The Foundry Underground Art Show

The Krah stands out among his Greek compatriots for several reasons, whilst he is one of the few male Greeks that hasn’t failed a sprinter’s drugs test in the last 4 years at the same time he has tested positive for having a seriously good time. He persuaded many of his friends from Greece and London to participate in a wacky group show in the old underground car park at Shoreditch’s Foundry bar.

Recently new to these shores is Australian artist Shannon Crees. Her combined multi-pigmented flesh tones, lush faces and montaged coiffures look lush, quite the star of the show, though you’d want a promise that the artist would touch up if the pieces started to fall apart hung above your radiator at home.


Shannon Crees



The Krah decorated a seriously big painted laminate board not with his usual hybrid mutoid Krahworld characters, just their abstract tentacle bits. The composition captures a sense of flow, of immersion and descent to the depths of an alien octopus lair. Deeply sweet as usual.


The Krah


One special bonus was catching up with Athens street artist Fors even though most of the pieces looked like a retina challenge for the kaleidoscope generation.


Fors



Pam Glew’s brooding and disturbing distressed horror flic chicks on flags beguile in a very very dark way. They are just so damn big, hopefully Pam will find a set of those small hand-held flags the crowds wave when returning American heroes like Earl Hickey drive through town. Interestingly, what was described as “discharge medium” at Black Rat’s charity show earlier this month is now translated as “bleach”, which is a relief.


Pam Glew



Cans 1 resulted in a surge of commercial screenprint, giclee and canvas activity from many of the artist involved. Anyway, if you short-sightedly thought that was a bad thing it would be grossly unfair to tar artists at this show with the same brush – The Krah, Copyright, Pure Evil, Shannon Crees, Richt and 45RPM all decorated tunnel walls at Cans Recycled – since this group was put together before the artists had been told about Cans Recycled (we are aware of one who was given just 2 days warning).

What Crew members Richt and 45RPM did some graphic doodles on montages of old 7” sleeves, not a single owl in sight.



Richt - 45RPM. Contender for worst show foto ever


Among the shot vacuum packaged cans, Blam has un-earthed a vintage tube map and paid
tribute to recognisable generic London sub-species.


Blam - London Calling



Rugman continues to mine children’s cartoon imagery though Minnie’s risqué provocative posing would raise eyebrows in most nurseries. Curious how this image draws you in yet when Bast does a Smurf with a 10 foot cock you can’t even look at it, how does that work? This camera was not tainted with such faux porno imagery so satisfaction must be derived from the mice, skulls and swaztika cliches here.


Rugman



Another gorgeous mini collection-ette was a set of drawings on cardboard boxes by (possibly – tbc) Lotz, they seemed to arrive halfway during the evening and they definitely left before the end and ended up on the street. Notwithstanding the serial offences under the Street-Art Bandwaggon Prevention Act, these were sweet.


Lotz of boxes


This show had a really enjoyable vibe and a ton of cool folk in attendance. The wackiest part of this former bank cellar space is that although the ramp down to the car park has been blocked off, the car turntable at the bottom has not been immobilised which lends itself to heaps of turntable surfing and centrifuge related beer slops, not to mention even a piece of lego art toppling as the whirly gig nearly rose off its spindle. Every gallery should have one.


The Turntable Surfah Crew – just a whizz

Other artists appearing at the show included Copyright, Pure Evil, Snub, Hutch, Mr Gauky, James Johnson, the 5685 and more. More pictures here.