Beach London presents Artcade

Artcade is an exhibition celebrating retro gaming culture.

Beach have invited 6 artists to produce a piece of artwork inspired by a vintage arcade machine from the ‘Golden Era’ of coin-operated gaming.

Cabinets on show will be Pac Man, Galaxian, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Donkey Kong and Street Fighter II. Exhibiting artists include Gemma Shiel (Lazy Oaf), Anthony Burrill, Pete Fowler, Ellie Andrews, Rosy Nicholas and Malarky.

During the show Beach will be recording the top scores on each machine. At the end, each cabinet’s top-scorer will win the artwork that accompanies it. There’ll also be a limited-edition risograph print of each artwork available if your Joystick-waggling’s not up to scratch…

There will be a number of events during the exhibition celebrating gaming culture, including book launches, film screenings, and other events.

Kindly Supported by Sheridans media lawyers:
http://www.sheridans.co.uk/
And Arcade Direct: http://www.arcadedirect.co.uk/
Thursday - 1st May
Beach London - 20 Cheshire Street, E2 6EH

Graffiti Life presents the 'TML Stars' | Exhibition

This May, The Graffiti Life Gallery will be exhibiting a collection of works from the TML Stars. The TML Stars are a three man art collective who have been producing work together in their distinctive style since 2000. Each member brings different ethics and motivation to the work, but their common goal is just to create.

They use a variety of ways to showcase their ideas, ranging from the more obvious sticker art and murals to installations in plastic, wood and plaster.

After meeting through traditional graffiti, they soon threw away their individual motivations and put their skills together in favour of creating a body of work that showcases the team in a coherent and familiar fashion. The tribal image features at the heart of TML’s work. The use of this image unites all artwork, maintaining a strong connection to the identity and ethos of the TM

 Join them for the private viewing of 'TML Stars' on Thursday 1st of May from 6.30pm. RSVP to gallery@graffitilife.co.uk to attend.

Graffiti Life Gallery - 26 Cheshire Street, London, E2 6EH.
The show runs from the 2nd May 2014 – 1st June 2014
Open throughout the week 12pm - 4pm or every Sunday 11am - 4pm. Closed on Saturday.

Boxfresh x STIKA Capsule Collection

Boxfresh launched their SS14 capsule collection Boxfresh x STIKA recently at the Topman General Store in East London. The collection titled "Fruit Cocktail" sees London based graffiti/ graphic artist Josh Stika creat an exclusive range of apparel and footwear for Boxfresh.

Check out the clip above of what went down at the launch and you can shop the collection here.

PICK ME UP at Sommerset House

Now in its fifth year, the UK’s original contemporary graphic arts festival Pick Me Up showcases graphic art in all its forms. Aimed at being the antithesis of a traditional art fair, Pick Me Up is a fun and informal festival featuring quirky studio spaces in which to shop for affordable artwork from the great and good of graphic arts, and a daily, lively line-up of events which encourage both budding and bonafide artists of all ages to get involved. Pick Me Up 2014 promises to be bigger and better than ever with more late nights and an even wider range of illustration and design represented, from fashion and architecture to comic books and album covers.

Some of the artists and studios taking part this year include: Artomatic, Beach London, Puck Collective, Skull Paradise, Letterproeftuin, Billy (Alex Godwin), Kyle Platts and Lynnie Zulu.

24 April – 5 May 2014
Open daily 10.00 – 18.00, late night Thursdays and Fridays until 22.00
Embankment Galleries, South Wing
Day tickets £10, concessions £8
Festival Pass £17.50

VON Elsewhere Exhibition At KK Outlet

KK Outlet is proud to announce an exhibition of new work by artist Von. Elsewhere, is a collection of delicately beautiful drawings based on photographs shot by Dan Sully.

Each portrait in the collection explores those fleeting moments where we involuntarily slip under and away from all of our surroundings, appearing to others absent and completely elsewhere.

Elsewhere is a reaction to an increasingly busy, saturated and invasive world where technology creeps further into our daily routine where we are actively encouraged to “share” day to day events no matter how minor or major, “Selfies” are recognised by Oxford English Dictionary and reaching for your phone when you have a spare minute to kill has become an automatic reaction. All these things make witnessing the moments where people have completely slipped into their own thoughts all the more rare, fragile and beautiful.

Writer Gavin Lucas said of his work, “Seemingly effortlessly, rather like a magician with a wand, Von uses the humble pencil to create images which let the viewer know instantly that they are beholding the work of a master craftsman at the peak of his artistry… In a digital age where it’s easy to lean towards the convenient and the quick, Von takes his time, producing images that are, due to no small amount of skill and always a cerebral approach, much more than the sum of their parts.”

Prints and originals will be available to buy throughout the exhibition.
Private View: Thursday 1 May, 7 – 9pm
Exhibition Runs: 2 – 31 May

KK OUTLET - 42 Hoxton Square - London - N1 6PB

'Wallflower' Exhibition by Rone At StolenSpace

StolenSpace is pleased to present the street artist Rone from Melbourne, Australia in his first UK solo exhibition entitled 'Wallflower'

Finding the friction point between beauty and decay is a thread that runs through much of Rone's work. As a street artist best known for his stylised images of women's faces, he understands better than most that beauty can be fleeting. Seeing his artworks gradually worn away by natural and human elements has taught him to appreciate the unexpected beauty of an image as it begins to blend back into its more prosaic surroundings. In Wallflower, Rone brings this natural tension into the gallery space. His haunting, transparent paintings of those classic symbols of youth and beauty - a female muse surrounded by flowers - are made all the more striking by their gritty backdrops of deteriorating wooden shipping crates. The flowers are a particularly potent example of the short-lived nature of what we traditionally consider beautiful, sometimes blooming and dying in just a day.

The use of reclaimed wood from shipping crates references another recurrent theme in Rone's work - the importance of travel in building character, wisdom and humility. Sourced in Australia, the crates have come from all over the world - not unlike Rone's street works, which can be found from Australia and New Zealand to Germany, Japan, Mexico, the US and UK. The journey that each of the works in 'Wallflower' has taken may never be truly known, but the character those journeys have imparted is what gives each piece its own unique and mysterious charm.

11.04.14 - 04.05.14
Private View Thursday 10th April
STOLENSPACE GALLERY
17 Osborn Street
London E1 6TD

Futurismo Ancestral: An Offering to Peru by Sixe Paredes

Somerset House, in collaboration with A(by)P, will bring acclaimed Barcelona-born graffiti artist Sixe Parades’ ode to Peruvian and Andean aesthetics to its underground spaces in late May for his first major solo show in the UK.

Working on all senses – sight and sound as much as taste and touch – Futurismo Ancestral: An Offering to Peru by Sixe Paredes will be an all-encompassing exhibition experience with free daily, interactive events on all aspects of Peruvian and Andean culture from food and film, to music and performance, hosted alongside large-scale artworks from tapestries to totems crafted by Sixe Paredes (formerly known as Sixeart).

Hidden underneath the neoclassical courtyard, the bowels of the building will become awash with vibrant and vivid colours, a spectacle set against the classic Portland stone work of Somerset House.  Within this unique space for one week only, Sixe will be resident with an exhibition that represents the richness of the Peruvian and Andean art world and a lively line-up of events that capture the soul and spirit of contemporary Peruvian and Andean culture.

The exhibition will feature 25 large-scale works including tapestries, totem sculptures, ceramics and quipus (a system of knotted cords developed by the Incas to communicate and record important information, or otherwise known as ‘talking knots’) and some smaller-scale works such as masks and chichas (hand-drawn concert posters decorated with fluorescent inks), all created by Sixe.  Produced exclusively for this project, it is the first time that the collection has been exhibited.

21 – 26 May 2014
Daily 10.00-18.00 (last entry 17.30)
Somerset House, Great Arch Hall, Lightwells & Deadhouse, South Wing
Free admission

ZOSEN & MINA HAMADA - Paradise Lost Edition

To celebrate Zosen and Mina's residency at B&B Gallery, they have produced an exclusive 3 colour, hand-pulled screenprint. Available at the show or online HERE.

PARADISE LOST
Format 35 x 50cm
350gsm Somerset stock
Limited edition of 20
Signed, numbered and embossed

INSIDE/OUTSIDE - A Site-specific Installation By ZOSEN & MINA HAMADA (ES) is also currently showing at B&B Gallery until April 26th*

*Saturdays 12 - 6pm
Weekdays by appointment
B&B Gallery - 95B Mary St -  Sheffield - S1 4RT

Daniel Sparkes (Mudwig) "The Seussian Rock Drill" Edition

Fluorescent Smogg have released a new edition"The Seussian Rock Drill" in collaboration with Mudwig Dans aka Daniel Sparks.

"An idiosyncratic monument to the shattering of a conceptual illusion. Jacob Epstein’s Rock Drill is reinvented as a Dr Seussian centrepiece for a Pizza Hut table feast; a multi-stylistic totem for crumbled empires and the fallen futurist vision."
"The Seussian Rock Drill" is an Edition of 13 etchings on heavyweight 350gsm Hahnemuhle German etching paper with four deckled edges and is available online now from Fluorescent Smogg's online shop.

Hundred Ways That I See Myself by Gustavo Ortiz At Pure Evil Gallery

The Hundred Ways That I See Myself by Gustavo Ortiz.

In Gustavo Ortiz’s artwork, the self-portrait is a recurring theme, always executed with a lot of originality and sensuality. The artist has many different faces, and we can feel this in his style with the material used but also through all the different forms he used to depicts himself: sometimes a cavalier, hidden beside a mask or as a monster.

The artist combines gold leaf , deep red paint or lacquer techniques that literally transcend its mysterious characters in his quest to express different facets of himself. We can find in his paintings the sacred symbols of the Middle Ages, Russian Icon Paintings and the simple truth of naive art and South American legends. Gustavo plays with modern techniques of collage and bright, cheerful colours who come from the culture of his native land, Argentina, to express a just and raw vision of himself.

Because of the multiplicity of the portraits, they touch us with emotion and affect the viewer as they can be viewed like catalysts. We could ask ourself if the main subject of this exhibition isn’t just a series of self-portraits, but also a mirror gallery thats reflect our true “self”, our humanity… To understand a little better this enigmatic artist, more than sixty exclusive piece of art will shown from the 3rd of April to the 4th of May 2014 in the Department store – Pure Evil Gallery.

PURE EVIL GALLERY, The Department Store, 96 / 98 Leonard st, LONDON EC2A 4XS

Pen & Ink Pop-Up Illustration Gallery

somewhereto_ in association with Project Platform are launching an illustration pop-gallery called 'Pen&Ink' at the One By One store in Soho.

Providing a unique platform combining fashion, design and illustration culture, 'Pen&Ink' highlights the young emerging talent making shapes on the art scene today, giving them the opportunity to showcase their expressive ideas in unusual pop-up spaces. Working in partnership with somewhereto_, a UK legacy project funded by a £7m injection from The Big Lottery, offers a free service to help young people aged 16 - 25 access unused spaces to facilitate and support creative projects.

Curated by Laura Frood and Misha Meghna aka Project Platform, 'Pen&Ink' will see a collection of eight artists exhibit and sell their work over three days, engaging with customers with a back drop of live music performed by new kids on the block 'DOPExBROKE, a London based collective of minds, body and soul creating an organic sound that resonates with the vibrations of the human anatomy.

New artists such as Ashton Springer, Mitiki Suri, Forrest Hu, Matt Fern, Flo Main, Jordan Pryke, Sam Hugh and Stephanie Kane will offer a visual inebriation that will take you on a lucid expedition. On Friday 4 April there will also be a special live performance by DOPExBROKE, a London based collective of minds, bodies & souls creating an organic sound that resonates with the vibrations of the human anatomy. The foundation of the sounds promote Pro Peace, Free Thinking and delves in lucid expeditions.

Private view Friday 4 April 2014, 7pm - 10pm.
ONE BY ONE STORE, 70 Berwick Street, Soho, London, W1F 8TA

TWITTER: @somewhereto_ #ProjectPlatformSWT_ #PEN&INK