhlrich

radical residency iii

Lucille Uhlrich, it was about the brexit but maybe we can forget about it, 2019, Wood, cardboard, terracotta, superglue, string. Image Courtesy Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop

 

Lucille Uhlrich graduated with an MA in Fine Art the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, France having previously studied Modern Literature at the Université de Strasbourg. She also writes art criticism and essays for French publications and galleries.

Lucille’s miniature assemblages, crafted out of quotidian materials such as ceramics, cardboard and wood and held together with string and superglue, exist within a transient dreamlike domain where her symbols and structures imply language. The intricate constructions are delicately produced and carefully considered, with Lucille adding and subtracting elements until a satisfactory balance is found between not only the constituent materials but also the envisioned elucidation.

Lucille’s recent solo exhibitions include ‘Starting from Scratch’ at Néon (Lyon) in 2018, ‘Instant d’après gammes’ at Galerie Arnaud Deschin (Paris) in 2017 and ‘Le Grand Malentendu’ at CEEAC (Strasbourg) in 2014.

Website/Instagram

 

Jean-Baptiste Lagadec

radical residency iii

Jean-Baptiste Lagadec, Mother’s day / Ariane VII, 2019, Acrylic and ink on wood. Image Courtesy Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop

 

Jean Baptiste Lagadec received his BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins (London) in 2016, having previously studied at the Atelier de Sèvres (Paris).

 

Jean Baptiste weighs the importance of process against the resultant artwork within his paintings, seeking to make visually the intangible, technological codes that underpin and assemble digital images, a hangover from the artist’s previous life as a purely digital artist. He, therefore, sees his adoption of abstract painting as his primary artistic medium as a rebellion against the increasing proliferation of and reliance upon technology, and the threat that poses to intrinsically physical activities such as artmaking.

Jean-Baptiste had a solo presentation as part ofThe AIR Programat Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo in 2017, and his work recently featured in the group exhibition ‘We Are The Ones Vol. 1’ at Carlsberg Byens Galleri (Copenhagen, Sept 2017) curated by Jordy Kerwick, Galina Munroe and Simon Ganshorn.

Instagram

 

Henry Tyrrell

radical residency iii

Henry Tyrrell, Dubrovnik, 2019, Acrylic on linen. Image Courtesy Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop

 

Henry Tyrrell recently graduated with an MA in Painting from the Slade School of Fine Art (London), having previously completed his Ba in Fine Art at the Chelsea College of Art (London).

Within his acrylic on linen works Henry plays with colour, tone and form as ambiguous forms emerge within the shadowed canvas in various shades of grey, reminiscent of the frustration at a foggy memory or the annoying attempts to recall a dream. As well as walking a tonal fine line throughout his examination of grey, Henry also approaches the margin between abstraction and representation, as the shapes and symbols are left for the audience to offer an interpretation.

Henry’s work has featured in group exhibitions at the Cello Factory (‘Defining Structure’, Sept/Oct 2018), the OXO Tower Wharf (‘Orbit UK Art Graduate Show’, Aug 2018) and Chalton Gallery (‘The Politics of Too Many Rubbish Dinner Parties’, May/June 2017). His debut solo exhibition ‘Purkinje Flying’ was at GlaxoSmithKline, Brentford in 2014.

Website/Instagram

 

For more by Hector

Drawing Biennial 2019 at Drawing Room

Subversive Stitch at TJ Boulting

 


Next Show Announcement! – Some Pieces of Mind by Bertrand Fournier

Bertrand Fournier is the next artist to be showing his work with us at Delphian Gallery, with his DEBUT UK SOLO SHOW Some Pieces of Mind in May 2019.

If you would like to request the catalogue of available works, please email us at info@delphiangallery.com

 

To join us for the private view, please click here

bertrand fournier delphian gallery

Some of the works in Some Pieces Of Mind

For more of Bertrand’s work, click here

Or see his Instagram by clicking this link


Third Fifteen Winners of our 2019 Open Call

Here are the first 15 winners of our 2019 Open Call. We had an incredibly difficult time whittling the 10,000 submissions down to just 45, but we got there in the end. Here are the first 15.

The below artists are in alphabetical order, and the works below aren’t necessarily the ones in the show.

Most of the works in the show are available as prints, which you can view by clicking this link.

 

Michalitsa Kozakopoulou (@CandyPinkFlesh)

Nettle Grellier (@NettleGrellierArtist)

Peter Evans (@PeterEvans___)

Rachael Neale (@Rachael.Neale)

Rhiannon Salisbury (@Rhiannon_R_Salisbury)

Rhys Thomas (@RhysThomasArtist)

View this post on Instagram

Down the Docks – 60 x 40 cm #delphianopencall @delphiangallery

A post shared by Rhys Thomas (@rhysthomasartist) on

Ronan Bowes (@Ronan_O_Buadhaig)

Rune Christensen (@Rune_Christensen)

View this post on Instagram

WIP! Oil pastel and acrylic on canvas, 50×60 #contemporary #stilleben #painter #wip

A post shared by Rune Christensen (@rune_christensen) on

Sasha Baszynski (@Baszynski_Sasha)

Sergio Giannotta (@Sergio.Giannotta)

Sophi Megan (@SophiMeganArt)

Tania Alvarez (@TaniaAlvarezArt)

View this post on Instagram

Piece of a larger painting in progress.

A post shared by Tania (@taniaalvarezart) on

Tomas Harker (@TomasHarker)

Valerie Savchits (@Valerie.Savchits)

Vojtech Kovarik (@Vojtech_Kovarik)

 

To see the first fifteen winners, please click this link

To see the second fifteen winners, please click this link


Second Fifteen Winners of our 2019 Open Call.

Here are the second fifteen winners of our 2019 Open Call. We had an incredibly difficult time whittling the 10,000 submissions down to just 45, but we got there in the end. Here are the first 15.

The below artists are in alphabetical order, and the works below aren’t necessarily the ones in the show.

 

Most of the works in the show are available as prints, which you can view by clicking this link.

 

Gabriele Herzog (@Gabriele_Herzog)

Geoffrey Bohm (@GeoffreyBohm)

View this post on Instagram

War Cries On A Salt Lick

A post shared by m a r i c o p a (@geoffreybohm) on

Jacob Littlejohn (@JacobALittlejohn)

Jake Grewal (@JakeGrewal)

Jemisha Maadhavji (@Jemisha_Maadhavji)

Jim McElvaney (@JimMcElvaney)

Jonas Mayer (@JonasMayerr)

View this post on Instagram

#wip #acrylicpainting #contemporaryart #figurativeart #abstractart #2019 #studio #jonasmayer

A post shared by Jonas Mayer (@jonasmayerr) on

Jukka Virkkunen (@JukkaVirkkunen)

Julie Caves (@Julie_Caves)

Kirsten Valentine (@KirstenValentine)

Klaus is Koming (@KlausIsKoming)

Loreal Prystaj (@LorealPrystajPhotography)

Mateusz Sarzynski (@Mateusz.Sarzynski)

View this post on Instagram

trust no one oil paint #polishartist #contemporaryarts #kunst #artbrut #malarstwo #toppaint

A post shared by top paint (@mateusz.sarzynski) on

Matt Coombs (@Coombs.Matt)

Max Freund (@MaxFreund)

To see the first fifteen, please click this link


How To Navigate The Art World – Panel Discussion

After the success of of our last talk Transition: How To Prosper In The Art World, we decided to do another similar one, this one taking its inspiration from our 2019 Open Call exhibition – How To Navigate The Art World.

how to navigate the art world

UHH by 2019 Open Call winner Rhiannon Salisbury

Panelists include:

Delphian director and artist Benjamin Murphy.

Delphian director and artist Nick JS Thompson.

2019 Open Call winner – artist Rhiannon Salisbury.

Curator, writer, and art-historian Hector Campbell.

All of the questions that will be put to the panel have been asked by followers – please feel free to add your own via instagram @dephiangallery

To attend, please RSVP to the Eventbrite HERE