'COUTURE of the WILD' - ALEX NOBLE SELFRIDGES WINDOW for BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS.

Selfridges invited myself and a group of other up and coming designers and artists to create their January windows and design some product for in store.
After an initial conversation with the creative manager about the 'do's and don'ts' of the windows she mentioned no taxidermy! So I decided to flip that on its head and do a high end couture taxidermy lab  - I pushed the concept to create something surreal, serene and I hope quite beautiful.

 

Part of the promotion was design some product to go in store at Selfrdidges - I created two pieces of art work running with the themes of the window and my debut collection for Fashion week. The art work was then printed onto silk Georgette and I made ten exclusive dresses for intsore - there now! BUY BUY!

THE EXQUISITE CORPSE EXHIBITION

My final show as curator for the Dalston Superstore was a huge success, I am so happy with the standard and diversity of work and the effort the artists put in. The pieces really show the identity of the artists and this subconscious portrayal of them selves is what makes the work so interesting. The opening night was completely packed and turned into a great party. Hopefully the show will travel as every one is so impressed.
Its up until the end of the month so if you haven't seen it the check it out, scroll down my blog for links to the artists personal sites and blogs. Here is a selection of the work and I'll post the rest when I get a chance to take the pictures.
These images are courtesy of Amy Gwatkin

                                                                 Artist: Fred Butler

                                                                Artist: Moses Powers

                                                                     Artist: Celia Arias

                                                                Artist: Emma Gibson

                                                                Artist: Alex Noble - ME!

                                                               Artist: Cordelia Weston

                                                             Artist: Clare Whittingham

                                                        Artist: Jay Barry Matthews

                                                                 Artist: Luke Embden

                                                                   Artist: Anna Bruder

                                                                   Artist: Louise Riley

                               Left to right, Artists: Moses Powers + Justine Josephes, Moses Powers

                                                                      Me with my legs.

THE EXQUISITE CORPSE EXHIBITION

My final show as Curator for the Dalston Superstore is 'The Exquisite Corpse' an amazing group show filled with eclectic cadavers and super talented artists from the fields of fashion and art combined.
It's the last show for the Gallery superstore and me, but not my last show as a curator as I hope and plan for more exhibiting opportunities as artist and curator.

Here is the flyer and Press Release.

02 September 2010, 18.00 - 22.00
Dalston Superstore, 117 Kingsland High St, E8 2PB

Emma Gibson, Fred Butler, Louise Riley, Anna Bruder, Celia Arias, Jay Barry Matthews, Moses Powers, Adam Vergette, Clare Whittingham Luke Embden, Justine Josephs, Cordelia Weston, Alex Noble.

The Gallery Superstore invites artists for it’s fourth group show, to explore the themes and practices of the parlor game originating ‘Exquisite Corpse’. A name given by the Surrealists  when they first played the game also known as ‘Consequences’. In it’s original form it was a play of sentences and adjective nouns. Finding the practice playful and enriching, the surrealist developed it into more of an art form that has been celebrated to this day.
And can now be seen as drawing, collage and sculpture and inspires artists to fashion designers and photographers.

The morbidness of the games title seems to push through when inspiring previous art works of this theme, moving away from the playful to the more subversive, as seen in the work of Hans Bellmer’s ‘poupee’ series and the sculptures of  Louise Bourgeois.
The art of creating figures from a varied number of objects gave a way to represent characters and symbolize parts of their psyche with effective and sometimes disturbing results. The random objects used may reflect the jumbled assortment of ideas and emotions manifested by the artist. To show physical strength or weakness as well as mental intent.

With the modern obsessions for body modification, ground breaking scientific developments and constant referencing to the past and the future. This exhibition gives artists scope to produce a figure that is diverse and unique, surreal and hap hazard or meticulous in creation.
The concept gives access to explore gender and social roles with the freedom to be playful as well as serious in discussion, what will we learn about the artist by what they create?

The exhibition seeks to be 3D installation lead, with the artists life size ‘cadavers’ hanging from the Superstore meat hooks, as an eclectic morgue of objects of intrigue.

'TAUT' - THAT CERTAIN TENSION BETWEEN FASHION & ART' exhibition at the TRAJECTOR ART FAIR, BRUSSELS

'A IS FOR EVE'

'A THIN LINE'.

'TRANSFORMER'

'CRUTCH'

'F'.

'GIVE'

'HOLY MATRIMONY

'ISM IT?'

'LOVE'.

'PROCESS'.

'SECOND SKIN'

'SHEEP'

'STROKE'

'TWO ARE ONE'

'WORSHIP'

This is the fifteen piece collection I produced for the exhibition, a surreal and satirical, fashion illustartive cartoon strip, telling the story of the many sides of the tense relationship of fashion and art.

I am curating an exhibition this September called 'FASHION, FETISH AND THE INANIMATE OBJECT', which also discusses the relationship between these two cultural and subversive power houses.

Press release for Taut

Taut – That Certain Tension Between Fashion & Art– Press Release 19/03/10
Hotel Bloom! Brussels - 23 to 25 April, 2010
Art and fashion are like a pair of problematic lovers: not sure that they are good for each other; uncertain that they even understand each other and yet inextricably linked and attracted to each other…
And where better than in Belgium to consider this dichotomy? Belgium, whose medieval city-states founded their wealth and importance on expertise in textiles; whose old master paintings still form the basis for what we understand as ‘costume history’ in northern Europe. Belgium, whose disproportionate influence on international fashion thinking in much more recent decades is, perhaps, only matched by the disproportionate influence its artists and patrons wield in international terms.
It is, therefore, entirely fitting and appropriate that as the special programme forming part of Trajector Art Fair, Taut develops its discourses – through events and a special exhibition programme- in the midst of a young and vibrant international art happening in the middle of Brussels.
Taut will be curated and programmed by Laurent Dombrowicz and Ken Pratt. Their respective roles as Fashion Director and Art Editor – and later as Joint Editors in Chief - of the lauded niche magazine Wound perhaps explains why they are so suited to this task. From their respective fashion creative and art curatorial backgrounds, whilst at the creative helm of Wound, they created a thinking magazine in which the respective disciplines of fashion, art, architecture and design always developed a thematic discourse; each discipline operating with autonomy and credible in its own field, and yet always in dialogue with the other respective disciplines. In many ways, Wound remains one of the few ‘glossy’ magazines that managed to offer its positions on fashion, art, architecture and design on equal footing.
In programming the events and exhibition manifestations for Taut, they will once again launch into navigating a paracours through the intersections between fashion and art, though this time in physical space and real time rather than between the covers of a magazine.
As was always the case in Wound, Taut will address serious questions of the roles and positions of fashion and art in contemporary culture to a broad, thinking audience. Intelligent without being humourless, thoughtful without being insular, Taut is sure to be a treat for anyone interested in fashion and art. If their published efforts have already shown that they entirely refute all notions that fashion is only for the superficial and art only for a pretentious elite, then Taut promises to be a continuation of the paths they have already developed together so well.

OIL PAINTING COMMISSION

 Some new abstract colour oil paintings for a private commission......