Scream Gallery Winter Exhibition

PRESS RELEASE

Scream Gallery Winter exhibition featuring;

Dennis Hopper, Russell Young, Peter Doherty & Ronnie Wood

19 December 2009 to 19 January 2010



Kate Moss by Peter Doherty



William English (1975), hand signed by Vivienne Westwood


Scream Gallery is delighted to unveil a stellar line-up of artists from its recently launched popular culture collection including; Dennis Hopper, Russell Young, Mark Hayward, Grace Slick, Peter Dohery, R. Crumb and Ronnie Wood. The winter exhibition features images of some of the most iconic figures from contemporary culture, such as a punk-era Vivienne Westwood photographed by William English, and Andy Warhol captured by the lens of Dennis Hopper in Andy Warhol (with flower) (1963). Legendary Hollywood Actor Hopper, is also a revered photographer, who ran with Warhol’s hip Factory set in the 60’s, and captured with his omnipresent camera other prominent people of the era including; James Brown, Martin Luther King and James Brown.


Internationally acclaimed British photographer Russell Young, brings more Hollywood glamour to the show with his Diamond Dust series, evoking the silkscreen prints of Warhol, by featuring legends of the silver screen such as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. Young gives a contemporary twist to his larger than life silkscreen images of familiar faces from the 20th Century, by sprinkling them with a handful of stardust.

New York Curator Brandon Coburn breathes life into the Scream Gallery with this eclectic display of prints and photographs, introducing a taste of more recent icons of our culture by exhibiting two of talented young musician/ artist Peter Doherty’s Blood paintings; One painting is a tender portrait of his ex-lover Kate Moss, Supermodel and darling of the British fashion scene. The image is made more poignant with the use of Doherty’s own blood to create a shroud-like outline of her captivating beauty. The blood is said to lend itself perfectly to exploring the extraordinary personal and physical intensity that characterises so much of Peter’s life and work as an artist in the broadest sense.

Situated in the heart of London’s Mayfair, Scream Gallery is operated by Tyrone and Jamie Wood, sons of Rolling Stone’s guitarist Ronnie Wood. Scream is one of Europe’s leading art galleries, representing some of the finest contemporary artists and photographers. Scream’s avant garde popular culture collection includes hand signed limited editions and original drawings, dating from the 1950s, through modern to contemporary work.

Other works on display are by John Lennon, Sebastian Kruger, R. Crumb, Jimi Hendrix and the afore-mentioned Ronnie Wood. Wood’s portraits of his fellow Rolling Stones band mates, and other famous friends, capture the intimacy of the relationship between subject and artist. For Ronnie, music and art have always gone hand-in-hand, and the intensity that he brings to the guitar translates onto canvas and paper, with rhythmic line and vibrant colour.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Address: Scream Gallery, 34 Bruton Street, London W1J 6QX
Telephone: + 44 (0) 20 7493 7388
Opening times: Tue-Fri 10am-6pm; Sat 11am-5pm

www.screamlondon.com

For further information, press enquiries, images or interview requests contact:
+ 44 (0) 7814 862 834 or lee@lee-johnson.co.uk

or Nicole Donaldson, Client Relations Director on info@screamlondon.com

Epoh Beech solo exhibition at The Gallery in Redchurch Street

PRESS RELEASE

EPOH BEECH: 'The Marriage of the Thames and the Rhine'

THE GALLERY IN REDCHURCH STREET

2-7 March, 2010

Private view Tuesday 2 March 6.30- 9pm





















For Epoh Beech’s latest solo exhibition in London, the accomplished fine artist has created 45 ethereal charcoal drawings, and a hand drawn animation, inspired by Wagner’s The Ring, and Francis Beaumont’s 17th Century tome The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn, Gray’s Inn and The Inner Temple: This Jacobean ‘masque’ was performed at Whitehall Palace in 1613, forming an integral part of the nuptials of the daughter of King James I to Frederick V. The pairing was a metaphorical marriage of Germany with England, and a symbolic union of the Thames and the Rhine.

Beech’s drawings are an investigation into the historic relationship between the Rhine and the Thames. Central characters in Beech’s narrative are Hermes, in the form of a seal, and Pegasus the mythological horse, both bearing witness to the voyage of the imagination, unhindered by the straightjacket of history and time.

An expert draughtsman who trained as a fine artist at Studio Simi in Florence, Beech’s drawings posses an innate romanticism which betrays literary influences such as Goethe, and a passion for music which has encompassed 9 years of violin practice and a passion for Wagnerian compositions. William Kentridge, Anselm Keifer and Samuel Palmer have also been powerful influences on Beech’s practice. The use of charcoal to create such heady imagery is symbolic, and highlights the transformation of dark matter into the light, with a debt to the 15th artists of the Italian renaissance that Beech came across during her studies in Florence.

The fragile, spindly trees featured in Siegfried in the forest are reminiscent of Klimt’s nature paintings, whilst the moonlit mountains described in Pfalzgrafenstein Island evoke the German Romanticist Caspar David Friedrich. Beech has made a natural progression from the series of still narratives, to a 3-minute animation. The animation will be projected in the gallery, and forms a perfect visual compliment to the series of charcoals.

The animation has a dual meaning; it is both symbolic meditation on a journey into the unknown through the eyes of Pegasus and the seal, both on a quest to heal old wounds and create a sense of unity in their universe; and also an exploration of the geographical history of the Thames and Rhine, which at the end of the last ice age formed one single river. Pegasus not only represents justice and wisdom, but also acts as a muse to the Poets.

Beech is currently creating 8 murals in the crypt of St Luke’s Church in London’s Sydney Street. Beech’s training in Florence has infused her work with a Florentine tinge, whilst there is a strong use of narrative, combined with an investigation into the relationship between images, colour and the subconscious. Beech also studied in Cheltenham and London, trained as a specialist painter with Jim Smart, a pioneer of the specialist painting trade, and spent 4 years at Chelsea School of Art. Beech currently lives and works in London, out of the ACAVA studios in West London.

The meditative quality of Beech’s drawings is perhaps a result of the time she spent at a Tibetan Monastery, and her studies in Art Psychotherapy. Previous exhibitions include; Shakespeare and Globe theatre (1998 Shakespeare poem exhibited in Oxford at OUP); Walking 600 miles to Santiago de Compostella across Spain (2002 exhibition); Walking along the Rhine from source (on going) (2004 exhibition). Beech has spent time working in a hospice and prison as an art teacher, has an MA in Art Therapy, and runs art workshops.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

WEBSITES;

http://www.galleryinredchurchstreet.com/

http://www.epohbeech.co.uk/

Gallery address: 50 Redchurch Street, London E2 7DP
Opening times: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 10am-6pm
Thursday 10am-8.30pm
Saturday 12-7pm and Sunday 12-5pm
Nearest tube: Liverpool Street

For further information, press enquiries, images or interview requests contact:
Lee Johnson PR on + 44 (0) 7814 862 834 or lee@lee-johnson.co.uk