Dale Grimshaw - Echoes and Exorcisms

Signal Gallery, Curtain Rd, London, 11 Apr - 10 May


Dale Grimshaw previewed his first solo show at the Signal Gallery in Curtain Rd last night. His pictures are dramatic, energetic and powerful. I saw hints of Conor Harrington on the slightly canted lines across the portraits. At times the montaged composition of the faces is reminiscent of the style of Francis Bacon. In the more monochromatic pictures, like Echoes below, there seemed to be nods to Guy Denning who had a pretty dark show in this space a couple of months ago.




Time Past and Time Present






Turning Point





In The Beginning There Were Punks




The New Labours Of Hercules







Oedipus


more pictures:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/11928372@N04/sets/72157604485896958/

Charity Graf Walk

"Cancer Sell" is an event that is being staged to raise funds primarily from the contribution of art works given by the artists on Flickr. I am doing all I can to help out a friend that I met through the site to make the night and the fund raising total a big success. Thanks to all artists that have donated to the cause so far.

Two guys with no artistic talent, HowAboutNo and NoLionsInEngland, both of whom have a penchant for clocking street art, will do their bit for this good cause by organising a graffiti tour of the streets around Shoreditch, Hackney, Brick Lane and various dubious but possibly interesting spots in between.

The plan is to guide a group of 20 or so people up and down the streets providing a commentary on the art there and possibly art that used to be there – depending on whether the council buffer squads have been particularly vigilant the night before. We hope to describe some of the different approaches to getting up used by different artists and describe from second hand knowledge some of the issues faced by graffiti artists in going about the clandestine activities.



We will also throw in a bag of freebies – mainly stickers and postcards, depending on what we have scraped together. There will also be 5 copies of the book "Banksy Locations & Tours" by Martin Bull available to some lucky punters, we havent decided what you need to do to get one as of yet, bet when we probably end the tour in or very close to a pub I'm sure we will think of something ;)



The aim isn't to replicate the legendary Banksy Tours of 2006 (mainly because there are so few Banksy's left in the area!) But we will probably be checking some spots from those tours. There is even a possibility Martin, the author of BLT may aid and abet on one or other of the jaunts.

We expect to see some Banksy pieces, it all depends on what's still up.
The tours will take place whatever the weather is like.

Here's the deal:

First - pick your date – Sunday April 20 or Sunday April 27.

Then email your name name, preferred dates and how many places you want to nolionsinengland *at* gmail.com

When lists fill (hopefully!) we will email you requesting payment. Payment will be by paypal to a paypal account set up for the Cancer Sell fundraising monies.

We will confirm the meeting point about 2 or 3 days prior to the walk. This gives us some flexibility to customise the route according to what's around.

Cost will be £10 per person, all of which goes into the Cancer Sells coffers.

Many thanks and we look forward to hearing from you.

HowAboutNo! www.flickr.com/photos/howaboutno
NoLionsInEngland www.flickr.com/photos/11928372@N04/

Mode2 – Never Too Late

Laz Gallery, Greek Street, 4 April – 2 May


Thursdays, perfect for a night to seek sensory stimulation, art and free beer. Tonight’s cultural oddessy started at Cargo gardens for live charity painting by Bristol Graff legends and 1980s Banksy contemporaries Inkie, Cheba, Cheo and Lokey. We watched and sniffed the spray work under progress, we listened to Bristol poets sounding like reactionary Wurzel Gummages with humour, perhaps a scanning equivalent of Banksy. Tangent books were selling Bansky’s Bristol with author Steve Wright on hand to scribble his name inside.





It's worth checking flickr for pictures of the completed pieces, Inkie’s in particular is awesome. Didn’t have time to stick around to watch them finish as it was…..

… to Laz’s where to our immense surprise we have managed for the first time in two years as a buying customer (ok… a couple of prints 2 years ago, that’s one a year if you average it out) to get included on the list for Mode2’s new show.
Gone are the bootylicious libidinous party girls and in their place are distinctly policital, socio-political and environmentalist themes

The first canvas, We Believe In One God, is a kind of religious clash, male figures dressed in characteristic religious and ethnic clothing batter the living daylights out of each other in an “you’re all as bad as eachother” allegory of all religions being equally to blame for conflict.




Seig Heil, pastel, acrylic and canvas like all the works in this show, depicts a street scene on a cold shadow-less day with a pair of down and out street drinkers giving a nazi salute to an apparently middle-class couple with child in a pram, the backdrop being a shop called Kaisers – the title of German emperors up to the first world war. To equate the passing family to fascists seems a bit extreme but their evident comfort, their togetherness, the cut of their clothes does set them over the two itinerants but the family themselves have a blindspot to the plight of the humanity sinking deep into the embrace of the bottle.




Butterflies In The Springtime pushes both an environmental agenda as well as protesting about in-equitable share of land wealth, specifically targeted at the harm done in the process of commodity raping third world countries. A steel mill belching noxious fumes to fuel the greed and consumption of the developed world squats incongruously in a pleasant green prairie though which butterflies flit. A naked negro child whose lack of clothes symbolises his non-participation in the comsumerist acquisition of possessions gazes up at the billowing smoke, the sole element of the process in which he gets more than his share.




The concept of un-recompensed theft of precious raw materials from the rightful occupants of the land is repeated in All You Get Is, a native figure fruitlessly scratching around the soil whilst societies “haves” look forward to a convenience world of diamonds, gold and black oil.




The most dramatic piece is a burning hot gathering of people under the gaze of a couple of armed men, though we only see their sinister weapons. The context of the gathering of the people is ambiguous, they might be celebrating a feast, they could be captured, the urns balanced on the heads may contain water, or perhaps food; perhaps it is a fire that is out of control and not a party bonfire. Who knows, but it is good to have something to speculate about.




The most, perhaps the only optimistic piece in the show, that which perhaps prompts the plea in the title, is a familiar Mode2 luscious female figure ripe to give birth. Life Expectancy has a gorgeous rich patina, warm and almost satiny to look at.




All the works are mounted on striped back to plaster gallery walls giving a coarse rough temporary feel to the work. Tallying the works to the list isn’t easy as Laz hasn’t troubled the laser printer to produce labels, a sure sign of pretentiousness rather than lazy arsed-ness

All told there are 13 large scale canvasses in the show, more pictures here. Superficially Mode2s work is based upon simple, self evident statements yet several pictures have a fine multi-layered symbolism giving cause for thought.

More Mode2 pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11928372@N04/sets/72157604389241715/

From Laz it’s a short weave to Elms Lester to view Phil Frost canvasses and pick up a signed copy of his book. And what a signature that is, a slow inky work of art in itself and cause of a long straggling queue. Gorgeous canvasses though with a sort of aboriginal repetition thing going on.


Phil Frost


Phil Frost Siggy




Following a recent run of luck in getting into off-limits areas, we managed a sneak via a small hatch into the back gallery at Elms to snap a few fascinating historic pieces of graffiti, though we did miss the alleged Banksy. Some pictures of this area are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11928372@N04/sets/72157604385463612/detail/:

Dragon Bar RIP

The Dragon Bar, the legendary graffiti, drinking, snogging and fighting venue passed from our lives about 4 weeks ago. An effort had been made to torch the place, as stunningly captured by our friend on the spot Romanywg.

Photo: Romanywg

The inside of the decaying, stripped out husk which previously had been such a vibrant, sweaty, germ incubating den for felons whose idea of a crime is leaving art on walls was actually un-harmed by the inferno. Mainly because the fire was in the condemned slum building next door.

The intrepid GRAFFOTO team, accompanied by the legendary Romanywg took a stroll down there this evening to try and liberate a particular pane of glass supposedly decorated with a Faile one-off, a kind of Holy Grail for graffiti addicts.

Looking nervously round the front at our intended route in over the hoarding, the builders had beaten us to it by adding a brand new flat roof over the pavement during the afternoon . The fence round the back was impenetrable due to a steep drop into the building site. Romanywg’s lateral thinking processes kicked in, he pulled the door, nothing happened. He then pushed the front door and it opened. In we tumbled and spent a happy half hour scrambling through the debris.

First surprise was to find the all the panes of glass in the window closest to the back door, the smoking balcony, had been replaced with brand new glass. Bizarre considering the building was being demolished.

The wall at the end of the bar furthest from Leonard street has been demolished and is currently open to the elements. There is no sign of the bar, the booze, nor the easy chairs. Nor of the Faile dog, the Eine Canvas, nor the fabled Bansky canvas.

Ascending the stairs into areas I where had never wandered in previous drunken visits (there be all sorts of demonic rituals afoot up there I believed) we found piles of debris including

Posters for Dragon Bar nights of debauchery,

Torn off Bast Revolution de Papel paste-up relics,

Various small marker pen version of Che Guevara were found on the stairs and partition walls, which could have been done by any number of artists exploiting that clichéd image.

Howaboutno had gone strangely quiet for several minutes, when we found him hunched protectively over a treasure trove he muttered “get off, I’ve found their stash of hardcore and it's all mine”

Climbing further up we found plenty of spliffed-up art, pissed tags and curiously, lots of mice characters.

One street facing wall was blessed with an impressive wall to ceiling free-hand Che. Anyone know the story behind this?

We found a free standing board painted with a sunburnt skinny bloke with saggy tits. Sorry Big Stew.

From the Faile collective we found stickers:

Photo HowAboutNo

We found Faile Challengers

We Failed to find the pane of glass, but we did find a shakey wooden ladder leading to a roof trapdoor.

Thank god for British Summer Time, daylight! We emerged onto the roof overlooking Old Street Roundabout, face to face firstly with the burnt-out, charred shell of the upper floors of the building next door and, miraculously un-harmed by smoke or flames, the elusive so-difficult-to-photograph-from-street-level collaboration between Lister and Sickboy. RESULT

Nice little temple in the foreground

At this point we were spotted leaving our own form of water feature tribute on the roof by builders and a squad of heavies chucked us out.

Au Revoir Dragon Bar, we look forward to christening the toilets in your new premises sometime soon.

Photos NolionsinEngland except where stated

More photos ....

here http://www.flickr.com/photos/11928372@N04/sets/72157604345167014/

and here (HowAboutNo): http://www.flickr.com/photos/howaboutno/sets/72157604344019732/

K-Guy – News, Views and Sightings

Re-newed activity from K-Guy with the appearance of stencils and paste ups on the streets of London as well as finalising a lush new picture to be released shortly:

Taking aim at synthesised chemical ridden food (see the extras on the Supersize Me DVD if you don’t believe that!) as well as cultural homogeneity, K-Guy, or rather an overweight salad dodger, says Bin McDonalds!



Placement is everything as we all now, and K-Guy doesn’t miss his mark with this one, the City Road Shoreditch Drive In outpost of the Evil Empire being the target:






The stencil itself reminds us of his anti-gun culture stencil “Keep Britain Tidy” last year which still wears well today.





Busy times for K-Guy, the same night this pair of paste-ups appeared on Blackaller Street in London.





The point of these is to emphasise that today’s Britain is a multi-cultural nation where non Christian religions, international cultures and are integral and everyday parts of the fabric of our society. Liz rules just as much for women in veils as she does for Shire ladies who lunch.

We had the pleasure of bumping into K-Guy at a recent opening, at which he thrust a piece of information laden paper into our mitts and mutter “don’t be fooled, I really AM a guy”.


K-Guy – allegedly a bloke



The new image has been ummmmmm christened LiZLam, and it is soon to be released in a variety of forms through Leonard Street Gallery rather than Souled Out Studios (much like the original ed 3 hand printed and finished fag packets was released at Leonard Street’s Found Show prior to the silk screen edition through SoS).

There will be three colours, gold, silver and emerald, which doubtless will spark much pointless debate as to which is best. A small edition of 4 of each will be done on board and a larger and obviously cheaper edition will come on paper. The crown is hand sprinkled in diamond dust, so this time instead of hunting out that elusive particular edition number, try and get the heaviest!

Eagled eyed show goers may have caught a sneak preview at Leonard Street’s Souled Out opening of the first of the board editions which was briefly kicking around the floor before being shoved out the back:


LiZLam on board

Anyway, the full description of the editions is:

BOARD VERSIONS
TITLE: LiZLAM
EDITIONS: 4 x Gold - 4 x Silver - 4 x Emerald
SIZE: actual board size - approx 800 x 600mm - framed size = approx. 880 x 680mm
SUBSTRATE: 12mm OSB particle board
DESCRIPTION: Hand painted white emulsion + 4 colour screenprint + hand sprayed stencil text + diamond dusted crown
ADDITIONAL INFO: Signed, numbered and hand stencilled logo on the back

PAPER VERSIONS
TITLE: LiZLAM
EDITIONS: 25 x Gold - 25 x Silver - 25 x Emerald
SIZE: - approx 825 x 610mm
SUBSTRATE: 300gsm, 'Peregrina Majestic' - Pearl white metallic paper with a stipple texture
DESCRIPTION: 4 colour screenprint + hand diamond dusted crown
ADDITIONAL INFO: Signed, Stamped and numbered

You may notice there are two or three key bits of info missing here and for those, the wunnerful folk at TSLG will oblige at the right time. Soon. On yer marks!

Cless, Dan Malone, Dropmedia, Eelus, Gauche, Majowski, Mike Egan, Sebograficos, Twugraphic

Cement Gallery Group Show 27 Mar – 5 Apr

One of the first victims of the build-em-up-knock-em-down pump and dump street art print scene was Eelus, slagged off for knocking out large editions of the one image in too many colourways. No longer on the PoW roster having chosen to go full time and sell via his own website, Eelus has broken cover to participate in a mate’s group show.

Two notable performances to report. Mike Egan among his other talents is an embalmer. His art has a determined focus on death with abundant bleeding skeletons as ghoulish dead beings rather than just dead bodies. The style echoes Mexican El Día de los Muertos (day of the dead) iconography and calls to mind the Date Farmers as seen in London’s Leonard Street Gallery last year. Egan’s corner here includes half a dozen 12” square heavily lacquered death related pieces on wood, a trio of similar framed giclee editons plus a trio of very attractive errrrrrrrrrrrrrr..skull and coffin decks.

Mike Egan

Mike Egan – 4 Coffins To Bury


Dropmedia turns out to be a graphic designer and curator. Large stark rectilinear montages on canvasses feature sub-scale silhouetted men striding around or off the canvas edges dwarfed by dramatic and alarmingly red and black collaged objects. These semi abstract, original pieces are quite stunning.

Dropmedia



Back to Eelus, the newest image is his most intriguing and clever. A boy on a barren moonscape is growing some kind of crystal, or perhaps another planet on a canvas?

Eelus



Also showing well is the 4 colour spraypaint on wood Raven Haired though this is going down the girl with big hair with stuff in it route mapped out by others including Luc Price and David Choe, who both incorporate way more texture and detail in the bouffant region. Perhaps Eelus has long hair and this captures how he feels about it in the morning?

Eelus – Raven Haired


The rest of Eelus’s images have been seen before on his website, and the interweaving of the Jawa eyed skeleton gazelle walker with the rear end of the skeleton remains baffling even close up.


If naked breasts is your thing and lets face it for about 50% of the population that’s probably the case, then Cless can do something for you.

Cless: Horny – Only God Can Help Me


Majowski’s Eya is a beautiful evocation of a sun drenched urchin girl with a heavy Astec Mexican nest of hair fringing her eyes


Majowski - Eya


Dan Malone must have an audience amongst a certain cadre of bedroom geeks but too much of the stuff looks like the sub-manga computer game imagery churned out by the ton.pixel.megabyte load in keyboard sweatshops the world over.

Dan Malone – Youth 1 Red

Twugraphic goes the easy and ultimately sterile route of blemish and concept free laserprints mixing dangerous things like guns and chainsaws with crapping birds. It is easy to see the contrast but not the point.

Twugraphic


Also present, Gauche. Lush solid colours and predatory females..

Gauche – Black Widow


There is definitely enough exciting fresh stuff to make this show worth visiting though be warned that the majority of the work is shown in the soulless giclee form.

Lots more pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11928372@N04/sets/72157604295296440/