November News

Great Western Studios has moved to a new purpose built studio complex, only 50 metres from our old building. We have always been under threat to vacate due to the creation of Crossrail and the new building will secure the future for our artists. After weeks of packing, the move took place the first week of November during four hectic days. However, everyone successfully managed the transit via the scaffolding ramp built between the old and the new building. The whole move was documented by Great Western Studios own Angelo Plantamura.











However, the move isn't all that's been going on this month.

Olivia Musgrave had the opening of her exhibition on November 5th and there was also an article about her and her exhibition The Seven Deadly Sins in the November 11 issue of Country Life Magazine.





Darren Almond is exhibiting a piece called TIDE - 600 digital wall clocks registering the relentless progress of time, at the Royal Academy of Arts as part of GSK Contemporary exhibition Earth:art of a changing world. The show opens on Wednesday 2nd December.



Tarka Kings is showing her work in a two-person exhibition Wy.Work together with Kate Atkin at 52 Hoxton Square between November 24th and December 8th. The two artists met on a recidency in Wyoming and were both influenced by the landscape and inspired by specific shapes.



Kat Campbell Pedersen's exhibition at 7 Marshall Street together with photographer Anne Clements has been extended until the end of November. The two ladies were invited to exhibit by Westminster Council and Sing London after they painted pianos for the summers Street Pianos project.


Yukako Shibata is in the group exhibition In Two Minds curated by Rowena Chiu at Eleven Spitalfields. The show runs from 13th to 29th November and open Thursdays - Sundays 12-6pm and by appointment.



James Bigham will exhibit three of his pieces from The London Bus Project at the Barbican Art Gallery Shop over Christmas.



Cristina Rodriguez has been invited to participate in the seventh edition of the "Biennale Internazionale dell'Arte Contemporanea" in Florence, Italy from the 5th to the 13th of December.



Vivianne Westwood is presenting a one night only performance of Active Resistance to Propaganda at the Bloomsbury Ballroom on December 4th. Prior to the performance there will be a special exhibition inspired by the manifesto which is curated by Sanja Sakic.



The first Open Studios in our new building will take place on the 12th and 13th of December, 12-6pm both days. Join us in our new home at 65 Alfred Road, London, W2 5EU. You will be able to meet and buy from the makers themselves, painters, sculptors, designers, illustrators, jewellers and many more.

October News

The October News from Great Western Studios will be the last written in the Lost Goods Building. In November we'll be moving in to the new purpose built Great Western Studios on Alfred Road. However, the artists are keeping busy all the way up to the move.

Estelle Thompson is having a solo exhibition at Purdy Hicks Gallery on South Bank until 9th November. She is also represented in a new Tate Britain/Tate Modern Booklet, Autumn 2009 Collection Highlights Guide with different artists giving their view on a piece of art in either of the museums. Estelle's contribution is about Kasimir Malevich's Dynamics of Suprematism which you can find at Tate Modern.



The cover of the November issue of Dazed & Confused and an article in the magazine features model/actress Lily Cole illustrated by Jo Ratcliffe.



Katy Moran is in two shows during October/November. She is having a solo show at Modern Art, 16th October to 14th November. Katy will also be part of a group show, Visible Invisible: Against the Security of the Real, at Parasol Unit that runs from 25th November to 7th February 2010.



Pip Hackett has launched a new website for her fabulous hats, www.piphackett.co.uk. One of them could also be seen in the September Issue of Italian Vogue.



John Martin Gallery is hosting Olivia Musgrave's exhibition The Seven Deadly Sins, showing her bronze sculptures from 5th to 28th of November.



Blue Curry's degree show has been ranked as one of the top ten this year by former Editor of Art Review, Catriona Warren. She is particularly impressed with Blue's bull shark jaw from which 567 hours' worth of shiny cassette tape pools on the floor. You can read more at murmurART .



Both Cristina Rodriguez, represented by The Art Movement and Jan Coutts, represented by Quantum Contemporary Art, were part of the Art London Fair which was on 8-12th October at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. Jan is also exhibiting at the Affordable Art Fair, at Battersea Park, 22nd - 25th October and at a charity event for Art of Giving at The Queen's Elm Gallery, running from 15th to 18th of October.





Cristina Rodriguez is also showing her work at the exhibition Imaginary Journeys at Museum of the Estense Castle in Ferrara, Italy between the 24th October and 1st November as well as participating in Westminster Arts Open Exhibition at the SW1 Gallery. Also exhibiting are Catherine Parkinson, Laura Jacobs and Yukako Shibata.

September News

Neal Tait is currently exhibiting at White Cube, his show Les Toits de Parise shows paintings made over the last year that are diverse in theme, suggesting many fragmented narratives. The paintings in this exhibition, executed in both oil or acrylic and tempera on canvas are influenced by early Modernist painting. The show opened on 1st September and will run until 3rd October 2009.



Julie Goldsmith has been commissioned by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to take part in an Artist trail, Streetlight '09 opening with an Artist led walk through the trail on the 15th October. Julie says she regularly scours the neighbourhood for treasures and materials that she uses in her work. For this piece she has taken inspiration from the writer Wilkie Collins (now buried in Kensal cemetery), who walked the Notting Hill and Kensal streets with Charles Dickens at the turn of the 20th century. You will be able to view Julie's work in the window of The Cloth Shop, 290 Portobello Road from 15th October - 15th November.



Tamar Zaig's Costume Boutique have been invited by Covent Garden London to join in with the Fashion Fete to be held in the Covent Garden Piazza as part of London Fashion Week, 19th September 2009. They will be providing a dressing up box just for the fun of dressing up in fab costumes and having your picture taken, and there will also be exclusive accessories for sale.



Blue Curry will participate in a show held at Peacock Projects Art Space. Blue is one of 12 artists showing their work in the exhibition RIP 19th April 2009 'In Response to J G Ballard's work' curated by Iben la Cour. The show runs between 18th - 22nd September.




Katy Moran features in the article 'Ten painters you should meet' in the latest issue of 10 men magazine, out now.



Florian Wupperfeld is co-founder of CultureLabel.com, which is featured in the October issue of ELLE Decoration. CultureLabel.com is an online platform which curates and showcase artist-designed and limited edition products from over 60 leading galleries, museums, artists and culture institutions.



Jo Ratcliffe has provided the illustrations of the contributors for October's edition of Wallpaper Magazine.



Alex Uxbridge has a private view of his upcoming exhibition on 24th September, 6.30pm - 8.30pm at Boundary Gallery, 98 Boundary Road, London. The exhibition features recent paintings & drawings and will show from 25th September - 17th October 2009.



Sarah Dwyer is currently showing her work in her most comprehensive exhibition in London so far at the Josh Lilley Gallery. The show is named Hands Stuffing a Mattress and runs until 8th October.



The Great Western Singers sang at the Big Chill Festival earlier this summer performing their greatest hits set to great acclaim. Over the weekend they did guerrilla singing around the festival site and also performed in the Body and Soul area and on the Crap Stage. Their final gig of the season is at Summer Sunset this weekend following which they will be embarking on new Christmas inspired songs.

August News

Let's start with an item I missed in last months newsletter, The Sunday Times Style Magazine's article featuring Tamar Zaig from July 12th. The article discusses the expanding interest in fancy dress and Tamar's Costume Boutique could be the place to turn to if you feel the need to see yourself as Björk in her infamous swan dress.






A large group of GWS artist are exhibiting their work at Gallery 6 by Imperial Wharf. Lynn Parotti has curated the show, Alter World, which also featyres Claudia Carr, Tessa Macgregor, Catherine Parkinson, Lynn Parotti, Holly Parotti, Yukako Shibata, Paul Vanstone, Felicity Warbrick, Mole Browne, Tommy Penton and Shiv. The exhibition runs until September 25th for those who have yet to see it.



Katherine Lubar and Kathrine Campbell Pedersen are both featured in a new exhibition titled The Noice of Art which runs between the September 3rd and 20th at the East End Arts Club in Shoreditch with the private view on the 3rd from 6 to 9pm.





The graduation shows are continuing coming up. In September, Valerie Gladwin Montgomery is featured in the City & Guilds of London Art School's MA Fine Art degree show. The private view is on Wednesday 9th September 6-9pm and the show runs the 10-13th September.



Having appeared at Gracelands in NW10 and then Open Studios in W9, Liza Campbell's Dark Boxes have now made their way to the dizzy heights of W2; they are now for sale at Viola, Sara Lachlan's new shop at 25 Connaught Street, W2 2AY.



James Bigham's exhibition, The London Bus Project, was previewed in last months newsletter and has since been featured in Time Out and also the London Paper.

July News

To kick off with, the promised photographs from this summers Open Studios - the last at the Lost Goods Building. Our photographer this year - on his first professional assignment - was Theo Russell, studio assistant to Angelo Plantamura.











One item that I missed out of last months newsletter was mention of a show co-curated by Sanja Sakic in Little Venice which featured paintings by Emma Woollard alongside sculptures and a film by Sanja. The show was called Siteshow and was on over the weekend of June 12th and 13th.





Melissa Hunt has written a chapter for a book that has been put together by Amanda Doughty titled Bangles and Bracelets and available here. Melissa's chapter is the step to step demonstration of making a tap and die bangle with drilled stone - if that floats your boat.



The Times featured a small mention of the studios and also of Emily Young on July 14th. Emily is having a small relocation sale, of sorts. If you want to have a look the best thing to do is . . . do as the article suggests and arrange an appointment through the Fine Art Society.



It being the end of the academic year it also means that it is Graduation show season. Laura Jacobs had her show at St Martins at the end of June and Blue Curry's graduation show at Goldsmiths was at the start of July.





James Bigham's show, The London Bus Project, is on at the Barbican Library Gallery from August 4th until August 26th. The show features drawings made by James that map his experience of the journey.



Thornhill in Southampton is the site of David Worthington's first public outdoors work. Called We Come In Peace, standing 6.5m high and made of Glass Reinforced Plastic, David's piece is in part a comment on the nature of Public Art itself, with the artwork being an equable alien invader; air dropped into an environment with an agenda that has been set by someone else.



Galerie Xippas in Athens is hosting shows by 2 Great Western Studios artists simultaneously: Darren Almond and Jeremy Dickinson. In gallery spaces that are side by side, the shows are on now and run until the middle of September.





SkyArts will, starting from August, be broadcasting a 5 minute documentary film about Pip Hackett and her working space. I don't have the exact starting date or link but if you browse SkyArts I'm sure you will be able to find it.



Alice Tait had 3 minutes of fame on Channel 4 at the beginning of July by being one of 4 featured artists in the 3 minute wonder slot - Art Against The Odds, following entrants to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The programme can be seen again here - and features a very nice shot of the post slots and weighing scales at Great Western Studios - though to be honest I should have tidied up the notice board.



Backbone of the studios, nutritionist, cook, psychological coach, and all round good egg Steve Williams is adding another bow to his arrow with his position as co-founder of The Flicker Club. In its opening season Flicker Club has put together a schedule of monthly screenings on the last Thursday of every month from July to December at the Lexi Cinema in Kensal Rise. This season all the films are based on short stories, the programme opens with The Birds (an adaptation of a Daphne du Maurier novella) on July 30th. The Flicker Club's unique stance is that they will have a reading of an extract from the books before each of the screenings, keep an eye on their website to find out who they have enlisted to do each of these.



Studio Emigre, Kate Banazi, continues to wow the Southern Hemisphere. Her latest exposure is a solo show at the Lamington Drive Gallery in Melbourne - the show opens on July 23rd and runs until August 15th.



Lastly, Amy Sharrocks presented her work Walbrook on June 19th. She, and a cast of people, mapped the route of the a lost river that ran from Islington through the City of London. The participants were asked to dress in blue and were linked to each other so that they moved as one - there's a write up by the Independent here.

June News

The last ever Open Studios to be held at The Lost Goods Building took place on June 6th & 7th - thankyou very much to everyone who came along, we hope that you had a good time and found inspirational things to buy . . . or covet. The guys from Papergrain came over on both Saturday and Sunday and wrote up their experience of the event here and here.

The crowning moment of the weekend was, of course, the 2nd Great Western Studios dog show. With rosettes awarded in 4 different categories: obedience, agility, tricks and best in show. The winner of last years best in show was in retirement this year so that rare honour fell to Flash, aka The Notorious P.U.G.







The main bulk of photographs from Open Studios will be posted here next month.

In the week leading up to Open Studios, GWS featured twice in one issue of the Evening Standard - Liza Campbell wrote a piece about Open Studios and there was another piece written about our impending move to 65 Alfred Rd and the support that Westminster Council have given in order to achieve this. An appearance on ITV London news was also on the cards but we got bumped off the schedule by a crime feature - story of my life!



Felicity Powell has 2 shows opening in June. Firstly she is taking part in an exhibition at the British Museum titled Medals of Dishonour, which she has also co-curated, it opens on June 25th and runs through until September.

She also has a solo show running concurrently at Domo Baal in WC1 running from June 20th to July 25th.



For those who can watch Big Brother and take in the detail before reaching for the mute button, or indeed the off button, you might note that the cups that are being used in the house are none other than those made by Johanna Flores.



Lynn Parotti was emblazoned across the Daily Express on June 12th in an article on relationships being forged between property companies and artists. Her exhibition continues at Gallery 6.



Lastly, Kate Gibb has produced some work for the current issue of Wired Magazine. I haven't yet tracked down a copy of the magazine, but have purloined an image from Kate's work which she produced but was not used.



Kate is also about to run out of some of the editions of her work that she has been vending via her website so . . . if you've always had your eye on a piece of her work, now might be the time to take the plunge.

May News

The first bit of news is the return of Open Studios.



This will be the final Open Studios to be held at the current Great Western Studios so will be an ideal hunting ground for bargains of all shapes and sizes. We will be relocating later in the summer to the new Great Western Studios at 65 Alfred Road. Please come along to this Open Studios and help us to celebrate the 15 years that we have been in the current building as we look forward to a secure future in our new home. There will be the usual unusual mix of highly desirable objects and artworks, from paintings and sculpture to millinery, furniture, ceramics and jewellery. If that isn't enough to tempt you there will also be Pimms and lemonade!

Lynn Parotti and Paul Vanstone are 2 of 6 exhibitors taking part in a new exhibition at Gallery 6 at Imperial Wharf called Sixth Sense. The exhibition opens on May 19th and runs through until June 30th. It will also house a pop-up space at the back of the gallery which will feature print works by Tommy Penton and Shiv.



The Apart summer show is back in residence on Westbourne Grove and features work by Jay Burridge. It's on now and runs through to June 30th, open every day fro 11-7.



David Worthington has curated an exhibition of contemporary sculpture at Woburn Abbey which opens on May 16th and runs through to July 31st in the Repton designed grounds of the house. The exhibition also features work by Mr Mary Grant, aka Julian Wild - the full catalogue is available here.



Sarah Dwyer has work in the inaugural show at Josh Lilley. Sarah will follow this group show with a solo show at the gallery later in the year.



The schedule of publishing means that Al Newman and Zakee Shariff's joint project, the A-Z of fashion is hitting the shelves on May 18th although they finished compiling and writing it sometime last year. It should be available from all good bookstores and is on pre-order from Amazon at the moment.


David Ben White had a short show at Studio 1.1 showing works in progress - here are a few installation shots from the exhibition.




Katherine Lubar has work in 2 upcoming shows . . . or even possibly 3. To explain - one of the shows is a travelling exhibition called Travelling Light, part one takes place at 30 Queensdown Road in E5 and the second part takes place in Venice. The London section runs from May 15th to May 28th and Italian section from June 6th to June 10th.



The other exhibition is in Cardiff, titled Wood Canvas Steel (?), it takes place at tactile Bosch studios and runs from May 24th to June 13th.




Assembly in New York is exhibiting a new chandelier by Johanna Flores during the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. The launch party for Johanna's new lighting piece is on May 17th.



The weekend before our Open Studios is the weekend of Untitled 2009. The fair is held at Chelsea Old Town Hall and features Faye Haskins, it is open from 10-7 on the Saturday and 11-5 on the Sunday. If you need tickets for the event try contacting Faye via her website.

Blue Curry has been a participant in 2 recent pop-up shows. One was called HackGold and took place in . . . HACKney by some GOLDsmiths students - see what they did there. The other one was in Peckham and titled Group/Grope - you can take the students away from the wordplay but you can't take the wordplay away from the students!



Katy Moran is in the middle of a sponsored retreat on the Penwith peninsula - or rather she is the latest beneficiary of the Tate St Ives Residency Programme - taking studio no 5 at Porthmeor Studios. Porthmeor studios is allegedly the oldest artist studio complex in the country dating back more than 150 years. Studio 5 was Ben Nicholson's studio and Patrick Heron used it after that; it is the only space in the building without a view of the sea, deliberately chosen by Ben Nicholson so that he wasn't distracted. Katy has work in a new show at Tate St Ives, Contemporary Fine and Applied Arts: 1928-2009, which opens on May 16th and runs through to September 27th.

The article below in OnOffice magazine alerted me to Sophie Smallhorn's participation in a show at Aram Gallery curated by Ptolemy Mann called Significant Colour.



Kate Gibb is back from her appearance at a conference in Sydney. Here's a screen grab from her talk - I'm banned from giving you the details of how you find the whole film that I took this from, but if you google hard enough you'll find it.