1111art

 

17 - 22 June 2011
22 Artists at East Gallery, London, curated by Infinity Bunce, Russell Chater and Richard Stone
 
 


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In time or date, the recurring phenomenon of 11:11 is acknowledged - and seen as a ‘wake up call’: a time to stop, look, listen and reflect on the world around you.

Artistic responses from 22 artists: 11 broadly operating within the sphere of fine art and 11 within that of urban art range from the bold and socio-political to the subtle and poetic.

Artists Rugman (Rum Knuckles), Asboluv and SNUB23 both embrace and subvert the world as it is in all it’s tragi-comic glory - creating iconic images with a dark and knowing humour. Meanwhile, others make the familiar world seem strange and alien: Lorraine Clarke creates curious, shamanistic dolls that provide ‘...a spiritual rollercoaster ride into the human psyche.” (Jessica Lack: The Guardian), whilst Cake and Neave (formerly the Little Artists) re-stage and re-present iconic artworks in lego. Schoony’s time spent working in the special effects department in Hollywood serves him well with his amazingly life-like sculptural works, whilst original Britart darling Josie McCoy paints the stars of Hollywood and beyond – gazing down on us in their glorious other-worldly glow.

The strange and beautiful aesthetic continues in the work of rightly ubiquitous artist and illustrator David Bray and the painter Lex Thomas - whose intricate, obsessive and sinister works evoke both the hyper-real and the surreal. Thoughts around utopia and dystopia, the past and the future pervade. These themes are picked up in the work of Tinsel and Twinkle – whose works evoke notions of nostalgia, a lost ‘British-ness’ and the highs and lows of pop culture in equal measure.

This fluid merging and overlap of both time and place is echoed in the video work of Berlin based artist Christopher Steadman - who has numerous prestigious residencies to his name. Painters Adrian Pritchard and (Jerwood and Marmite painting prize-selected) Mimei Thompson meanwhile, are ultimately concerned with the fluidity of their medium in itself, with presenter Lauren Laverne saying of the former: ‘...he pours, spins and throws paint at stuff and it LOOKS COOL. I’m in!’  

Curators, Infinity Bunce, Russell Chater and Richard Stone add their own works to the heady mix: with Bunce’s kitsch silicone-covered plant paintings; Chater’s cool and ambiguous photographs derived from magazine adverts - and Stone’s eerie wax engulfed figurines.

The creative, cultural, historical and religious melting pot that is Brick Lane offers all these artists a suitably rich backdrop to their works.

Artists: Asboluv | Rich Simmons (Art Is The Cure) | David Bray | Infinity Bunce | John Cake & Darren Neave | Russell Chater | Lorraine Clarke | John Doe | Tinsel Edwards | Chris Koning | Josie McCoy | Ben Oakley | Adrian Pritchard | Rugman (Rum Knuckles) | Schoony | SNUB23 | Christopher Steadman | Richard Stone | The Krah | Lex Thomas | Mimei Thompson | Twinkle Troughton