November News

It's a bumper crop of Great Western Studios news. Not least of which is the imminent Open Studios - December 2nd & 3rd from 12-6 on both days. An ideal Christmas shopping opportunity if you are trying to avoid the high street and find unique, interesting and beautiful gifts. We are ringing the changes this year; say goodbye to mulled wine and hello to mulled cider - but there will still be the fantastic range of art and craft works by the resident artists at the studios. In addition there are five guest exhibitors; Anna Steinberg, Mizuyo Yamashita, Angela Cork, Vanessa Cohen and Caroline Watson. We have already achieved a considerable amount of press for the event. With a two page piece in The Hill magazine, a piece in Gardens Illustrated and listings in Period Living, Grand Designs Magazine and Grove.




If you know of anyone who would be interested in coming to Open Studios but who may have not received an invitation from us please do get them to either get in touch with us or just come along at the weekend.



Folk and Shöfolk have been very busy press-wise as well. Their work has featured in the following magazines, I-D, Time Out, Nylon and The London Paper.



If you don't think you can pull off the all-yellow look as pictured in I-D, the yellow Folk cardigan can be worn with non-yellow clothes as well.
Maggie Macateer of Folk has also found fame recently in the pages of Grazia, maybe making up for the fact that her brother, Cathal, was pipped at the post in the Scottish Style Awards, menswear designer of the year.

Emily Young will be having a solo show, Five Stone Heads, at the Fine Arts Society, 148 New Bond Street, W1S 2JT from December 7th through to December 22nd.





Laura Green and Sarah Dwyer are curating, and starring in an exhibition called Saudade that opens on November 16th and runs until December 3rd - the exhibition also features work by Clare Parry. Running concurrently to this show is another group show which also features work by Laura and Sarah; Shibboleth is at Dilston Grove, SE16.



Two shows that were mentioned in last months news have had reviews published in the intervening period. Katy Moran's show at Modern Art was reviewed by Martin Herbert in Time Out and Simon Dawe's show at the St Pancras Cruising Club was reviewed in Ham & High.




Jacques Nazaire has a forthcoming show at "Au Fil des Mots', 19 Bute Street, SW7 3EY which will run from the beginning of December through to mid December. David Ben White has work in a two man show called 'Scumtrap' at the Toilet Gallery (no, really), 151 Clarence Street, Kingston, KT1 running from December 8th through to December 21st. Meanwhile you still have time to catch David's show at Studio 1.1 on Redchurch Street, Olivia Musgrave's show at John Martin on Albermarle Street and Darren Almond's show in Essen.

Hope to see everyone at Open Studios!

October News

Frieze and Zoo have just taken place. Several artists from the studios had work at the fairs including Darren Almond, Katy Moran, David Ben White, Jeremy Dickinson, Neal Tait, Katy Lynton & Justin Hibbs. Meanwhile The Affordable Art Fair gets underway this forthcoming weekend (October 19th - 22nd) in Battersea Park; Nicholas Bowlby is on stand number L14 and is showing work by Alex Uxbridge and Sandra Liccioni.

Running alongside the fairs are also several exhibitions. If you go along to Vyner Street in east London from this week you will be able to see 2 shows by Great Western artists. Katy Moran's show at Modern Art opened last week and Justin Hibbs' show at One in the Other opens this week on Wednesday.

Also opening last week was Simon Dawe's show 'Morning Well' at The Waterpoint in King's Cross. The show is open until November 11th but you need to make an appointment to view. Alongside Simon's paintings are poems written by Benedict Newbery - see image to the left.

David Ben White's new show at Studio 1.1 opens next week on October 26th and runs for a month.


There are also shows happening abroad this month for Darren Almond, Jeremy Dickinson, Elvan Erdin, Jacques Nazaire and Zakee Shariff.

Darren Almond's show at the Museum Folkwang in Essen opens on October 19th and runs until january 7th. If your German is up to scratch you can read more about it here.

Jeremy Dickinson's solo show is at Angles gallery in Los Angeles. Elvan Erdin has work in a group show in New York at Broadway Gallery, and Jacques Nazaire has work in a show at the Waldorf Astoria in New York at the end of October and then more work in a show in Beverley Hills at the start of November.


Zakee Shariff is collaborating on a show n Chicago at Hejfina with Cody Hudson - their show is titled 'we are running slightly blind'.

Katherine Lubar has work in a show in Brighton which runs until mid October at a new gallery called O Contemporary.

In November Olivia Musgrave has a show of new work at John Martin in Chelsea which runs from the 9th to the 30th. More information about the show will be available later in the month by clicking here.

Away from painting, Alice Tait recently got the covetable job of illustrating a new publication of 4 Nigel Slater books, these will be in the shops on November 4th. Folk have had 2 recent bits of press - firstly in GQ Style and then also in the Observer magazine. Cathal Macateer, head honcho at Folk, has also been nominated for Scottish Designer of the Year at the Scottish Style Awards.

And finally, the indominatable rise of Willy Borrell continues apace. He has just shot his fourth cover for Loud and Quiet magazine and has been passing on his styling wisdom to such musical luminaries as Hard-Fi, Razorlight and the Arctic Monkeys.

September News

Two shows by two Great Western Artists open on the same night, September 14th. Yukako Shibata has a show at the Atrium Gallery at Price Waterhouse, this is Yukako's second solo show and runs until October 27th.

Neal Tait's show 'Now is the discount of our winter tents' at White Cube opens on the same night and runs until October 21st. Neal also has a show at the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Belgium which runs concurrently with a Jon Baldessari show until December 3rd. In the meantime Neal will also be taking part in the talks programme at Tate Britain on the evening of Friday October 6th together with Martin Maloney and Charlotte Mullins; the talk is entitled 'Painting and Illusion' and will take place within the Holbein in England exhibition. It is part of the monthly Late at Tate event where exhibitions are half price and a bar serves drinks in the gallery.

Jan Coutts is showing new work in a show at The Gallery, 28 Cork Street, W1. The show opens on September 19th and runs until the 23rd. For more information, opening times etc it's best to check out her website.

Ex Great Western-er Toby Ziegler has a new show of painting and sculpture at the Simon Lee Gallery, it opened last week and runs until October 4th. Another ex-studio holder Gabriela Trzebinski also has a show running at the George Adams Gallery in New York, you can read more about Gabriela's work and see pictures of her new base in Houston here.

Everyone's favourite animator, Gordon Langley, has been hard at work for the past 14 months working on a secret project which is set to be appearing on BBC2 every Saturday morning at 10.30. The show has been 2 years in the making, over which time Gordon has been one of 50 animators working on 52 episodes of the show.

Design week will soon be upon us. Fromental will be exhibiting at 100% Design in Earl's Court and Bombarock will be showing at No More Grey on Redchurch Street.

Before Design Week comes London Fashion Week and Shöfolk have produced a capsule collection for the design label Berube which will get their catwalk airing on September 20th.

Lima Hotel can now be bought on line from rockett st george. If you watch Living TV's Britain's Next Top Model closely you may also spot Lima Hotel mirrors on the wall, as well as works by Katherine Lubar, Tommy Penton and Sean Alexander.

Bestival has just taken place on the Isle of Wight and Folk linked up with the Bestival team to provide some specific merchandise. The limited edition knitwear can still be purchased online, and you can find the link in this website.


Dan Hopwood has recently completed the design of a suite at the Berkeley Hotel, if funds prohibit you from booking the suite for a night - the image to the right provides a preview of what you might be missing.

The Bahamas host two events featuring Great Western artists this month. The National Gallery of the Bahamas is exhibiting Blue Curry's work in the exhibition Funky Nassau: Recovering an Identity, and Lynn Parotti has work in another show in Nassau at Popop Studios, where she will be exhibiting the work below.


Finally a bit of news that you may, or may not, want to take with a pinch of salt: Will Borrell is the subject of a bidding war between Sony and Universal. Don't say you weren't warned!

August news

Another batch of news about the artists, designer makers and craftspeople of Great Western Studios.


On July 18th The Independent ran a feature on the 10 best men's t-shirts and featured a folk t-shirt as the best luxury buy. Meanwhile their sister shoe brand shöfolk have had shoes featured in a fashion story in the current issue of Clash magazine.
On the subject of t-shirts . . . Gordon Langley may be upping the anti by launching his own t-shirts through his website. Go to the 'shop' section of his website for more information. He has also uploaded some of his animated films to his site.

Lizzie and Tim of Fromental wallpaper are exhibiting at 100% Design at Earl's Court this year from September 21st - 24th. There work can also be seen in the current issue of Grand Designs magazine - see piece to the left.

After canvassing opinion Open Studios will be on December 2nd & 3rd this year. We are trying to secure sponsorship and press interest at the moment.


Jo Ratcliffe of studio 6 was featured in a recent Evening Standard magazine piece about the rise in illustration. The article featured Natasha Law, Annie Morris and Daisy De Villeneuve alongside Jo.


The Ben Uri Gallery in St John's Wood is mid way through a fortnight of daily artists shows. Two GWS artists are showing over the two weeksd; Laura Green's show was on August 11th and Laura Jacobs is showing her work on August 16th. Laura Green has also just finished an exhibition of her work in Nimes. See here, and image below.


Now based in the US, Gabriela Trzebinski has a show in September at the George Adams Gallery in New York.

Zakee Shariff is relaunching her redesigned website on September 18th. The new website will show the breadth of Zakee's work; how she has moved from being solely involved in fashion to now applying that same flair and sensibility to other design projects.

Those of you who are inveterate magazine readers will already be aware that Dan Hopwood writes a regular column for Grand Designs magazine. He has recently completed a hotel design project, hotel 55, and is redesigning some suites at the Berkeley hotel. He has also just been featured in the new Channel 4 mag, 4homes.

Sophie Smallhorn has recently completed two commissioned installations; one in a private house in Notting Hill and the other in the foyer of a building on Pall Mall. See image below.



Rachel Schwalm was snapped up by Beaux Arts who visited her at the summer Open Studios and they are exhibiting their first pieces of her work in their current show which runs until September 2nd.

The next updated news bulletine will go 'live' in mid September.

July News

Apologies for the lack of updates to this page. However . . .

Hot of the press:

Bruce Ingman's new book with Allan Ahlberg, The Runaway Dinner, has just been published and received a glowing review from the Independent on Sunday.


Liza Campbell's book/memoir 'Title Deeds' was published in June. She also wrote about the studios in the Londoner's Diary for the Evening Standard on June 30th.


Emily Young, David Worthington and Paul Vanstone have all had work at an exhibition at Asthall Manor in Oxfordshire. The Sunday Telegraph reviewed the show and said that "Emily Young ... has inherited the mantle as Britain's greatest female stone sculptor from Dame Barbara Hepworth".

Next level magazine recently wrote of Blue Curry's work 'Like Taking Sand To The Beach' which was exhibited in a group show in Germany. Blue's piece for the group exhibition of contemporary Bahamian artists involved him mapping and cataloguing a section of a beach in the Bahamas and then tansporting and re-installing the sand in the same order in the gallery in Wiesbaden. At the end of the exhibition the sand was then mapped and packaged again and returned to the same section of beach from which it was first taken.

Sarah Dwyer has work in a group show which is currently on at 101a Kensington Church Street 'Heathen Threshold'. The exhibition runs until August 1st. For further details see here.

Opening this week is a solo show of Yukako Shibata's work at Light Contemporary at 5a Porchester Place, W2.

Katherine Lubar has a print in the Summer Show at the Royal Academy.

Lisa Jones has launched a new range of cards - see image to right.

Zakee Shariff's second season of designing for Freemans is online now.

Shöfolk have got a new website which allows you to see all of the current season of their shoe designs. It can be accessed here.

Finally, both Faye Haskins and Rhiannon Howells recently ran the 'Race For Life' in support of Breast Cancer. There sponsorship pages are stil active here and here.

Folk - Production

Folk and Shöfolk are looking for a Production Manager, to be based at their studio at Great Western Studios. If you are interested in applying for this or know anyone who might be, they can send an e-mail to recruitment@macandi.com

We are in the process of trying to finalise a date for summer Open Studios. The date that is the immediate suggestion is May 20th & 21st; considerably earlier than we normally have the event, but hopefully avoiding the double whammy of half-term and the World Cup. Once comfirmed we will be trying to fix up a sponsor for the event - if you have any bright ideas about who we may approach for this please let vicky or myself know.

Aside from that I need to put a link to this blog on our website. If anyone can spare me 5 minutes to give me a tutorial in dreamweaver please let me know. Once that is sorted I fully intend to get my head round the whole dreamweaver thing so that I can re-design the website and approach all the artists for images and text so that they/you can all of their/your own page on the great western studios website. Am I getting ahead of myself? Only time will tell.

Oh . . . and if you haven't yet managed to see Felicity Warbrick's exhibition this weekend is the last that it is up. The joint show is called 'out standing' annd is at the Tricycle Theatre on Kilburn High Road, click here for further details.

Folk

Liz at Folk has just let me know that their Autumn/Winter cardigans are now available for pre-orders. If you missed out on the personal order night that they held at Ilk last week you can get hold of stuff here.

Or if you want to look through images of past collections you can view those here and the shöfolk stuff here.

Katy Lynton & Sean Alexander

Katy Lynton has an exhibition of recent work on show at tomtom near Tottenham Court Road. The exhibition is up until May 1st and the gallery is open from 12-7 Tuesday - Saturday.

If you happen to pick up a copy of the April issue of Living Etc you will find an image of one of Sean Alexander's works on page 150. See picture to left. If you want to see more of Sean's work his, quite frankly, fantastic website can be viewed here.

Katherine Lubar, Olivia Musgrave, Sarah Dwyer & Alex Uxbridge

Katherine Lubar has a forthcoming show at the Broughton Gallery in Scotland entitled 'Atmospheric Perspectives'. The show will run from June 4th through to June 30th. For further details regarding the gallery please click here. The current exhibition at the Broughton Gallery also features work by another Great Western Studios artist: Olivia Musgrave.

Further images of Katherine's work can be viewed on her own website www.katlubar.com and a recent article on her work can be read in Cherwell the Oxford University magazine.

Sarah Dwyer has work in an exhibition called People Like Us which is showing at 23-25 Redchurch Street, E2 7DY. The exhibition opened on March 17th and runs until April 16th.

You can also catch the current exhibition of Alex Uxbridge's recent paintings at the Boundary Gallery in St John's Wood.

the basics . . .

So . . . The first Great Western Studios Blog is born; and all courtesy of the lovely Liz at Folk

This page is intended to act as a forum for news on the artists, designer makers and craftspeople at Great Western Studios. It will include updated information about the new people who join our studios, details of any press articles on the artists and listings for their exhibitions.

If you want any further information regarding the studios you can view our website ........here