#spiritnowlondon

[andreahamiltonblog]

Mohammed Sami

“The power of invisibility has always been stronger for me than the power of visibility.”

Mohammed Sami approaches painting as an allegorical representation of the striking image of conflict and violence. His paintings explore belated memories triggered by common everyday objects from when he immigrated to Sweden as a refugee from his native Iraq.

Rather than using the stereotypical image of trauma to testify to the Iraq conflict, which he witnessed first-hand, Sami deploys painting to articulate war, memory, and loss obliquely. 

Sami’s painting challenges the typical image of suffering and provides a symptomatic perspective of conflict dynamics and its effects through a slow personal reading. His autobiographical works aim to evoke a widespread sense of loss that inhabits cultures collectively when it extends selfishness into generosity.

Born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1984, Sami lives and works in London, UK. 

➡️ Currently his work is shown in ‘The Point 0’ exhibition at Camden Art Centre, his first institutional solo show in the UK, until May 28, 2023. Sami is also featured in the 58th Carnegie International, on view until April 2, 2023.

📷

1. Mohammed Sami, The Parliament Room (detail), 2022, Scheinman Family Collection

2. Mohammed Sami, Joseph's Coat IV

3. Exhibition ‘The Point 0’ at Camden Art Centre

4. Exhibition ‘The Point 0’ at Camden Art Centre

5. Mohammed Sami, Refugee Camp II, 2019

6. The artist Mohammed Sami

[andreahamiltonblog]

Christopher Le Brun 

“Colour is extremely mysterious. Its effect on us, emotionally, is very mysterious, and painting is the finest medium to deploy colour”– Christopher Le Brun

Christopher Le Brun is one of the leading British painters of his generation, celebrated internationally since the 1980s, making both figurative and abstract work in painting, sculpture and print. He was an instrumental public figure in his role as President of the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 2011 to 2019. He was awarded a Knighthood (Knight Bachelor) for services to the Arts in the 2021 New Year Honours. 

Le Brun employs a mastery of touch and colour alongside a profound understanding of art history and a wide range of visual, musical and literary sources. He has remained consistent in adhering to what he feels to be the essential poetry and pleasure of painting for its own sake, led by intuition and visual imagination and resistant to external justification. 

His interest in the formal possibilities of painting has led recently to the development of modular compositions from single pieces through to large and highly complex canvases, triptychs and monumental multipart paintings, extending the limits of abstract pictorial composition. A heightened awareness of the physicality of the painting process with its dramatic tension between revealing and covering, has been a central feature of his work that unites all its phases whether abstract or figurative. His work can be found in museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Tate, the V&A and the British Museum, London; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. He is represented by Lisson Gallery, London and Albertz Benda, New York. 

🎨

1. Christopher Le Brun, ‘Making Light’, 2021.

2. Christopher Le Brun, detail.

3. Christopher Le Brun, ‘Woodlines’ in the artist’s studio.

4. Christopher Le Brun, Prints in the artist’s studio.

5. The artist Sir Christopher Le Brun in his studio.

[andreahamiltonblog]

Gideon Rubin 

Gideon Rubin is inspired by photographs from old photo albums, photos of celebrities or paintings by old masters. The artist is seeking the type of narrative that lends itself to interpretation. The artist’s figures are intended to trigger his viewers’ memories, rather than to represent specific identities. He uses sandy tones, grey blues and off-whites that he applies with broad brushstrokes. Concentrating on canvas or raw linen and roughly-cut bits of cardboard, Rubin often leaves entire areas of these materials untouched so that these often become an integral part of the work, occasionally bringing motifs and letters already printed into the composition. 

There is much about Rubin’s paintings themselves that carry or rather transmit something crucial about optimism. Amidst the tender introspection and melancholia that accompanies some of his images and the sheer joy and sensuality that radiates from others, Rubin’s special capacity is to remind us about longing and desire, about loss and lament – and about hope and what it means to feel.

Gideon Rubin is an Israeli painter (b. 1973) who is now located in London. He is represented by Galerie Karsten Greve Paris, Cologne, St Moritz; Hosfelt Gallery, San Franscisco; Fox Jensen Gallery, Sydney and Fox Jensen McCrory, Auckland; and Alon Segev Gallery, Tel Aviv. ​In 2014 he received the 'Shifting Foundation' grant. 

Rubin's work is included in a number of prestigious international collections, including: Museum Voorlinden Collection, The Netherlands; Herzliya Museum for Contemporary Art, Israel; McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco; The Zabludowicz Collection, London; Ruinart, France; Fondation Frances, France; Rubin Museum, Israel; Collezione Maramotti, Italy; The Collezione Fondazione, San Patrignano, Italy. 

🎨

1. Gideon Rubin, Blonde, 2020, Hosfelt Gallery.

2. Gideon Rubin, Sunset, 2022.

3. Gideon Rubin, work in progress.

4. Gideon Rubin in his studio, London 2020. Photo: Richard Ivey.

[andreahamiltonblog]

‘Bespoke for a Book’ exhibition at The Prince's Foundation, London

‘Bespoke for a Book’ exhibition is inspired by the book ‘Craft Britain Why Making Matters’, written by art writer Helen Chislett and David Linley, the 2nd Earl of Snowdon, founder of Linley furniture. 

📚32 makers featured in Craft Britain, have generously offered to create unique boxes or bags to contain a single signed copy of the book, using the materials and skills of their craft. The exhibition, like the book, brings together watchmakers with saddlers; bell casters with neon benders; shoemakers with silversmiths; potters with orrery-makers; stonemasons with weavers; embroiderers with basket-makers, with the primary aim to encourage new generations to master the skills needed to preserve and continue craft traditions. 

Makers participating: Aryma, Lora Avedian, Laura Ellen Bacon, Bibbing & Hensby, Sarah Burns, Carréducker, Cox London, Aiveen Daly, Hugh Dunford Wood, Ettinger, Forest + Found, Caroline Groves, Stewart Hearn, Otis Ingrams, Isle of Auskerry, Knithub 24, John Lobb, Lock & Co, Emily Mackey, Naifisi Studio, Gareth Neal, Neon Workshops, Novocastrian, Jacky Puzey, Angus Ross, Royal School of Needlework, Kathryn Sargent, Swaine, The Marchmont Workshop, Carolyn Truss, Tom Vaughan, and Katie Walker.

[andreahamiltonblog]

Sydney Albertini

“My needing to constantly customize my surroundings is an attempt to being fully visible. To build my world into a visual landscape and to explore the genesis behind the visual outputs in order to understand and further the conversation between society and my being in it as an individual and as a component of society.” - Sydney Albertini

Sydney Albertini is a French multidisciplinary artist based in Amagansett, Long Island. She creates pieces which are both two dimensional in the form of large painted drawings, embroideries quilts and weavings, and three-dimensional, with a focus on traditional fibre techniques such as knit and fabrics. Her work includes the ‘Botanicals’ and ‘Movements’ series. 

Albertini uses colours to denote various characteristics or attributes of her subjects. She views colours as identity markers and uses their historical symbolism to imbue her various combinations with new meanings, resulting in abstract emotional portraits. From the inception of a work, despite the lack of formal preparation, the colour palette is predetermined, as is the number of panels, which are pre-cut and prepared in advance. The use of brown Kraft paper as a base for her paintings allows Albertini to use colours and create combinations which she feels would be lost on a white background. 

📷 1-3. Sydney Albertini, Botanic Blue & White Palm (Triptych), 2022

4. The artist Sydney Albertini

[andreahamiltonblog]

Colette Brunschwig

Colette Brunschwig (b. 1927) belongs to a generation of French female painters, active in the Parisian art scene since World War II, she was friends with artists and poets such as Yves Klein and Paul Celan. She studied with André Lhote in the late 40’s. In 1952 she exhibited her work for the first time at the Colette Allendy gallery in Paris. 

As a representative of the metaphysical abstraction, Brunschwig feeds of French existentialism in a post-war context. Committed in a permanent dialog with literati Chinese painting, and inspired by Chinese artists such as Shitao (Ming Dynasty) and Wang Wei (Tang Dynasty) Brunschwig is working on the «third dimension» in drawing. With the use of ink, she is seeking to transcend the paper, both physically and philosophically speaking.

Her acrylic paintings, ink drawings, gouaches, colourwashes and watercolours forma body of work tirelessly inflected by grey, which is defined as a painterly intermediary for colours, an upwelling of form caught up in the challenges of the undefined abstract motif and the inexorable dissolution of the image and of representation.

Image 1: Colette Brunschwig, Sans titre, 1985

Image 2: Colette Brunschwig, Le paysage orange, 1977

Image 3: Colette Brunschwig, Sans titre, 1950-1960

Image 4: The artist Colette Brunschwig. Photograph by Chantal Marfaing

[andreahamiltonblog]

Romany Eveleigh

Romany Eveleigh was one of the rarest of artists, as a minimal abstractionist who managed to stand out for her uncompromising minimal, text-based vocabulary.

Eveleigh’s most important bodies of work ‘Pages, 1972,’ was a series based on the relationship between language and the body. The repetition of cramped circles populating the Pages series, are emblematic of laborious, repetitive tasks – a contested surface of the feminine realm, as articulated by one of Italy's most important and original philosophers of the post war period, Giorgio Agamben.

The text-based works of the 1970s, exploded into abstracted versions of themselves in the 80s and 90s, with ‘skins’ of ink, paper, and paint on the canvases. The Febo series, 80 drawings made using her left hand, forced her body to go against its natural inclination, and marked her return to painting. Playing with illusion, she painted each work of the series to replicate lined copybook pages, and then executed painterly marks on top. 

The paintings which followed, specifically the large-scale paintings executed between 1993-1997, exhibit a restrained use of colour: monochromatic blocks fill the canvas field in sensual coating, reminiscent of the tightly coiled circles of the Pages of 20 years earlier.

Image 1: Romany Eveleigh, Pages, 1972, Tate

Image 2: Romany Eveleigh, Inland Series No. 5, 2016-2017, Gallery Bellemare Lambert

Image 3: Romany Eveleigh, TO, 2007, Gallery Bellemare Lambert

Image 4: Romany Eveleigh, Untitled, 2006, Gallery Bellemare Lambert

[andreahamiltonblog]

Sonia Balassanian

Sonia Balassanian born in 1942 in Iran, is a multimedia artist based in New York and Armenia. She holds a BFA from the joint program of Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an MFA from Pratt Institute in New York. Balassanian has exhibited widely, including MOMA and the Armenian pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and is perhaps best known for her work focussed on identity and human rights activism. 

Her works vary from video arts to installations, drawings and paintings. Her drawings and paintings demonstrate a more lyrical side of her work, referencing both the vast landscapes of her Iranian birthplace and her practice as a writer and poet. These serene works have a kind of inner rhythmic choreography - of latent motion viewed from a quiet, stand-still place of contemplation.

“I turned to abstraction of textures and masonry-works of olden structures, semi-visible obscured arabesques and architectural forms. These compositions are mystical and convey an aura of stand-still quiet and feeling of awe and reverence.” – Sonia Balassanian

Image 1: Sonia Balassanian, Untitled, 1987, AB ANBAR Gallery

Image 2: Sonia Balassanian, Untitled, 2000, AB ANBAR Gallery

Image 3: Sonia Balassanian, Untitled, 2018, AB ANBAR Gallery

[andreahamiltonblog]

Pat Passlof

Pat Passlof (1928–2011) was an important and active figure in the development of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism like Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler. She was born in Georgia and grew up in New York City. In the summer of 1948, she studied painting with Willem de Kooning at Black Mountain College. 

Passlof’s early work was influenced by de Kooning and utilized the kinds of biomorphic forms explored by him and Gorky. However, Passlof was always very individualistic and her work was constantly varied in terms of touch, form, and palette. She was never content to repeat herself.

By the 1960s her palette was beginning to lighten. She used repeated patterns and marks across the canvas to create dynamic rhythms. She drew upon experiences and memories, as noted by titles referring to people and places. It is meaningful to consider that her work suggests a belief in the many ways and possibilities of how paint communicates. Her abstracted landscapes, like the later work of Claude Monet, although Passlof often worked in a vertical format. Passlof never believed in narrative in painting, even when her work became peopled by centaurs, nymphs, and horses.  

Image 1: Pat Passlof, Sheaf, 1961

Image 2: The artist Pat Passlof, Eric Firestone Gallery

[andreahamiltonblog]

Sylvia Snowden

Sylvia Snowden is an African-American artist, who lives and works in Washington D.C. 

“I do not believe in an artist’s statement for me because it seems to narrow the viewer’s reaction and direct him/her to draw specific limitations. In my work, I hope to evoke stimulating responses.” - Sylvia Snowden 

Snowden decided to make portraits of people around her all of whom she encountered in her Shaw neighborhood in Washington, D.C. They look abstract and don’t see faces in these portraits. The drama of Snowden’s subjects, and the sheer grace of their ability to survive and thrive, references the strength and delicate beauty in the human figure that her art celebrates. From dark and earthy tones to the vibrant and artificial, Snowden’s command of chromatic range is the fuel of her expressionistic style. She encapsulates the psychological essence of her subjects; their deliberations, triumphs, angst, and joy are all laid bare.

Sylvia Snowden holds both Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from Howard University (Washington, D.C.). Snowden has taught at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), Howard University (Washington, D.C.), and Yale University (New Haven, CT). In 2018, Snowden’s work was notably featured in the landmark exhibition Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960-Today at the National Museum for Women in the Arts (Washington, D.C.). Her works have been shown globally in Chile, the Netherlands, Ethiopia, Australia, the Bahamas, France, Mexico, Italy and Japan.

Image 1: Sylvia Snowden, ‘Brown - Yo II’, 1989

Image 2: Sylvia Snowden, ‘M Street - Francine 11 (Haberon Series)’, c. 1978

[thegazeofaparisienne]

J’étais supposée visiter le @camdenartcentre avec son directeur Martin Clark. et @spiritnowlondon cette belle exposition à Londres « The Botanical Mind / Art, Mysticism and the Cosmic Tree". avec de grands artistes dont le photographe et botaniste extraordinaire Karl Blossfeldt (cf photo) mais aussi le coréen Lee Ufan, (souvenez-vous de son installation à Versailles) , André Masson, et bien d'autres artistes (60) Cette visite s’est transformée en webinar mardi dernier, cette exposition doit se terminer fin février. Cette exposition “The Botanical Mind “ rassemble le travail de plus de 60 artistes visionnaires, surréalistes, modernes, étrangers, autochtones amazoniens et contemporains. C'est Gina Buenfeid qui a initié et organisé cette émission après un voyage sabbatique en Amérique du Sud, en Finlande et dans d'autres pays du Nord. Elle a trouvé en Martin Clark (le directeur du CAC) l'interlocuteur idéal pour porter cette idée L'exposition révèle la signification continue du règne végétal pour la vie humaine, la conscience et la spiritualité. S'étendant sur plus de 500 ans et incluant des objets historiques et ethnographiques, des textiles et des manuscrits, il regarde à la fois en arrière et en avant, s'engageant avec diverses cultures et traditions de sagesse pour réévaluer l'importance des plantes dans la vie sur cette planète. Elle montre la pertinence aujourd’hui d’une époque où les artistes et les musées regardent la nature. Certains d'entre nous ont également découvert la belle exposition de la Fondation Cartier à Paris« Nous les arbres ». Nous avons la chance aujourd'hui d'être avec 2 merveilleux guides / Martin Clark (le directeur du Camden Art Center) et Gina Buenfeld est la conservatrice des expositions au Camden Art Center, où elle a co-organisé Botanical Mind. Le Camden Art Center est un lieu d'art et d'artistes; un endroit pour les curieux, les novices et les experts. C’est un lieu pour voir, faire, apprendre et parler d’art contemporain. #camdenartcenterlondon #camdenartcenter #thegaze #thegazeofaparisienne #botanicalmind (à Camden Art Centre) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKnniwBBwbo/?igshid=d16nawz86jqs

[thegazeofaparisienne]

🇬🇧 Exceptional webinar around Christo with 🔸 Sophie Duplaix (curator of the contemporary collections at Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, and curator of the exhibition 'Christo et Jeanne-Claude, Paris!'). 🔸 Laure Martin-Poulet (art historian and president of the Arc de Triomphe project by Christo in 2021). 🔸Vladimir Yavachev (Christo's nephew and director of the wrapped Arc de Triomphe project by Christo). - Sunday 27 September at 5:30 pm (UK time) - The Gaze of a Parisienne In partnership with @spiritnowlondon @mlaurect Register by mail ( in bio) Christo et Jeanne-Claude Paris ! . 💛🧡❤️ Exposition ouvre aujourd’hui ses portes. 1er juillet - 19 octobre @centrepompidou #christo #christoandjeanneclaude #lepontneuf #pontneuf #centrepompidou #beaubourg #thegazeofaparisienne #thegaze #beauxartsmag #expoparis #whatisee #whatiseenow #expochristo #arcdetriomphe (à Centre Pompidou) https://www.instagram.com/p/CFlsIrcoWf9/?igshid=lzpigmruqy2z

[thegazeofaparisienne]

🇫🇷 Paris - Londres, y retrouver l’artiste Eva Jospin.  Sa présence se concrétise dans le paysage artistique anglais. Aujourd’hui pour un talk devant un parterre d’amateurs, réuni par Marie-Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre pour son club Spirit Now puis en mars prochain, ses arbres, qui, en France, lui attirent la reconnaissance du public feront partie de l’exposition de la Hayward Gallery Among the Trees, Ralf Rugoff, son directeur charismatique, commissaire de la Biennale de Venise, est présent dans l’assemblée. 🇬🇧 Paris - London, join the artist Eva Jospin. Her presence is being concretized in the English artistic landscape. Today she’s talking in front of a crowd of amateurs, brought together by Marie-Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre for her club Spirit Now London and next March her trees, which in France attract public recognition, will be part of the exhibition of the Hayward Gallery Among the Trees, Ralf Rugoff, its charismatic director, curator of the Venice Biennale, is also present in the assembly 1 🎬 Talk #evajospin @spiritnowlondon 2 📷 #ralfrugoff @hayward.gallery 3 📷 Forêt (détail) 4 📷 @mlaurect & @maiamorgen 5 📷 Mars 2018. Emerige Mécénat - Voyage au centre de la Terre - @jeromesans curateur . Paris 13 © Eva Jospin © The Gaze of a Parisienne 6 📷studio 7 📷 Forêt noire 2019. Bronze. @museezadkine 8 📷 Dessin 1, 2015 Mine de plomb sur papier et papier calque / Graphite on paper and tracing paper 9📷 "Petite Folie" 2017 Carton / cardboard et matériaux divers 10 📷 Traversée 2018. Oeuvre pérenne @beaupassageparis @emerigemecenat Paris 7. Carton et bois. / cardboard and wood @beaupassageparis @emerigemecenat #paris7 #thegaze #thegazeofaparisienne #expoparis #beaupassage #paris7 #museezadkine #haywardgallery (à London, United Kingdom) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5uG-ipI_wU/?igshid=masyzide7kck

[thegazeofaparisienne]

Soirée @mêlerions joaillier merveilleuse ☀️🌱🎋🌱🌳@spiritnowlondon 🙏 @mlaurect #thegazeofaparisienne #frenchembassy #london #mellerioditsmeller #mellerio #joaillerie #rueroyale #culture #expolondon #champagne #rare @piper_heidsieck #visitlondon #londonvisit (à French Embassy) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx4HMxlIe1P/?igshid=1xf86zl7mijyc