Louise Richardson and Andrew Campbell at King of Hearts Gallery, Norwich

PRESS RELEASE

LOUISE RICHARDSON & ANDREW CAMPBELL

EXHIBITION AT KING OF HEARTS GALLERY, NORWICH

PRIVATE VIEW ON FRIDAY 15 MAY FROM 5.30 - 8.30PM

SHOW CONTINUES UNTIL 29 AUGUST 2009

"Catch a moment and rediscover the forgotten"




A pair of widely celebrated Norfolk Artists exhibit at the King of Hearts in Norwich with works focussed on storytelling, the passing of time and the preservation of memories.

Andrew Campbell and Louise Richardson are well-known by the Norfolk public through many exhibitions in the area, notably at the King of Hearts and the Bally Factory. They also exhibit internationally and nationally including solo shows at the Robert Sandelson Gallery, Cork Street London, as well as being members of the Norwich Twenty Group. Although these artists produce strikingly different work, they have much in common: a subtle palette of muted tones, a delicacy and compassionate feeling for the fragility of human life.

Andrew Campbell captures personal fleeting moments that convey his interest in the past and future of landscapes. He makes reference to isolated, significant objects within the landscape and delights in the rediscovery of things forgotten. Campbell also works with film, from this he selects poignant images and transfers them to cement rendered, canvas-like frames. The images sink into the surface and take on a painterly quality.

“My work features rhythms and repetition; be it the bubbling of water or the motion of waves.” Andrew Campbell

Storytelling and humanity form the basis of Louise Richardson’s work. Garments and sculptures made from a diverse selection of materials give a glimpse of untold tales. ‘Butterfly Dress’ is brimming with an intense sense of animation, conveying the magical attraction of butterflies.

“I am currently looking at the idea of memory and identity, bringing universal messages to the viewer through the portrayal of objects in my own memory.” Louise Richardson

“Andy and Louise are strikingly original artists, re-creating in their own way the human destiny in its touching frailty.” Aude Gotto

Exhibition venue: The King of Hearts Gallery, Fye Bridge Street, Norwich NR3 1LJ

May 16th – 29th August 2009 ~ Andrew Campbell & Louise Richardson

For enquiries please call 01603 611412

5th Annual Ivan The Terrible Polo Challenge at Guards Polo Club

5th Ivan The Terrible Polo Challenge

Saturday 30 May at Guards Polo Club, Smith’s Lawn, Surrey

The 5th Ivan The Terrible Polo Challenge was in aid of the the Romanov fund for Russia, which helps deprived, homeless, orphaned and handicapped children in Moscow and St Petersburg: www.romanovfundforrussia.org

Jay Kay, Vivienne Westwood & Andreas Kronthaler, Amanda Eliasch, Artists Tim Noble & Sue Webster, and Mat Colishaw & Polly Morgan all attended.

Charity Art Auction at The Special Yoga Centre, 7 May 2009

CHARITY ART AUCTION AND EXHIBITION
AT THE SPECIAL YOGA CENTRE

Viewing and Auction on Thursday 7 May 2009
The Tay Building, 2a Wrentham Avenue London NW10 3HA




An incredible line-up of leading contemporary British Artists and Designers have donated unique artworks to an auction at The Special Yoga Centre to raise funds for it’s work with children with special needs. The exhibition and auction has been made possible due to the generosity of a roster of internationally recognisable names and local Artists including; photographer turned film director Sam Taylor-Wood; legendary pop artist Peter Blake; celebrated fashion designers Dame Vivienne Westwood and Alice Temperley; figurative painter Natasha Law; satirical Punch cartoonist Gerald Scarfe; County Hall Gallery artist - in - residence Nasser Azam; founder of the Stuckist movement Billy Childish; Legendary Graffiti Artist Banksy; YBA Marc Quinn; Vogue photographer and gallerist Jake Gavin; peripatetic painters Olly and Suzi; and the original YBA Damien Hirst, whose 2008 sale of new works at Sotheby’s fetched an eye-watering, recession-busting £111 million. Hirst has generously donated two etchings; one of a haunting skull titled “I Once Was What You Are, You Will Be What I Am” (2007), and the other of a luminous yellow and blue butterfly titled “The Souls on Jacob’s Ladder Take Their Flight” (2007). Emma Checkley of Christie’s Auctioneers will hold the auction, guests are invited to see the works on display beforehand, 7 May at 6pm.

Yoga expert and co-author of ‘The Spiritual Teachings of Yoga’ Jo Manuel founded the Special Yoga Centre in 2004 as a charitable organization supporting children with a variety of conditions, which can be aided by the practice of yoga. Children with Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism, epilepsy, ADD, ADHD and other physical and developmental difficulties all benefit from the expert teaching offered at the Special Yoga Centre, whose policy is to offer yoga to all without regard to financial or cultural constraints. Children from all walks of life, including the late son of shadow Prime Minister David Cameron, have benefited from the care and teaching of the Special Yoga Centre.

The auction will also include a signed limited edition print by artist Lee Jones of The Kray Twins boxing titled ‘Love and Peace’, which was recently exhibited in the Mayor of London’s EAST Festival and at The Arts Club, as well as a tongue in cheek drawing of George Bush donated by Al Braithwaite ‘George Bush Two with a Bounty On his Head’. Other participating Artists include; Anna Louise Felstead, Batia Grafka, Ben McLaughlin, Bethany Murray, Bonita Alice, Candida Thring, Claire Johnson, Diana Bekvalac, Diane Coates, Eileen Perrier, Emma Ford, Emma Wood, Gigi Sudbury, Harriet Longfield, Ian Balch, Jacqui Carroll, James Wright, Jivan Astfalck, Joth Shakerley, Kate Robinson, Kitty Stirling, Lorenzo Belenguer, Lou Rota, Matthew Donaldson, Naomi Francis, Naomi Pilling, Sarah Neale, Sirpa Pajunen-Moghissi, Tara Cranswick, Tom Hammick, Whitney McVeigh, Wendy Bond and Zakee Shariff.

Champagne and viewing: Thursday 7 May at 6pm
Auction: Thursday 7 May at 8pm
Exhibition venue: The Special Yoga Centre, The Tay Building, 2a Wrentham Avenue London NW10 3HA

To purchase tickets for the champagne, viewing and auction or for further information on The Special Yoga Centre visit the website:
www.specialyoga.org.uk 020 8968 1900 or contact Rebecca Ward on: rebeccaward25@hotmail.com or + 44 (0) 7977 062 474

The Special Yoga Centre would like to thank the following Sponsors for their generous support:
Avantgarde Framing and Art Gallery
Diamond Digital Printers
Planet Organic
Pukka Tea
Travis Perkins, Queens Park
The Salisbury, Fulham
Scarlet & Violet, Kensal Rise

Interview with Frank Cohen for Art India Magazine

Lee interviewed Art Collector Frank Cohen for the Interview issue of Art India Magazine:

Lee Jones: Beyond Human at The Arts Club

Lee Jones: Beyond Human
The Arts Club
3-7 April 2009

Lee Jones will exhibit his 'Beyond Human' series of elite athletes in a 2050Sports.com exhibition at The Arts Club in Mayfair. Also on display will be a new painting of Mayor of London Boris Johnson, and the well known painting of Cheryl Cole as the Angel of the North. See the link for a feature on the exhibition in the Evening Standard:
http://londonersdiary.standard.co.uk/

Al Braithwaite at Rose Issa Projects

AL BRAITHWAITE AT ROSE ISSA PROJECTS

"Museum No. 1: Hizbollah’s Caviar & Other Works on Terror

23 April to 16 May 2009









Al Braithwaite, the provocative young creator of Museum No. 1: Hizbollah’s Caviar, set out in 2002 with big ambitions: he wanted to bridge the gap opened by warfare using the common language of art and humanity. Having sold his possessions, he left London with an idealistic group of artists to live in the Middle East.

Six Years Distilled into One Piece of Art (‘4kg of World’)
Six years working and travelling in Turkey, Iran, Kurdistan, Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Britain, and the United States have fertilised, nurtured, and given birth to this extraordinary, immaculately-presented, and conceptually-rich response to a patch of history dominated on many fronts by War on Terror anxiety (and what Braithwaite calls ‘Junk Bulletin Hypertension’ leading to multiple strains of ‘Congenital Mistrust,’ ‘Media Obesity’ and ‘Flagburning Bloodlust’). The nub of the leatherbound tome – a kind of provocative fusion of found texts, drawings, bullets, prayer beads and photographs – seems to cast new light on both sides of a political thoroughfare, and create a thought-provoking thrust through the various intractable layers of conflict. The unique juxtaposition of ideas, the sharpness and clarity of the artist’s vision, and the thousand-mile quirkiness of the assemblages made from rubbish and found objects are what distinguish the collection.

In addition to Museum No. 1: Hizbollah’s Caviar the limited edition artist book, Braithwaite will also showcase a selection of other artworks in his fascinating repertoire of sapele mahogany cabinets, submachine guns, trapped worms, and enlarged kid drawings. His ascendancy as the trickster of art from the Middle East is fast being cemented.

New Art for Generation Elect: Fresh Beat
Conceived in the style of a double-take Orientalist treasure trove, the work augments that tradition with a fresh gamut of explosive rhetoric, notable for its un-bigotted, un-stale, un-flinching, un-compromised, pacifying yet revolutionary, content. The Middle East art scene could be heralding a rising star – its own Joseph Beuys.

UPCOMING NOTE: 15-22 March 2009: Braithwaite shows some of his support work at XVA Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2009); a sneak preview of pieces from his politically-hot oeuvre. Events like 09/11 and the invasion of Iraq are memorialised in works such as Twinnedtowers 2 and We Go To Liberate.

Images:
Cigarettetomb in Giza, Exhibit 32, Museum No. 1 (2008)
Flowerfock in Cairo, Exhibit 28, Museum No. 1 (2008)
Twinnedtowers in Rajef, Exhibit 3, Museum No. 1 (2008)

Notes to Editor:
Born in West Germany in 1979, Al Braithwaite studied Human and Physical Geography at Oxford where he won the Shell Prize for his immigration thesis and the Henry Oliver Beckitt Prize for his film dissertation. Braithwaite travelled extensively in the Middle East in 2002 with ‘Off Screen’, a nomadic collective of artists. The collective covered Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, exhibiting and collaborating with local artists as they went. Braithwaite co-authored a book Off Screen: Four young artists in the Middle East. (Booth-Clibborn Editions 2004). Braithwaite has exhibited internationally; in Tehran, Muscat, Amman, London, New York and Amsterdam. Exhibitions include FBI and Chocolate: A Public Installation, Penn Station, Baltimore, MD, USA (2007), Off Screen: Axis of Evil at Briggs Robinson Gallery, New York City, NY (2004), Deepression (2004) and Deeper Depression (2006) at Atbin Gallery, Zangar Gallery and Zahad Gallery, Tehran, Iran (2004; 2006), Off Screen: New Blood at Orfali Gallery, Amman, Jordan (2003). Braithwaite’s work is in collections including the British Council, Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) and the Royal Jordanian Collection.

Rose Issa is an independent curator, producer and writer specialising in the visual arts and films of the Middle East and North Africa. For the last 25 years Issa has curated film festivals and exhibitions on contemporary arts from the Arab world and Iran in collaboration with private and public institutions including Tate Britain, ICA and V&A.

Opening times: Tues-Sat, 12noon-6pm
Exhibition venue: Rose Issa Projects, 269 Kensington High Street,
London W8 6NA. T + 44 (0) 207 602 7700

For further information on Rose Issa Projects visit:
www.roseissa.com

Knockout: New Paintings by Lee Jones

Lee has project managed and curated an exhibition of new paintings by artist Lee Jones at The Jago Gallery in East London. This exhibition is part of the Mayor of London's EAST Festival and runs from 7-11 March.