This week has been a good one on Lambs Conduit Street, and so I’ll return for a few days next week to Matchless Prints. Danny Pope’s archive of photographic prints is extraordinary, so try and pop in to see more of his prints on sale before they leave the shop for good. It’s a one-off opportunity so get it while you can! Show will continue until Friday 25th June and then that will be it……
Danny Pope, who has run Matchless Prints for many years and who is an expert photographic printer, has sold up his shop in Lambs Conduit Street and is off to explore pastures new. He has kindly offered me the space at the front of his shop to sell artwork alongside his photographic archive, and so I’ll be there from Tuesday to Saturday – this week only! If you’re in the area, please come and say hello. Here’s the flyer…
Today I bought a lovely new book in Magma - ‘Printmaking’ by Paul Coldwell – on my monthly mooch in there. It has fired up the flames of print-passion and reminded me of all the reasons why I’m doing what I’m doing and the plans for the future.
I love print and printing. The smell of the ink and the feel of the paper, the mixing of inks and dyes, the raggedy effects you can make with a bit of turps rubbed on to the plates when doing relief printing and so on. This doesn’t sound like graphic art water based screen printing though… and it isn’t. But this book reminded me that we can create printed imagery with more than silkscreens. Flicking through the book, it’s reminded me of how much I love Robert Rauschenberg – he was my hero when at college along with the brilliant Dos Santos who was the king of etching, including making huge public murals etched in limestone….!
So that’s why I’m very happy to be working with artist Gordon Robertson and representing his print work and designs at TENT London. Gordon is a printer extraordinaire and hugely innovative with his processes and materials. He is a master at etching metal and making jewellery, but all of his work is about surface design. He has been working with shapes on the computer to create designs for porcelain, textiles, jewellery and artwork. We have been meeting up and discussing ways to show his work, and he will be creating some special 3D pieces and art panels that will be completely gorgeous and different, etching into metal to create durable, innovative artworks. I’m delighted to be representing his work, which is so far not actually in existence! I’m keeping his designs under wraps for now to avoid plagarism, but will put work up nearer the time of the show. Here are some examples of work he’s done on jewellery….
It would be fantastic to see some of the massive number of graphic artists utilising other print processes to communicate their ideas beyond silk screening. The potential for it is sexy!
Well things at ALBOA have been pretty full-on of late but things are very interesting! It has been nearly a year since leaving the Guardian, which was a great place to work but haven’t looked back since leaving. I read an interesting article by Rick Poynor last week, and feel a bit of an article brewing in response to his views on illustration. Just need to find the time to do so….
I have recently spent two days sitting on a doorstep in Lambs Conduit Street, Bloomsbury enjoying meeting people as they come and view a selection of artwork outside of Tony Mellis’s ‘hairhouse’ Badlambs. It’s a great salon, but very much not in the vein of a normal hair salon. There’s a great review of it here and here’s a little pic of Badlambs…
So, a man named Danny Pope came over and chatted to me about having a pop-up event in his shop Matchless Prints on Lambs Conduit Street. He and his partner are moving away from London soon and he liked what I’m doing so it will be a fantastic opportunity to sell ALBOA prints, and some photographic prints of Danny’s. So, all very good and watch this space for further info.
Next weekend I’m heading down the M4 again to take part in the Central-Reservation ‘ Checkout’. This is an Arts Council funded initiative in Bristol which seems to be picking up momentum. Not sure what attendance will be like after the start of World Cup – think it will be heavy on the girl attendance, low on the male…. but you never know!
Also have a few new projects lined up for the Autumn which is really exciting and will be working with a couple of artists one of whom will be creating work in Zinc and Copper along with some ceramic pieces which will be coming with me to TENT London for the London Design Festival
So, more news to come as and when it happens.