Great Western Studios

Last news of 2010

2010-12-23T14:34:00.053Z

Mark Lutyens:

Inter-studio collaboration

We are proud to present a beautiful collaboration made possible under the single roof of Great Western Studios. Designers, craftsmen and artists from within the building joined forces in a concept lead by Mark Lutyens Associates.

For several years, landscape designers Mark Lutyens and Catherine FitzGerald (Studio 111) have been working on a significant project in Wiltshire. They are creating new gardens around an early 18th century Grade 1 house, which was a near ruin, and is now being extensively restored.

Whilst already collaborating with the Olivia Musgrave (Studio 59) who has been commissioned to make a large sculptural piece for the centre of a formal pool, they are now working with Martha Freud, Sid Dawe and Danny Wootton (Studio 9) who are designing and installing a fantastical black pergola made from the gnarled timbers cut from the stag-head tops of the park's many ancient oak trees.

"Making gardens is all about putting a team together and then working together in a coordinated way" says Mark, "With most other projects, meetings are generally on site, invariably in the wind and rain. With this job we can pop in each other's studios or have a coffee in Steve's cafe. Although these particular clients have only visited us once here at Great Western Studios - and that was before the building was finished - they really liked it, not just the kaleidoscope of colour and ideas that hits you when you walk in but they could appreciate the benefits of having us all under one roof. I hope we do more of this in future"

Mark is very keen on nurturing this type of collaborations which can present a great benefit to both artists in the building and clients.

Honest Entertainment

It’s been party time for Honest Entertainment. In fact, it always is.

Relatively new in our building, Honest are ‘vibe engineers’. They create & design unforgettable environments producing media stunts, product launches, award ceremonies, festivals & sumptuous private parties.

Last few months in the Honest life have been incredibly busy; and rightly so because they had produced some pretty prestigious events: MTV Music Awards or London Fashion Awards to name a couple. And as Christmas are coming celebrities call professional party-makers for help too. Damien Hirst’s and Richard Branson’s private parties or a bash for the De Beers were some of the A-list Xmas parties that Honest vibed-up.

Moxon

Moxon Architects have won an international design competition to find ‘The Ultimate Drinking Fountain’ for London's eight Royal Parks. The standards were very high and the nine strong judging panel has selected the ‘Trumpet’, the design by Moxon, to be one of the two winners chosen from over 150 entries from 26 countries.

The winning designs were judged on aesthetics, robustness for life in a public park, ease of maintenance and installation, sustainability and environmental impact and affordability. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson launched the competition earlier this year and spoke highly of the project: “I am impressed by the high calibre of designs and delighted that two London designers have emerged winners, from very strong competition across the globe.”

The designs will now be produced as full-size mock-ups. The first working units will be in place in the Royal Parks next year. They could potentially be replicated not only in the Royal Parks, but in other Parks across the UK and worldwide.

The competition is one element of a partnership between the Royal Parks Foundation, the charity for London’s eight Royal Parks and the Tiffany & Co. Foundation. The £1million fountain restoration project called ‘Tiffany - Across the Water’ aims to restore the Royal Parks' historic drinking fountains and to install new ones where old ones are beyond repair.

HOT NEWCOMERS:

Not only the studio holders but also the GWS office has been very busy. Not only with the Open Studios but also trying to accommodate the needs of all the vast amount of people who would like to get a studio in the wonderful hub that GWS is. Here are some of our hot newcomers.

Jimmy Turrell

Many have surely noticed that at a certain point of passing through the atrium a splash of colours hits one’s eye. Yes, the neon sign, the snowboard and the posters are all work of illustrator and graphic artist Jimmy Turrell.

He studied at Liverpool School of Art and then at Central St Martin’s and in his work he combines a love of handmade collage, drawing, screenprinting and painting alongside digital mark making.

His clients to date include NIke, Channel 4, Saatchi and Saatchi, MTV, The New York Times, Universal Records, Dazed & Confused, The Wired, TheProdigy and many many more.

More at jimmyturrell.com

Afroditi Krassa

Another Central St Martins College of Art – as well as Royal College of Art – graduate, she worked at some of the world’s largest consultancies, designing strategies and products for international brands, such as Nokia, Jaguar and Casio.

She was the first ever female designer to be employed by the design super-duo SeymourPowell. At the age of 23, her redesign of the humble brassiere was televised by Channel 4 and sold more than 2M units in a year.

In 2002, Afroditi decided to go it alone and founded Afroditikrassa Ltd. The young designer’s work was immediately picked up by leading furniture and retail brands.

In 2004, she met Julian Metcalfe, one of London’s most innovative entrepreneurs, who invited her to conceive his new “baby” brand. Working obsessively for two months, she came back with a masterplan for Itsu - the beloved-by-londonders low fat food company that grew into a hugely successful chain of 25 stores in London and NYC in less than 5 years.

As well as branding and design of leading restaurant, office and retail establishments around the world, she has done collaborations with prestigious producers such as lighting for Ligne Roset and Innermost, furniture for E&Y and Bonaldo, packaging for Pret A Manger and WMF and products for British American Tobacco and Phillip Morris.

Constantly restless, Afroditi is currently working on the world’s first energy generating outdoor furniture range for a major European manufacturer.

More at

www.afroditi.com/about

Studio Fernando Gutierrez

This acclaimed graphic design studio started when, in 2006, Fernando Gutierrez left Pentagram London – where he was a partner – and established a studio of his own.

He’s probably most recognized for his work with Spanish National newspaper El Pais and Benetton’s Colors magazine. Also, his work for Argentinean publisher Losada has received wide acclaim (like the one he did in collaboration with Marion Deuchars, for instance).

Melissa Hunt feat. Tommy Penton

Big Tree-Jewllery – collaboration between jeweller Melissa Hunt and designer/illustrator Tommy Penton – gets picked up by The Magma Product shop for the Xmas rush.

It comprises a range of nine individually hand pierced silver charms presented in a countryside scene. The range of the gems, designed by Melissa Hunt, consists of nine separate creatures that are set in an illustrated tree and meadow meticulously drawn by Tommy Penton. A versatile fastener enables the pieces to be worn as a necklace, bracelet, dog tag or button-hole.

The sets are available at:

16 Earlham Street,

Covent Garden,

London, WC2H 9LNT; +44 (0)20 7240 7571

More at:

Tommy

Melissa

Karen Hobbs

Getting On is Back and Karen Hobbs from studio 43 is once again the Costume Designer. The series two is now on BBC 4 and BBC iplayer.

Reviewed here.

She was also the Costume Designer for Glitterbug Events at The Royal Fesival Hall on Bellowhedonism, the New Years Eve circus-themed party. Only just managing to keep her feet on the ground, whilst inflating some massive helium balloons, she managed to dodge lions, elephants and a giant cannon before decorating the silent disco .... with yet more balloons. And while having rattled around GWS when everyone was away for the Christmas break, she also came up with a Clown, Burlesque and Victorian dressing up box for the eleven piece party band Bellowhead. The results and their splendid rendition of Baggy Trousers can be seen on YouTube !

Jo Ratcliffe

It has definitely been a busy year for Jo Ratcliffe with numerous exciting commissions added to her portfolio.

Earlier on this year she worked with Capitol and Katy Perry doing all of the artwork for her releases, art directing and creating a new logo for her.

Later on contributed to the Visionaire 59 Fairytale that brought together many of today’s top contemporary artists and photographers to create a collection of books for children. Packaged in the form of an old-fashion-style book strap, this issue ranges in themes from the delightful to the philosophical. The proceeds of a portion of the issues will fund need-based scholarships to Blue School, a not-for-profit elementary school in New York City with an academic curriculum focused on creative learning. Jo’s illustrations accompany the text by Stéphanie Cohen Chaptan. Other contributors include Karen Kilimnik with story by Kirsten Dunst; Ugo Rondinone with musician/writer John Giorno; painter Richard Phillips with “Gossip Girl” writer Cecily von Ziegesar; musician/singer Björk and Sjón with artist Gabríela Fridriksdóttir.

The December’s Vogue is a ‘Star’ issue and stars and sparkles indeed shine from its pages with whirls curling throughout the magazine. This typography was one of Jo’s latest commissions.

And at last, if you happen to shop in H&M this Xmas, notice the new range of holiday gift packaging and the window designs that were created by Jo.

More at Jo's website

Sophie Mollins

In November Sophie Mollins has taken part in two exhibitions. ING Discerning Eye Exhibition at the Mall galleries and the Psychometry exhibition at the Core Gallery. It was an exhibition of works by 12 contemporary artists that channel and manifest the intangible and invisible through their work. It took its title from a practice employed by psychics and mediums whereby past events and personal histories are divined through physical contact with an object. Psychometry included photography, video, installation, sculpture and previously unseen work and considers the parallel between the artistic and psychometric practitioner.

More at Core Gallery

Joy Richardson’s latest exhibition War & Peace, Boys & Girls: Paintings and drawings is on display at the Green Room, National Theatre in South Bank until the 7^th of January.

A piece on Liza Campbell appeared in the Lady magazine’s November issue (23/11).

Bicycle Library

The routemaster you may know as the Bicycle library is getting more and more animated. They are now officially open and you can borrow some pretty spectacular bikes from them. Please, check the blog or the website in the new year for more information on opening times, events, etc.

Open Studios

We would like to thank you all again for participating in the Open Studios, it was lovely and we hope you enjoyed it.

Please, give us a little while and then come back to check the pictures on the Great Western Studios website.

October News

2010-10-06T12:14:00.037+01:00

Painter Estelle Thompson has been asked to participate in Richard Bevan's new project 'A is not equal to A' at the Quare space in East London. The show is a part of an ‘anti-project’ called missingshow.com. He invited a dozen artists to take picture of his show – what the show consists of has not been disclosed. All the artists have a relationship to the work that will be shown and/or to the process of it being photographed. A selection of the images they take will be shown – as an ‘anti-show’ - at Quare between the 11th and 17th of October.

A' is not equal to 'A'

Richard Bevan

Quare

12th - 17th October (12 - 6pm and by appointment)

Opening Monday 11th 6 - 9pm

Featuring photographs by

Danjie Hu

Estelle Thompson

Faith Edwards

Gary Bevan

Hiromi Kawasaki

Ian Whittlesea

JT Lowen

Mohammed Qasim Ashfaq

Pernille Leggat Ramfelt

Rebecca Birch

Sean Edwards

Sophie Michael

Tamsin Clark

William West

Quare

21 Folgate Street

London

E1 6BX

http://www.quare.org.uk

Costume Boutique, the truly boutique costume hire service, were invited once again to take part in Covent Garden's annual Fashion Fete which occurs in conjunction with London Fashion Week. It is a tongue-in-cheek version of a typical village fete, featuring activities such as Hunter Welly Wanging. This year's theme was modern-retro with an 80’s twist. Costume Boutique provided a dressing up area and style guidance for people to transform themselves into 80s icons. These lovely girls won the Most Stylishly 80s Award!

Tamar Zaig, costume designer and the artist behind Costume Boutique, has also recently worked as Costume Designer on the new commercial for Dell now being shown on Channel 4.

Sophie Mollins has a web based interactive piece, as part of the Brighton Photography Fringe. Please visit http://www.deepdowndarkhorse.com

Sarah Neale, Laura Jacobs and Natalie Loher all have pieces included in The Westminster Open Exhibition. The exhibition is taking place at the SW1 gallery in Victoria and runs from 2nd to the 22nd October.

Sarah Neale

Laura Jacobs

Natalie Loher

Moxon Architects have been shortlisted for a competition to design a kiosk for Meridian Square , Stratford, during and after the Olympics in 2012. This competition has been reviewed in the latest Architects Journal magazine.

Alex Uxbridge has work in the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea Park, on Nicholas Bowlby's stand. the fair runs from the 21st - 24th October. www.affordableartfair.co.uk

BA5H have created an image which is being used as the banner of the website for the Wooster Collective. The Wooster Collective run a leading American street art website.

Positive Design Works have a new look website. Phil from Positive would welcome any feedback on the website which he made using Wordpress. To have a look visit www.positivesite.com

Great news for former Great Westerner Justin Hibbs, who has been shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize. www.jerwoodvisualarts.org/drawing

September News

2010-09-14T09:38:00.034+01:00

20th - 26th September Great Western Studios will take part in the London Design Festival for the first time - presenting the work of fifteen designers and design collectives throughout the building. The exhibition includes work by Ana Thompson & Tom Higgs, Bethan Wood, Creative [SIN]ergy, Edward Cotterill, Emilie Voirin, Gareth Neal, Jody Leach, Joe Earley, Martha Freud, Mike Moran, Naomi McIntosh, Tamasine Osher, Ulrika Jarl and Venice 2132 and will cover the various design disciplines: furniture to jewellery, ceramics to lighting, as well as looking into the wider subject of city-wide design and architecture.

We are also collaborating with Tom Dixon's Shop and The Dock, to create a London Design Festival canal-side trail between the two venues.

The private view of Liza Campbell's The Dark Boxes on Tuesday evening was a resounding success. Some of London's cultural and social elite were here to see Liza's naughty lego which will be exhibited in the project space at GWS until tomorrow Friday so please hurry if you haven't seen it yet. See below for review from the Evening Standard.

Melissa Hunt will be launching a new collection of jewellery at Origin this year. Using textures, patterns and her own photographs Melissa photo-etches, rollerprints and hand pierces the images on to precious metals to produce wearable pictures. You can visit her on stand G15 23rd - 28th September at Old Spitalfields Market.

Last week Totality UK won "Most Effective Marketing Campaign" of the year at the 2010 Affordable Home Ownership Awards. The campaign was created on behalf of the Hyde Group, who are a major UK housing association leading the regeneration of Bermondsey Spa in South London. The advertising which ran in the latter part of last year in the London Evening Standard and Metro amongst other, promoted the shared ownership apartments for sale.

Martha Freud is launching her collection of lighting and furniture 'Focus' at the Hospital Club in Convent Garden as part of London Design Festival. Pieces are viewable in the lobby at the Hospital Club from 22ns September until mid October.

Darren Almond's exhibition at White Cube's Mason's Yard is on until 2nd October for those of you who hasn't seen it yet.

Costume Boutique will once again be particitpatin in the Covent Garden Fashion Fete this weekend. It's an 80's theme this year and Tamar Zaig will be dressing people up as their favourite 80's icons.

New to GWS, leather bag and accessories designer Nivaldo de Lima is getting ready to reveal their new studio. While they've been setting up we've been able to read about the fabulous bags in Wallpaper* August issue.

Our friendly neighbourhood digital design studio, We Are Float, launched a couple of websites this month including www.wearefloat.com (their very own company website) and www.sargent-disc.com. Sargent-Disc are a premier supplier of production and accounting services to the UK movie industry. They now have a brand new website courtesy of Float Pictures.

One of Heather Wallace's pieces could be seen on the Business & Finance pages of Metro on 9th September. The painting Footsie One Hundred, shows bankers and their partners dancing freely while their hands and feet bleed. Heather's take on the financial crisis can be seen among 100 pieces in the London Lives exhibition a the Bankside Gallery.

Charlie Barton is exhibiting in a group show at One Alfred Place curated by Lisa Sharpe. The show runs until 22nd December by appointment only.

Karen Hobbs is currently working alongside PAC, formerly The Post Adoption Centre, to develop her Costume Art Project on Attachment. Attachment disorders can develop as a result of neglect or trauma in early life and can have a lasting impact on babies, children, teenagers and adults. Karen will exhibit her work at PAC to launch their new therapy rooms in November.

Cristina Rodriguez is exhibiting at the Butler Goode Gallery in Sydney, Australia and Amsterdam Whitney Gallery, New York during October.

August News

2010-08-11T10:37:00.035+01:00

Great Western Studios are very exited to be signed up for London Design Festival, 20th-26th September. Linked with Tom Dixon and the Portobello Dock we will host design talks, showcases of new products and designs by internal and external exhibitors and studios open to the public. Please write to office@greatwesternstudios for more information or if you'd like to exhibit or create an event for the week.

Tommy Penton Sketches Franz West at the MOMA is currently exhibiting in the Project Space, Great Western Studios. The work was done at the Sculpture Gardens at MOMA, New York and is printed over 25 panels, stretching the full length of three walls. The fast fluid sketch work was an exercise in drawing - without questioning what was being drawn. The show will run until 10th September, with a private view 2nd September. The Project Space is open to the public weekdays 9.30am to 6pm.

The next exhibition in the Project Space will be Liza Campbell's Dark Boxes. These dioramas contain small figures and each tell a story in a single line of text, creating small worlds that are dark, funny and wistful. The exhibition runs from 15th September to 6th October, open to the public weekdays between 9.30am and 6pm.

A visit to Tempo restaurant and bar on Curzon Street, Mayfair, is well worth a visit, not only because of its delicious food but also as it's recently been designed and refurbished under the careful eye of interior designer Daniel Hopwood. The restaurant has been owned by the same Italian family for over fifty years. The main restaurant has been designed to have a feel of a traditional trattoria, simple with the use of bright turquoise chairs and soft sienna coloured walls, lit with vintage lighting. Upstairs is a private dining room which is rather plush and more English and the bar where Dan's team discovered the original rococo paneling and which was restored.

Darren Almond is exhibiting at White Cube Mason's Yard from 3rd September to 2nd of October. The exhibition brings together the themes; notion of time, landscape and travel as well as political and historical memory in two bodies of work: a series of time-lapse photographs taken in the Faroe Islands, between the coast of Norway and Iceland, and a film installation shot in Siberia, at the extreme edge of the northern hemisphere. The title of the exhibition, The Principle of Moments, refers to a moment of balance between emotion and concept; moments being a term used in physics to express a force that rotates an object about an axis.

Kathrine Campbell Pedersen has had a busy summer. She's been in two different exhibitions, Art at Mind at the Brick Lane Gallery, and she also took part in the Notting Hill Visual Art Festival exhibiting at both the Tabernacle Gallery and Gallery 118. Her brand new piece, United Jack, is a quadtych based on the Union Jack, but incorporates a multitude of colours, shapes and angles to depict a nation flavoured by multicultural diversity, which encourages a sense of pride for Britishness.

Mole Browne is holding classes in Verre églomisé, gilding on glass, in September and October. The classes will take place at Reyntiens Glass Studio, N1, and the students will produce their own panel and gilded pieces to take home following the workshop. To sign up for the workshop, please contact John Reyntiens, johnreyntiens@mac.com or 0207 729 8718.

Elvan Erdin has been invited to take part in the second Canakkale Biennial in northwest Turkey under the conceptual framework of “Kurgusal Gerçekler, Dönüşümler,” or “Fictional Realities, Transformations.” The biennial will showcase works of art by 70 contemporary artists and art groups from around the world. Elvan will also be showing her work as part of The Koridor Contemporary Art Program, the largest art fair in Istanbul, at the end of October.

Karen Hobbs is the costume designer for Series One of Getting On, which started Thursday 5th August 10pm on BBC 2, with great reviews from both The Guardian and The Times. Written by and starring Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan, and directed by Peter Capaldi, it is a pitch-black hospital comedy emerging from the mire of the mundanity, bureaucracy and absurdity of health care with warmth, wit and laughter. If you missed the first episodes they are still available on iPlayer here.

Keep an eye out for BA5H artwork as you walk around the city. BA5H as been giving some of his work away by sticking it on the streets, pavements and walls of London.

Hand bag designer Love Nicole Fahrendorf has launched a new website where you can find fabulous hand bags for all evenings.

July News

2010-07-15T10:21:00.029+01:00

July is the stage for exciting times at Great Western Studios, the fit out work is now complete on the upper floors and we have waved a cheery farewell to all of the builders! The building is now ours again and we have already had a number of new clients moving in to the new studios, we would like to welcome Moxon Architects, Totality UK, Float, Mark Lutyens, and Honest Entertainment who have all moved in to the upper floors. The coming months are set to be rather hectic with several more new clients due to move in.

We still have a few studios available but they are being snapped up rather quickly, please contact us on office@greatwesternstudios.com to register your interest and we will be in touch to arrange a tour.

Tommy Penton & Kate Gibb successfully applied and currently feature in this months Creative Review Magazines first Illustration Annual. Entries were judged by Angus Hyland (Pentagram), Stephen Petch (Independent Saturday Magazine) & Paul Cohen (McCann-Erickson) under four categories; Personal Work / Design / Editorial & Advertising. See more here...

Sanja Sakic is currently taking part in the Virgin Media Shorts competition. The film features a prototype currently being produced by Sanja. It is a unique take on a conventional tea set and explores the sexual energy and rarely acknowledged semiotics enjoyed by a man and woman over afternoon tea.

It has been a whirlwind few months for Martha Freud who features in the Hospital Club's list of the 100 most influential figures across the creative industries. Under the title Brave New Futures, the list names the five top emerging and established figures in ten disciplines, including design, digital and film. Martha has received coverage from a number of publications namely Design Week website and The Independent. You can also read more about Martha on the Hospital Club's website here...

Sophie Mollins is the Arts coordinator for Artists Project Earth who have a new album coming out called Revival, all proceeds will go towards supporting the relief effort in Haiti, Chile and Tibet.

About Running - a film by Suky Best is showing at the Great North Museum for the exhibition entitled In The Long Run: 30 Years Of The Great North Run. The exhibition starts on 17th July and will be open until 17th October. All the moving image commissions will be exhibited, including other works by Claire Leona Apps, Vicki Bennett, Sir Peter Blake, Ravi Deepres and Michael Baig-Clifford, Graham Dolphin, James Edwards, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Julian Germain, Jane and Louise Wilson.

Suky also has work at Tatton Park Biennial until 26th September and the work can also be viewed online here...

Julie Goldsmith is taking part an the three day Art Festival - Hackney Wicked at The Old Blue Printing Building, Unit 6 Queens Yard, White Post Lane E9. Julie will be showing an installation of sculpture and drawings and will also have a selection of hand painted ceramic plates available to buy throughout the festival.

Earlier this month saw a pop up exhibition featuring Shiv and put together by Tilt Collective. The theme was Black and White and this was the second of their exhibitions in which Shiv has taken part. The event took place from the 1st to the 4th July at the Red Gallery on Rivington Street and included BP Mickey by Shiv.

Jay Jay Burridges solo show "When Superstars Ruled The World" at the Lazarides Gallery in LA from the 12th to 27th August held at an 8000 square foot prime space in the heart of Beverly Hills. The content of the show is a closely guarded secret but we can reveal it will include breakdancing dinosaurs. Jay Jay has brought dinosaurs back to life and twisted them to fit in to our modern lives with an exceptional outcome. His re invention of these classic beasts will definitely make the headlines and become the most talked about show of the year.

Calligrams features four painters whose work explores contemporary paths of minimalist abstraction. The exhibition brings together UK artists Jane Bustin and Estelle Thompson with American painters, Kevin Finklea and Matt Magee. Calligrams poses questions about the challenge involved in reinventing non-representational genres. The artists work within traditional parameters of colour, form and support, yet each in individual ways extends them. The exhibition runs until 24th July Eagle Gallery, 159 Farringdon Road EC1R.

David Cranswick will be running a five day workshop from 6th to 10th September entitled The Alchemy Of Paint. Working with the semi precious rocks Malachite, Azurite Cinnabar and Chrysocolla, as well as certain plant colours (Madder roots, Brazil wood and Persian berry), students will discover first hand the miraculous processes by which these raw materials are ground, washed purified and; in some cases, heated and precipitated, and slowly transformed into luminous jewel like pigments. If you wish to find out more or book a place then please contact David directly at cranswickart@gmail.com

June News

2010-06-16T09:35:00.023+01:00

This years Summer Open Studios was a resounding success once again. There were a number of events taking place around the building to help to make the most of the additional space now available. Children left smiling having completed the art trail and listened to readings from The Runaway Dinner and The Pencil by childrens book illustrator Bruce Ingman.

There were also two dance performances hosted by Costume Boutique over the weekend. Anna-Mi Fredriksson performed a conceptual solo dance, created around Tamar's costume design which was a direct response to the new studio space and it's arresting views over the Grand Union Canal. Tamar also collaborated with Dane Hurst from the Rambert Dance Company to create an improvised dance performance with live musicians. Tamar utilised costumes to challenge the perception of garments that usually restrict us, such as the burka and the crinoline.

The feedback from both studio holders and visitors alike has been incredibly positive and we're already looking forward to the Christmas Open Studios.

Estelle Thompson is currently taking part in the group exhibition Sameness & Difference: An Artists Furniture show at A Russian Club Gallery. The show investigates how the artists engage with furniture and the underlying experimental impulse to dissolve art into life.

Kate Gibb and Tommy Penton have been selected for Creative Review's Illustration Annual which will be out in July. Showing 60 artists; this is the first time Creative Review is showcasing illustration.

Pip Hackett recently worked with underwater photographer Zena Holloway, the result of the collaboration is to be seen in this months issue of French magazine, Rozebuzz.

Martha Freud has been nominated as an emerging designer in the Hospital Club 100 in association with The Independent. As one of 16 up-and-coming designers Martha is recognised for her fresh, unconventional approach, her aesthetic sensibility and organic, ecologically informed work.

Our latest addition/newcomers to the Great Western Studios, Float, are organising a Meetup event, milkFloat on the afternoon of July 8th in the Great Western Studios Project Space. The event is open for everyone and will focus on privacy and the impact upon it of the world wide web. Main speakers are David and Ashley from the production company Green Lions, makers of successful docu-film, Erasing David. Click here to sign up.

After exhibiting in the crypt of a church and a water tower, Julie Goldsmith's next exhibition will take place in an old Gerorgian Theatre inside The George Tavern at 373 Commercial Road, E1. The show, She Hangs Brightly, opens on July 1st and runs until the 8th, where Julie exhibits with two other female London artists, Esther Planas and Karina Akopyan.

Cristina Rodriguez is once again exhibiting all over Europe, you've been able to see her paintings at Salon Mediterraneen d'Art Contemporain in Aix en Provence in early June and between 11th June and 10th September Cristina will be exhibiting at the Grand Tour show in Grobnik Castle, Rijeka in Croatia.

May News

2010-05-07T09:58:00.023+01:00

Darren Almond has just opened his new show, Sometimes Still, at Matthew Marks Gallery in New York. The show runs until June 26th and marks the debut of a six-screen high-definition video Darren photographed near Kyoto, Japan. The film follows a Tendal monk as he goes through the Buddhist process Kalihogyo to reach the true state of Buddhism.

Shiv has a fabulous new website. She is not only doing artwork but has also designed the website herself. You can see her old and new illustrations on www.shivandletlive.com and you will also have the opportunity to buy various pieces via the online shop.

Kate Gibb has been busy doing album covers lately. Folk artist Megson's latest album, out on June 7th, is covered by a silkscreen collage. Joshua Radin's recent album - Simple Times has a photograph of the singer himself made unique by Kate on the cover.

In issue 2 of Populous Magazine you get a peak on how the London 2012 Olympic stadium might look. Sophie Smallhorn has developed the colour strategy for the arena. She has created "a colour journey where the palette can evolve as the visitor approaches, enters and uses the building".

Olivia Musgrave is exhibiting in both Greece and South Africa this month. She is taking part in the Art-Athina art fair in Athens, 13-16th May, together with John Martin Gallery and also exhibiting in Johannesburg at the Everard Read Gallery during the 2010 Football World Cup.

Sanja Sakic is holding nude sketching and drawing evenings at the exclusive private members' club HeyJoClub in St James's. The class is very informal with minimal direction. Sanja will be on hand to offer tuition to those interested in learning more about the techniques employed by artists for their compositions.

The eternal globetrotter Cristina Rodriguez is currently exhibiting at Galleria de' Marchi in Bologna, Italy. The show, Little Treasures, will run until May 21st.

The new Open Studios event on the 5-6th June is fast approaching. The artists are busy preparing for the weekend and the building is a hive of activity. Over 80 studios will be open to the public between 12 noon and 6pm on both Saturday and Sunday. There will also be curated exhibitions over 2 floors, new public sculpture, a covered art market, children's art trail and book readings and much more. We hope that you can join us, and experience some of the most interesting and exciting contemporary art in London.

April News

2010-04-13T13:39:00.016+01:00

We are fast approaching completion of the second floor fit-out and with the majority of the first floor currently under offer or let, we are fast running out of space.

There are still a few remaining studios on the first floor, and a selection of sizes - starting at 280sqft - on the second floor. To book an appointment to view the studios still available; please contact us on 020 7221 0100 or email us at studios@greatwesternstudios.com.

London Design Week took place at the end of March at the Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour. There were a number of lectures and masterclasses held by the worlds top interior designers during the week. Amongst them were Great Western based architect and interior designer Dan Hopwood who gave a lecture on how he discovered his style. Dan attracted a full house of 200 people, and explained how his technique lies in his ability to interpret his clients style.

Heather Wallace is participating in the group exhibition Do You Like The Shape You're In? at the Mernier Gallery, Southwark. The show, running between 20th and 24th April, exhibits Heather's work which takes a satirical look at the modern-day society.

Honest Entertainment recently installed and sponsored the décor for a pop-up show on Carnaby Street called ECO-CHIC for the charity The Environmental Justice Foundation. Honest raided their prop warehouse and; armed with weird and wonderful Alice in Wonderland props transformed a three storey shop into a colourful Mad Hatter's T-shirt party with over-sized teacups and brightly coloured furnishings. It will be open until 3rd May and is very much worth a visit - pick up a designer organic cotton t-shirt, have a smoothie or a home-made cupcake in Honest Entertainments spectacular setting - all for a worthwhile cause.

Joy Richardson's exhibition Journeys through Childhood has been extended and will go on until 30th June. If you're going up to Oxford during the spring and early summer you can see Joy's paintings at Oxford University, Kellogg College.

Two of Yukako Shibata's big circle pieces could be spotted on BBC the other week. The rings are placed behind the reception in the newly opened Circle Hospital in Bath. This is architect Lord Foster's first hospital, designed to feel more like a hotel than a hospital with pleasurable surroundings to increase patients' well-being and recovery. You can see more about the hospital and spot Yukako's rings on BBC's website.

In line with all dog lovers at Great Western Studios - Tamar Zaig has styled the costumes for the four part campaign Pedigree Adoption Drive, made by Pretzel Films. The film, shot at the National Animal Welfare Trust in Watford, tells the story of an abandoned dog and aims to encourage people to adopt one like Mini you can see here.

Former Great Western artist and Goldsmith's alumni Blue Curry features in BBC4's documentary Goldsmiths: But Is It Art? The first episode, aired on Monday 12th April and soon available on BBC iPlayer, followed Blue and three other students during the time leading up to their final masters show. The second and final episode follows the students after graduation as they take their first steps as professional artists.

The relaunch of Open Studios will take place on 5-6th June. This is the first major event for the new Great Western Studios, and as such will have a great deal more on offer than before. There will be a number of stand alone events planned throughout the weekend as well as exhibitions and a guest exhibitor market place. With over 100 studios we are sure there will be something to please everyone! More information will be available in next months blog.

March News

2010-03-10T10:13:00.020Z

The fit out of the first floor studios is now complete, both on time and with very little fuss. There has been an overwhelming interest so far with some very exciting new clients already signed up, and a number of studios under offer. We have had interest from all sides of the Creative Industries, from Fashion and Music, to Design and the Visual Arts.

We still have a few remaining studios, starting at a spacious 280sqft up to an inspiring 1400sqft. If you wish to be a part of the most exciting new building for Creative Industries in London and would like more information, please contact us on 020 7221 0100 or studio@greatwesternstudios.com

The first public event to be held at the new Great Western Studios was a resounding success. The launch of Creative Futures, a collaboration between forward thinking organisations in association with Paddington Development Trust was held in the project space and internal court yard on March 4th. London-based creative individuals and businesses were offered 12 hours free business support, there were 1-2-1 sales and marketing clinics run by Alasdair Inglis, MD of Grow and there were lots of fun, involving games, networking and 'A Talkaoke'.

The new Oyster and Champagne bar in Selfridges Food Hall is being designed by Dan Hopwood. Selfridges are very keen to work with Dan and if early images are anything to go by Dan's unique style and attention to detail will not disappoint.

Darren Almond is opening a solo show at PKM Trinity Gallery, Seoul, Korea on March 18th. The show will go on until April 16th and will premier the new film the Marathon Monks of Mt. Hiei.

Fiona Campbell has recently been appointed official photographer to the Company of Pikemen & Musketeers of the Honourable Artillery Company and is producing a book for The Queen on their behalf to be presented in May. Also, Fiona's images from the 2009 Brecon Jazz Festival have gone on permanent display at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea.

Pip Hackett is taking part in the exhibition Head over Heals at the New Brewery Arts in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, showing until April 18th. Pip's hats are an exceptional addition to the exhibition which celebrates contemporary headwear and footwear that add drama to ceremonies and make statements about who we are as individuals.

Kathrine Campbell Pedersen was selected in the Black Swan Arts Open Arts Competition and will show her work at the exhibition. A wide range of art, including painting, ceramics, sculpture and textile will be shown between March 20th and May 1st at the Black Swan Arts in Frome, Somerset.

The launch of Everybody Was a Baby Once, written by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Bruce Ingman was on March 9th at the Illustration Cupboard Gallery, SW1. The original artwork is exhibited until tomorrow 16th March so you had better hurry if you haven't seen it yet.

Another of Julie Goldsmith's magical creatures are on display this month. A little rabbit sculpture is part of an Alice in Wonderland inspired window in the children's clothes shop Their Nibs in Kensington Park Road, W11.

February News

2010-02-10T15:00:00.017Z

The fit out of the first floor is going well, we anticipate to be finished on time, mid March. There has been a lot of interest and lettings are happening fast. We are looking forward to completion and are excited for the future.

Estelle Thompson is featured in the new book Painting Today by Tony Godfrey, an overview of contemporary paintings and an enquiry into how we experience its images, what they mean and why the practice remains vital.

Yukako Shibata took part in a one evening group exhibition on the 15th of January. The show, Swan Song, took place in an evacuated 19th century townhouse in Soho soon to be demolished and encompassed a variety of suddenly empty spaces, cleared of possessions with only hints of its former domestic past, as though abandoned in pre-apocalyptic haste.

The Impossibility of Escapism is Sophie Molins' upcoming solo exhibition in Westbourne Grove Church, showing 24th February to 30th March. The show contains Sophie's provocative, abstract and often ironic photographs taken in some of London's most notorious prisons and anonymous city spaces. Sophie has, since 1999, been working with Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust (RAPt), photographing aspects of the rehabilitation program they run within prisons across the UK. In November 2009 Sophie became the chair of the committee for the launch and publication of 19 Raptures. Curated and published by another Great Western Studios artist, Neal Brown, 19 Raptures is a unique collection of self-help guides reinterpreted by some of the UK's leading artists and writers including Will Self, Tracey Emin, Billy Childish and Beth Orton.

Sophie Smallhorn's work is featured in the March issue of Shiseido's cultural magazine Hanatsubaki. You can see the article below, unfortunately I can't help with the translation.

Joy Richardson is exhibiting her paintings in the show Journeys through Childhood; part of a cultural event at the Kellogg College in Oxford, on the evening of Friday 26th February. You will be able to see Joy's work inspired by her roots in Guyana and her childhood in England, as well as listen to storytelling and sample Guyanese and South Asian cuisine. The exhibition will also be open on Saturday 27th.

In time for Valentine's Day Julie Goldsmith is selling themed limited editions of her plates at Ida Restaurant, 167 Fifth Avenue, W10. You can also see one of Julie's sculptures, Eskimo, in the restaurant.

Having returned from West Bengal, India, Stuart Mackay was invited to exhibit his photographs at the Nehru Centre. The World of CINI - Motherhood in India is a photographic journey illustrating the lives and times of the people of the charity Child In Need India, the work they do and the people they work with - inspiring examples of humanism in practice.

The Great Western Choir will be back at the studios on Wednesday 24th February at 6.15pm. The first evening will be a workshop event and cost £5 per person. Newcomers keen to try out their singing talents are very welcome. The choir are especially encouraging men who are ready to make a regular commitment to join in! The normal rehearsal schedule will then start on the following Wednesday 3rd March, and once again cost £5. Anyone interested should contact Tom Currie at tom_currie@btinternet.com.

The premier for Yoga at Great Western Studios was this week and the feedback from the instructor Elvan Erdin and the people taking part was very positive. The location was ideal with the added benefit of underfloor heating, and the art hanging on the walls made it an inspiring evening. The classes will continue every Monday at 6.30pm from now on.

Great Western Studio's inaugural Bingo Night this week was a resounding success. A big thank you to Liza Campbell and Steve Williams for organising the evening. We look forward to the next 'Big Event'!

January News

2010-01-14T17:27:00.022Z

The final phase of building the new Great Western Studios, i.e. fitting out the upper floor studios, will start on the 25th January. Over the next 6 weeks the builders will construct the new studios ready for creative individuals and businesses to move into during the spring.

CultureLabel.com is collaborating with Tate and Wallpaper* Magazine to run an annual design competition, RELEASE, which is looking for two innovative new product designs to be produced and sold in Tate Shops, at Tate online and at CultureLabel.com. For further information, to see a detailed design brief and to enter the competition, go to www.culturelabel.com/release.

Darren Almond is currently doing a two week artist residency at Crown Point Press in San Fransisco, working on full moon landscape images from a recent trip to the Rwenzori mountain (mountain of the moon) in Uganda.

Jo Ratcliffe has designed some T-shirts for Edun, the socially conscious clothing company founded by Ali Hewson and Bono. 15 percent of the proceeds from sales of the limited edition T-shirts is donated to the children's charity Warchild, supporting its projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For those of you who'd like some more information, please find this article in the The Independent.

Jo is also listed in Dazed and Confused's hundred faces of the decade, although she admits that her life hasn't changed much since the list was published in the last issue of the magazine.

The private viewing for the exhibition Smörgåsbord at GX Gallery, Dulwich, in which Katherine Lubar is taking part is tonight, 15th January. The show will then go on to February 4th showing artists for diverse disciplines, from esoteric inspired abstraction to inner city street art.

As mentioned in last months blog, Cristina Rodriguez is exhibiting at both Stuttgart-Sindelfingen Art Fair, 15-17th January, and London Art Fair, 13-17th January, this weekend .

The new Great Western Studios building has lots of potential for different events and purposes, first up in the Project space is painter and yoga instructor Elvan Erdin who is starting up Arty Yogis, a new yoga class on the block!
Intermediate classes with beginners prices, suitable for everyone!
When? Mondays at 6-7.30pm + tea and biscuits afterwards.
First session will be held on Monday 8th February.
Where? The project space, Great Western Studios, 65 Alfred Road.
How much?
£6 for residents.
£8 for their friends.
There will be a limited number of mats available, please bring your own if you have one.

After weeks of being snowed in and tucking up in hats, gloves and scarves during the Big Freeze it seems like it's finally getting warmer. Hopefully, Great Western Artists have hardly noticed at all now that there is heating in the building....

December News

2009-12-15T17:45:00.028Z

Six weeks after the big move we opened up the doors to visitors for our very first Open Studios. The new studios looked brilliant and attracted many visitors who viewed and purchased from the artists. The Great Western Choir performed their excellent Christmas repertoire, getting everyone present into Christmas mood. Photos of the Open Studios will be posted on the January blog.

One of Amy Sharrocks' live art pieces, Keepy Up, took place an evening last week. Up to 30 people at the same time were keeping thistles up in the air by movement and breathing. This art work has also recently been featured in the book, Artsadmin 30, created to mark Artsadmin's 30th birthday in 2009.

Mole Browne, Great Western's verre églomisé artist, is currently exhibiting her one-off mirrors at the Belsize Health Art Gallery. The show will go on until February 2010.

If you're going over to Europe in the beginning of the New Year you'll be able to see Cristina Rodriguez's work at the Stuttgart Art Fair. If you're staying in London you can see her paintings at the London Art Fair in January 12th- 17th, 2010.

Perfectly timed for Christmas, Jay Burridge has launched a new patch for Lucky Seven's caps. If you haven't finished your Christmas shopping and know someone who is in to the classical 80's film The Karate Kid, visit www.luckyseven.tv to find out more about the cap with a Cobra Kai patch and others.

Tamar Zaig's Costume Boutique has styled Jamie Oliver and his family and friends for Jamie's Family Christmas, which started on Channel 4 Tuesday 15th. If you've missed it, all episodes are repeated on Thursday 24th December, shown back-to-back from 4.10pm.

Katy Moran received positive reviews in the Evening Standard for her pieces in the exhibition Visible Invisible: Against the Security of the Real at Parasol Unit, running until 7th February 2010.

Culture website CultureLabel.com has been featured in a range of newspapers and magazines lately. Click here for Financial Times article on culture retail or see below for tips on culture shopping.

November News

2009-11-16T17:07:00.024Z

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

2009-10-15T09:26:00.021+01:00

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 Ratcliff e.

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

2009-09-14T14:48:00.023+01:00

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

2009-08-17T11:01:00.013+01:00

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

2009-07-14T16:13:00.022+01:00

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

2009-06-16T15:07:00.009+01:00

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

2009-05-14T11:19:00.024+01:00

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.

April News

2009-03-17T10:42:00.018Z

A relatively short entry this month . . . let's put it down to Easter.

Speaking of which . . . you may still be able to get hold of the Lisa Jones designed mug that Melt commissioned to hold their Easter Eggs. They had them in store last week filled not only with a chocolate egg but also with the option of other chocolates from their range. If you're in the market for a chocolate recommendation can I point you towards their dark chocolate discs with orange and fennel.

Lisa has also designed some new cards for her range - they are already available from her internet store.

Justin Hibbs has work in a group exhibition, titled Form Follows Attitide, at ArtRepCo in Zurich. The exhibition opened on March 27th and runs through until May 23rd.

Canon produced a short film last year partly based on Pip Hackett and London Fashion Week. It is being shown on BBC world, CNN and National Geographic over April and May, or you can watch it on this link.

Jay Burridge's one-off billboards for Levis were up all around London last month - one of them for an unexpectedly short time as it was stolen only the day after the day that it was installed. These boards based on Hokusai's wave were the 2nd batch pf billboards that Jay has done for Levis - the first were a series of denim butterflies.

The windows of the new Top Shop store in New York were designed by our very own Jo Ratcliffe. I haven't seen pictures of her air kissing J-Lo at the opening night but am sure she must have been there somewhere.

Sydney played host to a conference called Semi Permanent on April 3rd & 4th. One of the speakers was Kate Gibb. I don't know whether her talk was of her love for mark making, printed ephemera and Japanese food or whether she talked of her ongoing infatuation with Neighbours - maybe if I searched youtube thoroughly enough I could find out.

March News

2009-03-05T15:48:00.023Z

Pip Hackett's studio has been immortalised for posterity in the pages of a book called London Ateliers which is published by the Japanese publishing house, edition Paumes. There are 8 pages devoted to her, unusually tidy (!), studio and in a game of spot the other GWS artists present you may also find work by Sean Alexander, Alice Tait, Andy Bridge and Julie Goldsmith in the same pages. The book also features Jacqui Roche in her home studio. If you want to get hold of the book you can do so here.

Mary Grant has a solo exhibition at Buckley Fine Art in Co Cork. The show opens on Thursday March 19th and continues until April 12th and is titled Journey To Breara.

I have a backlog of Brickett Davda news that I have so far failed to get on to these pages so . . . here goes.

Two editions of Elle Decoration in a row have featured Jo's work, mostly on the back of her work for Toast, who have just launched their new 'house and home' range.

And . . . the work was featured in the ES magazine as well.

Justin Hibbs has work in a three man show that is currently on at the gallery One In The Other titled Recession+Aesthetics and curated by Sami Jalli. It runs until March 29th at 4 Vyner Street, E2.

Following on from her successful joint show with Paul Vanstone at St George's Wharf, Lynn Parotti has secured another show at The Avenue Restaurant on St James's Street, SW1. The exhibition is already up and runs through until April 30th.

Sandra Shashou also has a show of her work opening in the centre of town at Robert Sandelson at 5 Cork Street where she will be exhibiting new paintings.

Kate Gibb is featured in the current edition of idn magazine which is published in Hong Kong. The magazine is stocked by Magma books among others, but when I checked last wasn't yet in stock. In the meantime you can see Kate's entry on the magazine's blog.

Darren Almond's new exhibition in Berlin is his fifth solo show with Max Hetzler. Somewherestill is on from March 14th until April 25th and features fullmoon photographs that he took on a recent trip to the yellow mountains in China inspired by the scroll work paintings by Jiang Tao that were made in the mid 17th Century.

Lastly . . . as mentioned in last months newsletter, here are the pictures of Jo Ratcliffe's windows for Top Shop in London.

February News

2009-02-11T15:16:00.021Z

Firstly, the photographs from Open Studios back in December last year taken by the very lovely Sam Robinson.

Emily Young's show at the Fine Art Society is on until the end of February and was also marked by the launch of a catalogue to support her exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral.

Joy Richardson has an exhibition at the Orange Tree Theatre which is on until March 21st. The acting strand of Joy's life also gets an airing at the same venue as she is appearing in a new play called Greenwash which is on for the same period as the exhibition.

Alice Alexander's (neé Tait) work is appearing on a number of new book covers including How To Meet A Man After 40 by Shane Watson.

The opening of Altermodern at Tate Britain, and featuring Darren Almond was somewhat tempered by it being on Monday February 2nd, that day that will henceforth be referred to as Snowday. Anyway . . . the critics did manage to see it at some point that week including Laura Cumming for The Observer.

The 20/21 Art Fair is taking place at the Royal College of Art this forthcoming weekend (February 19th - 22nd) and The Art Movement will be showing new work by Cristina Rodriguez.

Jo Ratcliffe has been busy gaining prestigious commissions including working on the windows for the new TopShop store in New York. If you want a glimpse of what she might be doing for the New York store then the windows at the Oxford Circus branch have also just been Ratcliffed.

Lastly - click here to see Pete Gleadall and Smokin Jo talking about they came to name one of their collaborative tracks under the TRNSSTR moniker.

January News

2009-01-20T09:53:00.012Z

A belated edition of the GWS news blog; we'll be back on track for February.

If you were tuned in to Radio 4 between just after New Year you may have heard Emily Young's appearance on Saturday Live. Inbetween discussions on the ramifications of being a sperm donor, Emily talked about the works that she has made for her exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral and how she arrived at creating the work that she does.

Claudia Carr has work in a forthcoming exhibition at Beverley Knowles Fine Art, just off Golborne Rd. Entitled Grove Women, the show opens on January 28th and runs through until February 28th.

The Royal British Society of Sculptors is hosting an exhibition of Sean Henry's work this month at their salon gallery and their sculpture forecourt on Brompton Road. The Salon Gallery show runs from January 21st until January 31st and the Sculpture Forecourt show runs from January 21st through to April 9th.

The London Art Fair happened between January 14th and 18th at the Business Design Centre in Islington. Mary Grant exhibited works with Jill George Gallery, Rachel Schwalm was showing with Beaux Arts.

Darren Almond has work in the Tate Triennial Show, Altermodern, which opens on February 3rd and runs until April 26th. There's a remarkable lack of information about the triennial on the Tate website - but, other artists in the exhibition include Gustav Metzger, Franz Ackermann amd Tacita Dean.

The December issue of Creative Review that made it's way into subscriber's hands contained a monograph on Kate Gibb. This monthly production for subscribers to the magazine showcases a personal project or body of work.

Our overseas friends are busy this month - while we have taken to hibernation they are up and about. Kate Banazi has some silkscreen prints in an exhibition at Lamington Drive in Melbourne.

Gabriela Trzebinski has work in a group show at Box 13 Artspace in Houston titled, Disturbance of Distance. She is presenting a video installation examinign the struggle against poaching in Africa.

I've been intending to include Katherine Smyth's exhibition in Wellington, NZ for at least the past 2 months and have finally got around to it - admittedly a bit late in the day now. Anyway, back in November last year, Katherine Smyth had an exhibition of new work at the Avid Gallery.

December News

2008-12-16T09:42:00.023Z

The scent of mulled cider has finally left the corridors - a week and a half after Open Studios. Thank you very much to everyone who came to the event - we hope that you had a good time. There will be photographs of Open Studios posted on the January blog, in the meantime here is the piece that The Hill wrote about it.

The yet-to-be-officially-titled Great Western Choir performed at the end of both Saturday and Sunday - pushing through its extensive repertoire of 5 songs (though we did add a rendition of Happy Birthday on the Sunday). We collected money for the Royal Hospital for Neuro-Disability at the end of the performances and on our front desk over the weekend and managed to raise just over £480. Thank you to everyone who donated money. The choir also performed at the Copra community centre a week later and will be back next year with a less seasonally inclined cannon of songs.

Two new web ventures have been started by people in the studios in the past 2 months. Lisa Jones has opened an online store for her cards and Kate Gibb has started selling limited editions of prints via her blog.

Sheena Barnes has organised an exhibition of work by Great Western Studio artists which is currently on show at Gallery 118, at the junction of Chepstow Road and Westbourne Grove. The exhibition continues until December 22nd.

The new edition of Art World magazine includes pieces on Katy Moran and Darren Almond. Katy is featured because of her show at MIMA.

The piece on Darren features an interview and survey of his work.

Turps Banana - the magazine that should have the tagline "made by painters for painters" features a conversation between David Ben White and Justin Hibbs in the current issue.

David also has work in a group show at Vinespace which runs until December 21st.

Lynn Parotti and Paul Vanstone's joint show at Imperial Wharf opened last week and is due to run until the end of January 2009.

The denizens of Stoke Newington will be setting their eyes on snaffling up last minute Christmas presents this weekend at the Xmas Art Exposure. The event opens on Friday and continues on Saturday and Sunday and will feature works by Melissa Hunt, Julie Goldsmith and Liza Campbell.

For a limited period you can wash your hair from a Sophie Smallhorn designed bottle of shampoo. Alongside Tom Dixon, John Pawson and Brad Lochore, she has designed a bottle to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Holborn salon.

The Yamake show that Apart Gallery put on last month - I'm still none the wiser to what a Yamake is - resulted in Sean Alexander winning the best in show award. The plan is for the show to travel to Nokia stores worldwide in 2009.

Claudia Carr has work in the Browse and Darby Christmas Show which is on until December 23rd.

Lastly, congratulations to David Worthington who has been nominated for the 2008 Jerwood Sculpture Prize.

November News

2008-11-14T16:44:00.021Z

November brings a bumper list of studio news; exhibitions at the studios, exhibitions outside the studios and press.

Firstly, Open Studios is taking place on December 6th & 7th from 12-6pm on both days.

This Open Studios marks a milestone in the history of Great Western Studios as it will be the last Christmas Open Studios to be held in the building. In July 2009 we will be moving from our current building to 65 Alfred Road a mere stone's throw from the Lost Goods Building. This exciting news means that we will have the opportunity to create a more permanent base for artists and creative businesses to work from in Westminster.

Please come and support the artists at our Open Studios - there will be plenty of exciting, individual and beautiful things to look at and buy, there will be free mulled cider to keep you warm, there will be delicious food available in the café, there will be an exhibition on the 14 year history of the studios and . . . if you happen to time your visit right there will be entertainment by the Great Western Choir!

Before Open Studios, Josephine Kabula is curating an exhibition of work by studio artists to take place on Wednesday November 19th from 11 to 9.30 in the gallery space at the studios. The exhibition will feature work by Natalie Baker, Mat Sant, Maibe and Josephine herself.

The following week the gallery space is once again being put to work hosting an exhibtion of photographs by Phil Shepherd. The exhibition runs from Tuesday November 25 to Thursday November 27th.

Away from the studios and happening this weekend is The Homeworks Christmas Sale in which Jemima Cotter is participating with her Canny Capers. The sale takes place at the 20th Century Theatre on Westbourne Grove and is open on Saturday November 15th from 10-5 and, if you're quick off the blocks, is also open tonight (Friday) until 9pm.

If you are due normally get your Open Studios invite in the post then you will note our lovely Jo Ratcliffe designed envelopes. If you haven't seen Jo's work before then try and get hold of a copy of December's Vogue as she is all over it with a series of specially designed and created fonts. Click on the image below to see the scale and beauty of what she has produced.

Adrian Palengat and his Apart Gallery are back in West London with a take over of 133-137 Westbourne Grove for November 20th -23rd. The exhibition, House of Yamake, features the customisation of something called a Yamake (correct me if I'm wrong). According to the website it is based on Nokia's Yamake Game philosophy: Play, Make and Share. To be honest I'm none the wiser, but come next week and seeing it in the flesh I might be. Yamake customisers include Sean Alexander, Jo Ratcliffe, Tommy Penton and Jay Burridge.

Katy Moran has an exhibition of new works at the recently opened MIMA - Middlesborough Insitute of Modern Art. The press release for the exhibition says that Katy is "rapidly becoming one of the most talked about painters of her generation". The show at MIMA is her first exhibition in a public gallery in the UK, and will feature some old works alongside new paintings.

Reinforcing the gallery's opinion was an article in Time Out at the end of October in which she was named as one of their most exciting artists under the age of 40.

Salisbury Cathedral is the location of an exhibition of new work by Emily Young titled Angel Heads: Seven and a half heads for seven and a half centuries. The temporary installation of these works marks the Cathedral's 750 year anniversary and the pieces are made of the same stone (Purbeck marble) as the Cathedral. If you want to see these 7 1/2 stone archangels then they are in and around the Cathedral from November 20th until February 9th next year.

Running from December 8th to December 22nd is a joint two-person show featuring Lynn Parotti and Paul Vanstone. There work is being shown at Unit 6, Imperial Wharf in Fulham and is titled The Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower. The Dylan Thomas poem from which the title is taken is one that both Lynn & Paul see as resonating with their work.

Outside of the UK, three Great Western Artists have exhibitions this month. At Sies and Höke Galerie in Düsseldorf Neal Tait is having a solo show. The exhibition runs from November 14th to December 12th.

Jeremy Dickinson has a show, Fishbowl Histories, at the Sara Meltzer Gallery in New York. His show opened on November 13th and runs through until December 20th.

Lastly, Darren Almond has a solo show, Nail to Nail, at David Patton Gallery in Los Angeles. The exhibition runs from November 22nd to December 20th.

October News

2008-10-13T11:38:00.029+01:00

This years pre-Christmas Open Studios will be held on December 6th & 7th. As with previous Open Studios events, we will be open between 12 and 6pm on both of these days. Open Studios provides a fantastic opportunity to meet artists, designers and craftspeople and view and buy work directly from them. If you are looking for inspirational, unique and beautiful Christmas presents then Open Studios is the place for you! There will be a warming drink (probably mulled cider) on the door for you, the café will be open for delicious lunches and hot drinks and . . . there may well be entertainment by the Great Western Studios choir! If you do not already receive an invitation please drop us an e-mail via the website and we will make sure that you are on our mailing list.

Barely a month goes by without an Art Fair in London - but this month the big one (and it's satellite events) hits London - Frieze. This is the sixth year of the Frieze Art Fair - if you are visiting keep your eyes peeled for Great Western Studios' artists - you may well spot Darren Almond, Katy Moran, Neal Tait and Jeremy Dickinson.

Frieze follows hot on the heels of the London Art Fair which took place at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea between October 2nd & 6th. Studio artists represented at the fair included Rachel Schwalm, Sarah Stitt, Olivia Musgrave and Emily Young.

Coinciding with Frieze are a number of new exhibitions in the Capital. Ex-GWS-er Toby Ziegler has his second solo show at Simon Lee Gallery on Berkeley Street running from October 15th - November 23rd.

Sean Henry has a show of new work at Osborne Samuel Gallery running from October 29th to November 22nd. A monograph on Sean is also now available from all good bookstores and here.

Love Will Bring Us Apart Again (part 4) - this time the Apart team have hit Las Vegas. Sean Alexander once again has a starring role in the Apart proceedings.

While Sean is seeking entertainment, and trying to make a buck or two, in Sin City his wife, Alice Tait, has realised the error of her ways and returned to Great Western Studios after a brief sojourn working from NW10. To complement her drift back to W9 her work is also gracing the pages of local magazine Grove - pedants will argue that Grove also covers NW10 - in a double local whammy her illustration is of the new Carter and Bond store on Westbourne Park Road.

The August issue of Grove magazine featured work by Jo Ratcliffe in its illustration round up.

Back in July I blogged about Tamar Zaig's involvement in the film Baghdad Express - the film has just been chosen to be shown at the Times BFI 52nd London Film Festival on October 27th. If you want to book tickets to see the film you can do so here.

Douglas Abercrombie has work in two successive shows at Poussin Gallery in SE1. The current show, Ten Great Works from the Sixties and Seventies, features one of Douglas's paintings alongside such luminaries as Anthony Caro , John Hoyland and Bridget Riley - the exhibition continues until October 25th. Following this exhibition the gallery are staging a solo show of his work from November 13th to December 20th covering all stages of his immensely productive 50 year career.

Lastly, Sarah Graham has a show at the Sims Reed Gallery in the Economist Building, SW1 which opens on October 21st and runs until November 14th.

September News

2008-09-15T11:30:00.021+01:00

Like swallows migrating to North Africa, Great Western Studios is once again home to artists returning to their roosts.

Roger, the unofficial studio mascot, made an appearance in the Sunday Telegraph magazine courtesy of Alice Alexander née Tait.

Though the caption might explain why walking past studio 6, let alone entering it, is something of a risky pastime.

I've blogged to death about the ever expanding Tate to Tate Tommy Penton project, but . . . the exhibition that he had was really good, attracted a galaxy of GWS residents and featured in the London press.

A couple of nights before Tommy's show was Kate Gibb's joint show with James Brown at the Ada Street Gallery . She's also been hitting the press with a commission for the Guardian Guide.

A piece for Creative Review

and an article on her work in the Japanese magazine plus eighty one.

If the past month seems to have been the apex of Tommy and Kate activity then this forthcoming month might be the same for Jan Coutts. She has a solo show with Quantum Art on Cork Street from September 16th-20th and she has work at Art London (October 1st - 6th).

Brickett Davda's work is being stocked by Toast again this season; which is handy as Toast appeared in the shortlist for Elle Decoration's British Design Awards; highlighting Jo's ceramics as one of the products that earned them their nomination.

Laura Green's exhibition at ArtSway opens on September 20th and runs until November 16th - the exhibition is the result of her winning the ArtSway Open last year.

Pete Gleadall and Tom Stephan's Phreekn release made it to number 1 in the Buzz Chart.

The Kensal Rise glitterati (if this isn't an oxymoron) were out in force for Liza Campbell's show at 118 College Road. Somebody was taking photographs to document the proceedings so I will try to unearth the evidence for next month's newsletter.

David Ben White's slot in Sideshow, a project at Gallery Primo Alonso on Hackney Road is this week - September 18th-21st.

Also occurring this weekend is Decorex, the interior design tradeshow. Fromental will be taking a stand at the show and to highlight the possibilities that their handmade wallpaper presents they have been working on a collaborative piece with William Warbrick.

The classic American walnut tallboy that Will has created showcases the gold leafed chinoiserie wallpaper of Fromental's new collection.

Lastly . . . there is a side project to this blog. Behind Closed Doors is a Q & A structure directed at Great Western Studios artists for those who want to know more about the people based at the studios (and also those who have since moved away from the building). It is updated with 3 new artists every week - you can access it here.

August News

2008-08-14T09:37:00.017+01:00

While the art world may take August off, Pete Gleadall (our resident non visual art based artist) has been hard at work. His track As You Like It with Smokin' Jo under the banner of TRNSSTR was released earlier in the summer and his new track with DJ Tom Stephan, Phreekn, is out on August 21st - it's number 19 in the Buzz Chart. You can read a review of As You Like It here, and you can check it out on Beatport. Keep checking the Beatport site for Phreekn when it is released.

The September issue of Vogue has managed to upturn my perception of a certain Great Western Studios artist. Hidden on the last page of the magazine was a piece of work by Paul Vanstone. I've always known Paul as a sculptor and stone carver, further evidenced by his near constant coating of a layer of stone dust - but here he is exposed as a painter.

The art world returns from its summer sojourn in late August/early September. Coinciding with this is an exhibition by Kate Gibb and James Brown at the Ada Street Gallery, E8. The exhibition opens on August 26th and runs until the 31st. Kate screenprints (pull) and James makes linocuts (press) - hence the title of their show Press and Pull.

The Tommy Penton quest for world domination takes another step forward in September with the exhibiton and sale of the hand printed, hand bound, slipcased version of his book. The exhibition takes place at the Menier Chocolate Factory space in SE1 and runs from September 1st to September 31st. Limited to a signed edition of 250 (10 of which are limited further by being leather bound and tooled) the exhibition is a chance to grab this high demand book. Alongside the book the exhibition will also feature other painted works by Tommy. The softback book already has its own website so it is only fitting that the handmade books do too.

Anthony Meier Gallery in San Francisco is holding a solo show of Katy Moran paintings from September 5th to October 3rd.

Julie Goldsmith has work in a show entitled Start Your Collection which is being held at Contemporary Art Projects on Rivington Street in the East End and runs until September 21st.

David Ben White has work in a forthcoming show at Primo Alonso, curated by Nick Kaplony, Sideshow opens on September 5th and runs until September 30th.

Lastly, heads up, on a solo exhibition for Jan Coutts at Quantum Art on Cork Street which runs from September 16th - 20th. There will be more information about this in the next blog.

July News

2008-07-10T15:15:00.026+01:00

Firstly the promised photographs of summer Open Studios.

and . . . the inaugural GWS dog show - dogs seem to be somewhat absent, but rest assured they were there somewhere.

Bourne Fine Art in Edinburgh is hosting an exhibition of new work by Emily Young to coincide with the Festival. The show opens on August 1 st and runs until September 6th and is accompanied by a catalogue. Bourne Fine Art's specialism is Scottish Art, so to hand this prestigious slot in their calendar to a non-Caledonian, is something of a coup - unless Emily fabricated that part of her cv in order to get the show.

Summer is traditionally silly season for news stories - you can scroll to the end of this blog entry to get the Great Western Studios equivalent. Elsewhere it seems to be book season. I have already blogged about Tommy Penton's Tate to Tate publication - if you haven't bought one of these already can I encourage you to do so - it's brilliant.

Tamar Zaig - costume designer to the stars - is currently in the middle of designing costumes for Baghdad Express, a short film funded by the UK Film Council and Film London. The story is based around an Iraqi girl who works in her Dad's cafe on the Edgware Road and has to decide between family and a career in fashion.

Alice Alexander née Tait is ex-of-the-studios but hasn't yet been written out of the history. Her prolific illustration skills have recently been utilised on the cover of Arthur Potts Dawson's cookbook - Acorn House the cookbook. Alice was working on this while she was still at the studios so it is essentially a studio product.

Sean Henry also has 2 publications out in the near future. We are approaching the 1 year anniversary of his installation Couple at Newbiggin in Northumberland so in order to mark this a book is being published which charts the progress of the work from conception and sketch through creation and installation to reaction and situation. The book includes an essay by Mark Lawson. Separately a monograph on Sean is being published by Scala in August this tome runs to 160 pages in total and will be available to order through Amazon. The text is written by Tom Flynn promises 4 major chapters on Sean's work: technique and scale, colour and realism, theatricality, and location and environment.

Blue Curry has been pretty busy. He has finished his first year doing his MA at Goldsmiths so has had an end of year exhibition there to mark this. He has also had 3 pieces of work selected for NE4 - the fourth national exhibition at the National Gallery of the Bahamas.

He has also been selected to form part of the cultural envoy selected by the government of the Bahamas to attend Carifesta which is being held in Guyana in August in preparation for the Bahamas being the next host of the event. As if that wasn't enough his work has also been written about in the academic journal Small Axe - it's not online yet but should be soon.

Edward Underwood can add Kunsthalle Basel to his cv thanks to 2 of his pieces being included in the group show Word Event which opened at the end of June and is on until September 28th. Not one to shout about his successes himself - it falls to me to do so in his stead.

From an artist who hides his light under a bushel to one who . . . . Lynn Parotti is always seeking out new avenues for her work and has just returned from exhibiting at the Henley Festival; she also has three pieces of work in NE4 the same show that Blue Curry has work in (see above).

The Sean Alexander/Apart Gallery world wide tour's next destination is Berlin. The Stark building is playing host to a version of the exhibition that has already made its home in LA (twice) and London from July 18th to 21st - coinciding with Berlin Fashion Week. As Sean's work has sold out in the previous incarnations of the show, Berlin will feature new work.

Laura Green didn't win but she was a finalist in the Guasch Corranty International Painting Prize Exhibition.

Thompson's Gallery in Marylebone is spreading out into staging photography shows and included in their inaugural show of photographic images are works by Angelo Plantamura. The exhibition opens on July 15th and runs until July 27th.

Lastly - as promised - a picture of Gordon Langley in fancy dress (of a kind).

June News

2008-05-16T16:55:00.014+01:00

Open Studios came and went in a blur. Thank you to everyone who came, we hope that you had a good time and that we will see you again before Christmas (for those who like to fill in their diaries way in advance the next Open Studios will be on December 6th & 7th). There will be photos of the event posted in the next blog entry - including documentation of the inaugural GWS dog show.

Sarah Graham's work cropped up in Gardens Illustrated's June issue over a 4 page feature. In a canny moment of inter studio professional relationships the photographs for the article were taken by Angelo Plantamura.

One time studio sharers Sarah Stitt and Liza Campbell both have exhibitions this month. Sarah's sabbatical to LA has been broken by her show at Long & Ryle in South Islip Street, SW1 and Liza's new show is a two person exhibition at Galerie Planet near Limoges where she is showing her collages.

Tate to Tate: A Walk Along London's South Bank is the title of Tommy Penton's first publication - out now in all good bookshops or available here, there and everywhere. Many years in the making Tommy's book falls into many categories; travel guide, graphic novel, illustration. The book is essentially one fold out image of the journey from Tate Britain to Tate Modern. Along this journey is the faithful depiction of the architectural sights of the North Bank of the Thames as well as a host of characters that wend their way throughout the book, some going West to East and others East to West so that you can read the book from fron t to back or vice versa. Published by Jonathan Cape on June 5th, Tommy is also preparing for an exhibition of the work together with an edition of hand bound, printed and numbered versions of the book which will be available at a solo exhibition in September (more details nearer the time). To promote the book Tommy appeared on London Live earlier in June talking to Robert Elms - if you scour the internet you can probably still hear it somewhere. On the associated interactive website you can also play a game to win copies of the book.

Part one of David Ben White's exhibition opened on June 5th - part 2 The Atom Page 2 - The Revenge of the Atom opens this week on June 19th at Studio 1.1, 57a Redchurch Street.

It is the end of the academic year and among those preparing for judgment day is Valerie Gladwin Montgomery who has been studying on a Post Foundation course at Kensington and Chelsea College. The end of year show opens this Thursday and runs until June 27th at The Hortensia Art Gallery, SW10.

May News

2008-05-13T11:49:00.022+01:00

Summer Open Studios will take place on June 7th & 8th this year. If you haven't been to one these events before please come to this one - and invite all your friends! It is a fantastic opportunity to meet the artists, designers and craftspeople who work from the building and have the chance of buying exclusive, inspirational, one off pieces of art and design directly from the talented people who have made them.

On until the first day of Open Studios is Neal Tait's show, The Dressmaker Who Lived On The Outskirts, at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York. No doubt the reviews will follow and I will be able to post them in the next newsletter.

Already reviewed are some shows that opened in April. Yukako Shibata's show at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation continues until May 22nd, catch it while you can. Her show was reviewed in Time Out.

Catherine Goodman's show at Marlborough Fine Art on Albemarle Street opened on a rain sodden April evening, but was rammed with people none the less. Catherine is showing a series of paintings made of a room in her grandparent's flat where she spent part of her childhood; there are also portraits, and instantly recognisable studio shots showing both the interior of her workspace and the oh-so-glamourous view from the entrance of her studio looking towards the railway lines and tube station. Catherine was profiled in the Times just before her exhibition opened detailing both the works in her exhibition and her role as Artistic Director at the Prince's Drawing School.

Lynn Parotti's joint show with her sister was front page news in the Nassau Guardian.

Seemingly any article on wallpaper is duty bound to mention Fromental; either that, or perhaps more likely, their hand printed and embroidered wallpaper really is way ahead of the competition.

The weekend of May 31st and June 1st is the date for the the Untitled Artists Fair at Chelsea Town Hall on the King's Road. Faye Haskins is taking part in this event and you can download free tickets to the event via this website.

The summer sculpture garden shows are about to kick off. The Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden in Surrey features three GWS artists: Paul Vanstone, David Worthington and Emily Young. The gardens are open from May through to the end of October. David also has work at Newby Hall and Gardens in North Yorkshire, the season for which runs from June until September.

The Justin Hibbs and David Ben White world tour has reached the banks of Lac Leman in Switzerland and they have rested their curatorial work, Working Space, at Galerie Lacy Mackintosh for the period May 16th through to June 28th. This is a reformatting of the show that was at the University of the Arts gallery space on Davies Street, W1 for most of April - where it stops next . . . nobody knows.

Making a welcome return to the UK is another expatriated Great Westerner - Sarah Stitt. Although she is now based in LA, Sarah has a forthcoming show at Long & Ryle, 4 John Islip Street, SW1. Entitled New Work from the New World the show opens on June 3rd and runs until June 27th.

Still Another Place opened on May 1st at The Crypt, St Pancras Parish Church. The exhibition features Simon Dawe, Julie Goldsmith, Rachel Schwalm, Paul Vanstone and Felicity Warbrick and coincides with the church's London Fesitval of Contemporary Church Music. Still Another Place is open until May 29th and is on every day from 10am until 7pm - installation shots below.

The L.A. show, Love Will Bring Us Apart Again, has featured in previous posts - it is now making it's way to shores more familiar (and convenient) by touching down at 133-137 Westbourne Grove (on the corner of Chepstow Rd). The show once again features work by Sean Alexander and opens on Thursday May 22nd. For a special Sean Alexander/Alice Tait scroll down.

Wedding Special!

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On April 26th the wedding of Sean Alexander and Alice Tait took place in Broadstairs followed by a reception at the boating lake pavilion in Ramsgate. In the thirteen year history of Great Western Studios this is the first marriage of two people who have met in the studios. For one brief day the Eastern tip of Kent was Great Western Studios on sea; never before have so many Great Western Studios artists gathered in one place without a trace of paint or stone dust about their person.

Award yourself 10 points if you can identify all of the Great Westerners in the above photo. Award yourself an extra 50 points if you can name the non-Great Westerners and work out which group shot they thought that they were in!

April News

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Although the breadth of work produced at Great Western Studios is wide ranging and varied there does seem to be a seasonal bent to what is happening at any one time. Spring seems to be painting season.

Catherine Goodman has a show of new works opening at Marlborough Fine Art, 6 Albemarle Street. The exhibition runs from April 30th to May 24th.

David Ben White and Justin Hibbs' show, Working Space, at the University of the Arts Gallery on Davies Street W1 opened last month and is ongoing until April 18th.

David and Justin gave an artists talk on April 9th at the gallery which was the same evening as the opening of Yukako Shibata's show Luminescence at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation overlooking Regents Park. Yukako's work combines painting, sculpture, photography and installation with a vocabulary of minimal and recurring forms.

Katy Moran has had a major show at the esteemed gallery Andrea Rosen in New York. Katy's show has pricked up the ears of the New York press and also the blogosphere - alongside the press reviews below you can read what the public thought about it here and here. Katy's work in the group show at Tate Britain has just closed.

Five Great Western Artists are exhibiting together at the crypt of the Parish Church of St Pancras; titled Still Another Place the show features Simon Dawe, Julie Goldsmith, Rachel Schwalm, Paul Vanstone and Felicity Warbrick. The private view of the show takes place on May 1st and the exhibition continues every day until May 29th.

Estelle Thompson's work was in Tipping Point, an exhibition at Purdy Hicks Gallery that was previewed in a previous blog entry. The show was reviewed by Michael Stubbs in Turps Banana, which you can read below.

Winsor Gallery in Vancouver is hosting an exhibition of Emily Young's work. The show runs from May 1st to May 25th.

In Pieces is a group show that has just opened at 39 Myddleton Square, EC1 - the exhibition is dedicated to Christopher Landoni who was a good friend of ex Great Westerners Oliver Michaels and Toby Ziegler the exhibition continues until April 27th.

Lynn Parotti is having a group show in the Bahamas with her sister Holly Parotti. Called Limit the show is at Popopstudios in Nassau and runs until April 28th. Lynn is showing some of her new works based on the fragile eco-system of the salt manufacturing beds on Inagua, an island at the Southernmost reaches of the Bahamas.

The Great Western Studios outpost in Texas (sole membership held by Gabriela Trzebinski) is pleased to announce that . . . Gabriela Trzebinski has fully ensconced herself in the local art world. She has work in an exhibition at the Blaffer Gallery highlighting work made by artists in Houston, she is giving a talk at the Contemporary Art Museum Houston and she's giving a talk at the Menil Collection as well.

Zakee Shariff's news is that she has prints (and t-shirts) for sale in Liberty Menswear and she has a newly launched clothing range available exclusively in Japan.

March News

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For one fleeting moment, Los Angeles, seemed to be the centre of Great Western Studios life in February. A collision of unexpected coincidences. Sean Alexander had some work in the first show in LA to be put together by Adrian Palengat since Apart traded in life on Portobello (via life on Westbourne Grove) to life just off Venice Beach. If Sean was there then that explains why Alice Tait (soon to be Alexander) was there. Joining the private view for the show were Jo Ratcliffe, Felicity Warbrick and Lizzie Deshayes. The latter 2 being there courtesy of Lizzie's company, Fromental, installing some of their wallpaper.

Later in the month, ex-Great Westerner, Toby Ziegler had a solo show with Patrick Painter also in LA; and the city has also fairly recently been made the home of also-ex-Great Westerner, Sarah Stitt. For Sarah's take on Hollywood life you can read her excellent blog here.

It turns out that Sean's work in the exhibition has been attracting the attention of another ex-pat.

Still on foreign soils, the work of Fromental was featured in the April edition of Elle Decoration in the home of a Milan stylist.

Back in London it is David Ben White month. His work is featured in a 3 man show entitled Planetarium at APT Gallery in Deptford which runs until March 24th.

In collaboration with Justin Hibbs he has also co-curated another exhibition, Working Space, at the Arts Gallery at 65 Davies Street, W1. This group show of 5 artists, including David and Justin opens on Monday March 17th and runs until April 18th; it is open Monday - Friday from 9.30- 18.30 each day.

Mary Grant is heading (north)Westward again for the Art Ireland Fair, and will be exhibiting works that she did when she was last in Kerry.

The ever expanding slew of Art Fairs includes the Affordable Art Fair which is on this weekend (March 16/17) in Battersea Park. Foss Fine Art will be featuring Liza Campbell's dark, comic boxes on their stand.

Also taking place this weekend, but in sunnier climes, is the Transforming Spaces tour in the Bahamas; while I don't quite understand how it works, Lynn Parotti's work will feature somewhere along the way.

Last months Sound and Vision event at Abbey Rd Studios featured work by Kate Gibb and Tommy Penton and was reported in the Independent.

Meanwhile, the second, house and home collection by Toast, once again features Brickett Davda's work. Their classic, muted tableware found a place in April's edition of Country Living.

Lastly a request of assistance:

Westminster City Council is developing a new Strategy for Arts & Culture. A consultation draft can be found on the following page of the council's website.

We welcome your comments on the draft. There are consultation questions at the beginning of the document for you to respond to. The deadline for all responses is 20th March 2008. Please send comments to cfergusson@westminster.gov.uk with the words ‘Strategy Consultation’ in the subject heading.

February News

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The London Art Fair came and went last month - Great Western Studios artists that I saw at the fair but missed off last months preview included Estelle Thompson at Purdy Hicks and Jan Coutts on Quantum Contemporary's stand.

Emily Young filled the role of featured artist of the fair with her monumental piece howl sited outside the venue and according to the Islington Gazette, the local chatterati are clamouring for the work to be permanently sited there.

The White Cube press department swung into full action last month to promote the show of Darren Almond's work at their Hoxton Square site. With the might of the gallery behind him the press was wide and far-reaching. Breathe deeply . . . there were articles in . . . Art Review, Time Out, the Independent, Vogue, Evening Standard and a very favourable review by Adrian Searle in the Guardian.

The concurrent show at Parasol Unit on Wharf Road is on until March 30th. Alongside the exhibitions there are no less than 3 catalogues/monologues on Darren hitting the bookshelves. Terminus is available from Amazon, and the other 2 are available from White Cube and Parasol respectively.

Jeremy Dickinson has an exhibition of New Paintings opening at Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo. The show runs from March 8th until April 5th.

In lands not quite so far away Olivia Musgrave currently has a show with Jorgensen Art in Dublin. The show opened on February 12th and runs until March 1st.

Laura Green was triumphant in the Artsway Open exhibition coming away as the winner with the promise of a solo show there later this year. She has also been shortlisted for the Guasch Coranty International Painting Prize in Barcelona.

Brickett Davda's work is still the darling of the interior stylists - their bud range was first designed back in 1998 and still crops up in glossy magazines with amazing frequency.

The Untitled Gallery are once again featuring Faye Haskins' work in a show at the Adam Street Members Club, which lies just off Strand. Don't pick me up on this, I'm right, the road is Strand not the Strand - check out wikipedia if you don't believe me. Anyway . . . although the show featuring Faye's work is already up and in full swing the private view is on February 19th.

The private view for Rachel Schwalm's inaugural show at Beaux Arts on Cork Street took place at the end of January - textile/design wonderwoman Neisha Crosland bringing a dash of celebrity to the proceedings. Rachel's show is up until February 23rd and has an accompanying catalogue.

Sophie Smallhorn's work for the new offices of Body and Soul in Clerkenwell is featured (and bastardized for their graphic design inspiration) in this months onoffice magazine. A niche publication - but a niche that occasionally comes up trumps.

At the city out post of Jake Miller's East End Approach Gallery is a group painting show which includes a number of Neal Tait works.

Lastly, David Ben White is taking part in a 3 man show titled Planetarium at APT gallery in Deptford. The show opens on March 6th and runs until March 26th.

January News

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The New Year news starts with a further look back at Open Studios - Sam Robinson, studio archivist extraordinaire, took the pictures below.

Not documented in quite the same way was the Great Western Studios carol sing-a-long held in December. It was quite a night - I don't suppose many other staff Christmas parties could boast being serenaded by Jonny Borrell, the bassist from the Libertines and Bronagh Gallagher from the Commitments - this isn't to say that they outshone the resident studio choral talent, which was both broad and largely unexpected.

The London Art Fair Opens later this week at the Business Design Centre in Islington. The show will include work by Rachel Schwalm on the Beaux Arts stand, Cristina Rodriguez on the Art Movement stand and David Worthington on the Crane Kalman stand.

Outside the fair will stand Howl, a new piece by Emily Young, who is represented inside the fair by the Fine Art Society.

Rachel Schwalm also has a solo show with Beaux Arts opening at the end of January in their Cork Street gallery. The show opens on January 30th and runs until February 23rd.

Darren Almond has two major solo shows opening on the same night this week. At Parasol Unit his show, Fire Under Snow, runs from January 18th through to March 30th. His show at White Cube, in Hoxton Square, is titled Moons of Iapetus Ocean, and runs from the same date until February 23rd.

A slew of reviews will no doubt follow and will appear here in the next newsletter - in the meantime, ahead of the pack, you can read about his White Cube show, courtesy of The Times, here, and a short entry from the Guardian Guide below.

A group show at Tate Britain, as part of the Art Now programme, will feature work by Katy Moran. Titled Art Now: Strange Solution the exhibition opens on February 1st and runs until April 13th.

Purdy Hicks Gallery has work by Estelle Thompson in their current group show, Tipping Point, alongside paintings by Estelle are works by Agnes Martin and Barry Thompson among others.

Giles Phelps and Chris Burridge, aka Slipmode, have been very busy boys. They have been working with Albion Brand Comnmunications on a multi-client project for 3, Skype and Hutchinson which featured on 600 still advertising sites across the country together with some animated sites as well.

They have also been working on a 20 minute documentary film about, local superstar photographer, Jürgen Teller for Specialten.

Faye Haskins has a solo show with the Untitled Gallery at the Adam Street Club which runs from February 4th until March 2nd.

Finally, Blue Curry, is in a group show (setups, situations, solutions) at Popopstudios in the Bahamas until February 10th . . . if you happen to be in the area.