He says that if it wasn’t for the healing power of art and the support of his sister, he might be in a very dark place right now. However, he has channelled the pain of his formative years and the early memories of painting with his Mother, into a successful career as an artist.

He explains: “I was painting with my mum before she died, not figuratively, she used to paint a lot of abstract seascapes to express her sadness because she had lost a child, and you know this affected her a lot. But we used to paint a lot of seascapes in very grey, dark colours. Then, after she died, I didn’t really think about it (art) for a while, because I mean, it was hard enough to survive.”

The joyful vibe and colourful palette of Cosmin’s art now seems to be in part a reaction or revolt against the sadness of his formative years, and the bright pinks, reds, yellows and greens of his heart-motif portraits counteracts the dark tones of those seascapes he painted as a child with his Mother.

Cosmin’s ‘King of Hearts’ series is the latest step on an artistic mission to create a signature visual alphabet populated by anonymous portraits based on a heart motif. This aorta-shape is repeated throughout the new series of paintings, sculptures and screenprints, inverted and flipped, and repeated in a rainbow of different colour combinations. Perhaps the heart symbol at the core of Constantin’s visual language is a metaphor for the heartbreak of his childhood, but it could also be a symbol of hope for a world experiencing conflict and division.

Cosmin’s portraits are loosely based on friends of his, and there is an element of self-portraiture, but each portrait is stripped back to the essence of a person’s psyche, with simple lines representing eyes, mouth, eyebrows. The portraits merge elements of Pop Art with references to the digital world of emojis. Cosmin explains: “They all have different features or gazes…smiling or kissing.

They can even be like heart emojis. They’re not affiliated with anything that divides people, but they can be associated with the social media world that we live in. Instead of saying LMAO you can have one of these screenprints. I’m taking the emojis out of the digital world and exploring them through art.”

Cosmin cites several artists who inspire or inform his work, although he is wary of imitating the greats and focussed on cementing his own style: “I love Warhol, Picasso, Basquiat, Matisse, Van Gogh. I absolutely love Francis Bacon. But it’s more about their life that attracts me than their art. We all get inspired, and even those artists were inspired by other people. My ongoing mission is to create a signature style which is recognisable as my own.”

Like Warhol, who was a successful graphic designer and illustrator for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar before finding fame as a Pop Art Pioneer, Cosmin started out as a commercial artist. While he says he doesn’t create art now for monetary reasons, he found a niche for himself as a commercial artist when he arrived in the UK from Romania: “When I came from Romania at the age of 21, within a few months I was earning massive commissions as a commercial artist after doing things for free to begin with. I did a European campaign for Patagonia and the Lansbury hotel in a heritage building in Canary Wharf. I did all these commissions, but then after that I decided to do my own thing, instead of working with clients.”

So, what is Cosmin’s ambition as an artist, and what artistic legacy does he want to leave? His ambitions are as bold as his imagery: “I want to open studios all around the world and take on every artist who mass produced art.

I’m nearly there because I already set up the ecosystem for it by creating the heart-shaped portraits. I can paint them anyhow, anywhere I want, I can make them into sculpture or paintings or screenprints. I’ve created an alphabet that I can repeat in different variations or mediums.

I want the people outside the art world to recognise my art, not only the people inside it. And finally, I ask if he has any advice for young artists? “Be yourself and retain your childlike qualities, because when you’re a kid, you’re not yet moulded by society. It’s so easy to create when you’re a kid. You can be truly creative.”

©2024 Constantin Cosmin

Lee Sharrock

Lee Sharrock is a global creative PR consultant, curator and writer for publications including; Art Doc Photography Magazine, ArtLyst, Creative Review, FAD Magazine, F22, Runway Gallery Magazine, Soho House Magazine and STATE.

Mica Bowman and Bowman Sculpture Head of Sales Daniel Pereira visited the graduate shows at London’s leading art institutions including Central St Martins, City and Guilds, Royal College of Art and SLADE, and selected 13 young artists for the graduate exhibition. 

The featured artists represent a diverse range of cultures, genres and sculptural techniques, originating from as far afield as Bahrain, China, Iran and the USA. The Graduate Show at Bowman Sculpture spotlights some of the most promising talent in the world of sculpture and features artists who are pushing the boundaries of sculpture and working in a variety of mediums, as well as those who are reimagining or reinventing traditional methods of sculpture.

Mica Bowman, Director, Bowman Sculpture Gallery explains: “I believe it’s essential to shine a spotlight on artists who have consistently showcased their work and made significant strides in the art world over the past few years. Their perseverance and success speak to the strength of their talent and vision. The more we invest in these rising stars by providing opportunities for exposure and recognition, the more we contribute to a richer, more diverse cultural landscape for both artists and audiences alike.” 

As the Graduate Show opens at Bowman Sculpture in Mayfair, I spoke with artists Lydia Smith, Rufus Martin, Cami Brownhill, Caroline Williams, YeYe, Harrison Lambert, Alex Ford, Naroul, Harmony-Cree Morgan, Isis Bird and Zayn Qahntani about their process and inspirations.

The Graduate Show is at Bowman Sculpture until 22nd November, 2024.

Lydia Smith 

Lee Sharrock: As a next-generation sculptor how would you say you are pushing the boundaries of traditional sculpture?

Lydia Smith: I see my sculpture practice as a conversation between dimensions. While I begin by shaping clay in three dimensions, each piece undergoes a transformation through digital scanning, revealing its unique DNA blueprint. These pixelated scans act as a digital ‘still life,’ preserving the essence of each sculpture in a new form. Each digital blueprint then inspires another physical artwork, establishing a lineage where every piece is a part of an ongoing ancestry, connected through a shared creative bloodline.

Lee Sharrock: Can you summarise in a few sentences the inspiration behind your work and the process of creating it?

Lydia Smith: The inspiration behind my work centres on people and human connection. Through a research-based practice, I delve into subjects like technology, science, spirituality, and ancient history, allowing these themes to infuse my creative process. Sculpting in clay becomes a meditative act; as I enter a flow state, the research I’ve absorbed intuitively channels into the form. I let go of any preconceived design, allowing the piece to emerge naturally, guided by the resonance of my studies and the energy of the moment.

Rufus Martin 

Lee Sharrock: As a next-generation sculptor how would you say you are pushing the boundaries of traditional sculpture?

Rufus Martin: Traditional sculpture has been an enormous influence for me; we are after all standing on the shoulders of giants. Rodin, Rosso, Claudel, Michelangelo are titanic figures of emotive, excellently composed, beautiful figurative sculpture, and provide an incredible foundation to learn from and build. 

Like them, I work figuratively but I prioritise the expressive mark in and of its own right. They are vital for the final feeling of the work; the sum of the marks working together to describe something greater. Within the boundaries of the marks in clay, or stone, or wax lies the emotive power of both the artist and their creation, allowing for a dynamic dialogue that connects past traditions with present expression.

Can you summarise in a few sentences the inspiration behind your work and the process of creating it?

Rufus Martin: I draw inspiration from monumental cultural works, such as Milton’s Paradise Lost, on which my bust of Lucifer was based, as well as the natural beauty of contemporary individuals. My creative process is quick and raw, allowing me to capture the unique character of each subject through expressive marks. Typically, I complete the initial clay work in 4 to 12 hours, before casting it into bronze.

Cami Brownhill 

Lee Sharrock: As a next-generation sculptor how would you say you are pushing the boundaries of traditional sculpture?

Cami Brownhill: I am trying to push the boundary of the abstract figure within sculpture to create unique portrayals of emotions and memories in ceramic form through creating intensely personal designs. I would say that my take on automatism to create works that present my life in this current climate means I am naturally creating sculptures that evolve with me.  My art intentionally shows horror and the potential grotesque which allows my work to be unrestricted by conventions. I feel that my style of sculptural heads is forcing an acknowledgement of distress that viewers try to avoid and at the same time challenging the idea of the beauty behind craftsmanship.

Can you summarise in a few sentences the inspiration behind your work and the process of creating it?

Cami Brownhill: My work is autobiographical that presents my continuing journey of being trans and the current social climate. Taking influence from artists I admire such as Berlinde de Bruyckere and Otto Dix and with modern writing by James Tynion IV and the horror genre I aim to create impactful works.  My new sculptures are adapted from unintentional drawings which reflect a memory or current emotional stage.   The drawings are then distorted to create a sculptural form with no pre-determined visual end point.  I work in ceramics and other physical forms as I find the taking up of space demands attention from the viewer.

Caroline Williams

Lee Sharrock: As a next-generation sculptor how would you say you are pushing the boundaries of traditional sculpture?

Caroline Williams: As a self-taught stone sculptor, in an era where everything can be done by machine, I am pushing the boundaries of contemporary art by returning to the source of what constitutes, for me, the essence of art. Working with stone and bronze has given me the opportunity to discover the processes and techniques that have made it possible to create masterpieces since the dawn of time. I appreciate this relationship with time and the permanence of these materials to link contemporary art to traditional sculpture.

Can you summarise in a few sentences the inspiration behind your work and the process of creating it?

Caroline Williams: My work expresses the movement of a fabric created by an invisible air current. Starting with a fabric model dipped in a mixture of PVA and water, I recreate what I call a “static movement”, a movement frozen in permanence. Inspired by the work of artists such as Bernini, Titian, Iris Van Herpen or Alexander Mc Queen, through time consuming craftsmanship, I capture and express the flickering instant where the fluidity and softness of the wind transforms an inert fabric into a living thing.

Alex Ford

Lee Sharrock: As a next-generation sculptor how would you say you are pushing the boundaries of traditional sculpture?

Alex Ford: I’m always trying to question the necessity of material truth in my art, disrupting the boundaries between the physical and digital. We seem to think of sculpture as a physical end product, so I incorporate digital processes as much as I can into the creation of each art-object. What’s the difference if someone sculpts physically with clay, or digitally on a laptop? 

Can you summarise in a few sentences the inspiration behind your work and the process of creating it?

Alex Ford: My work has been described as ‘Looney Tunes meets Hieronymus Bosch!’ I’m drawn to immediacy, and so tend to utilise recognisable symbols or materials that are preloaded with meaning, combining these features with more corporeal forms to recontextualise the way we encounter ourselves, the world around us and art itself.

Yeye

Lee Sharrock: As a next-generation sculptor how would you say you are pushing the boundaries of traditional sculpture?

Yeye: My sculptures push beyond the idea of sculptures being a single object. They repeat themselves in large quantities, and they are never about a single object, but rather a group entity. Every piece is a representation or an image of a conceptual abstract entity, and this connection does not go away even when one of the pieces is singled out. Just like how people imagine a common daily object, for instance, a piece of tissue paper, they are much less likely to remember a particular piece of tissue paper they saw, but rather an imagined abstract image of a piece of tissue paper.

Can you summarise in a few sentences the inspiration behind your work and the process of creating it?

Yeye: My metal sculptures are inspired by my imagination of a stereotypical public abstract metal sculpture. I see them everywhere and I can never remember any of them in details, instead they altogether left a vague impression in my head. This ongoing impression can be deconstructed into a reproducible visual language to create individual small pieces of metal that are free to be reconstructed into any new forms. They are always perceived as undergoing the process of formation, there is no end nor beginning of the forms, thus the formless forms.

Harisson Lambert

Lee Sharrock: As a next-generation sculptor how would you say you are pushing the boundaries of traditional sculpture?

Harrison Lambert: My recent wood sculptures are crafted from recycled timber which is planed and laminated to form one solid piece of wood, which is then carved by hand. As an artist making work in our current time of ecological crisis, using salvaged materials makes sense both on an aesthetic and moral level. Our natural ecosystems are slowly but surely breaking down, and using scraps of wood found in a skip seems like a good way of talking about that ecological anxiety without contributing to the problem.

Can you summarise in a few sentences the inspiration behind your work and the process of creating it?

Harrison Lambert: My work shapes iconic symbols of nature, filtered through history and cultural contexts, into new remixed sculptural objects. My practice is largely informed by the materials- both stone and wood require a time intensive and tactile process. In its slowness, my process is reminiscent of an archaic style of art production, where craftsmanship and skill chase after an aspirational sense of mastery. 

Neal Camilleri

Lee Sharrock: As a next-generation sculptor how would you say you are pushing the boundaries of traditional sculpture?

Neal Camilleri: As a sculptor, I constantly seek new methods and materials to enhance my creativity. By stepping outside my typical routines and embracing new challenges, I can uncover a realm of exciting and innovative ideas that will elevate my creative journey to new heights and expand my imaginative capabilities.

Can you summarise in a few sentences the inspiration behind your work and the process of creating it?

Neal Camilleri: My work revolves around exploring my past, present, and future, and transforming those experiences into reflective art pieces that resonate with viewers, evoking joy through sculpture. I incorporate colour and form to infuse happiness into the space. 

Naroul

Lee Sharrock: As a next-generation sculptor how would you say you are pushing the boundaries of traditional sculpture?

Naroul: As sociologists like Zygmunt Bauman have noted, the core of modern life has shifted from a solid to a liquid state. Over the past century, the gradual erosion of public space has rendered the traditional concept of the “monument” somewhat awkward within artistic discourse. Modern sculptors, such as Shalev-Gerz and Jochen Gerz, have successfully reimagined the narrative of public spaces through counter-monuments. However, I believe that the shift from public to personal space has become nearly irreversible. In response, our era requires a new discourse from a fresh perspective to reconnect increasingly fragmented communities. Therefore, a hidden thread in my work is the construction of monuments within “non-public spaces.” By strengthening the narrative and personal attributes of my pieces, I aim to offer new possibilities for the concept of the “monument.”

Can you summarise in a few sentences the inspiration behind your work and the process of creating it?

Naroul: The two works in this exhibition aim to explore how the identity of the “witch” has been constructed for political purposes. My interest in this topic began with Silvia Federici’s discussions on the relationship between witches and social reproduction. In my creative process, interdisciplinary literature and research methods play a significant role. For instance, in these two projects, I adopted an anthropological approach to writing and organization, integrating visual concepts with research. This approach has helped me utilize symbolic imagery within a specific framework. 

Harmony-Cree Morgan

Lee Sharrock: As a next-generation sculptor how would you say you are pushing the boundaries of traditional sculpture?

Harmony-Cree Morgan: In my first year of art school and exploration with this body of work I was often told that I was not attending a design school but an art school. Alluding to furniture in my work which, is inherently anthropomorphic to me, walks a thin and fun line between object and sculpture. I like to challenge the functionality aspect of traditional sculpture that allows the viewer to interact with the pieces as they see fit. A challenge / invitation that is hinted at in some of the titles of the works. 

Can you summarise in a few sentences the inspiration behind your work and the process of creating it?

Harmony-Cree Morgan: I am inspired by our daily interactions with everyday household objects that go unnoticed. Through touch and ownership, our associated memories of the chair that lived through decades of Christmas dinners or through the sleepless nights of essay writing become imbued with a sense of identity. These objects combined with live casts of my body impart with the viewer the duality of beauty and pain in gestures that I am interested in. To kneel, is not only an act of love but also is one of protest or one of punishment. I subject my own body to these gestural acts in an attempt to embody the life of an object, and so my works are born. 

Zayn Qahtani

Lee Sharrock: As a next-generation sculptor how would you say you are pushing the boundaries of traditional sculpture?

Zayn Qahntani: I am in constant fascination with taking traditional methods of craft and innovating new ways of thinking about them – my sculptures often include cultural elements that link back to the island I grew up on – papers made from Bahraini date palm trees, hammered shell nacre, odes to traditional shapes in architecture and world-building.

I also think that sculpture is traditionally an exploration of the 3d object in space – a lot of my work includes elements of drawing, or sculpting on paper, or wall-based work. In these peripheries of the ‘in-between’ is where I find the most exciting opportunities to express myself with sculpture. 

Can you summarise in a few sentences the inspiration behind your work and the process of creating it?

Zayn Qahntani: I am inspired by the life that I am living, and the stories I’m narrating could be my own or of the people around me. I find a lot of potency in expressing the more ‘twilight zone’ emotions – ones that we all have but keep to ourselves – such as grief, mourning, yearning, our deepest wishes and wants. I like being able to place these feelings on an altar-piece of sorts, a venerative space, so that they may be viewed in a different light or perhaps with more forgiveness. 

I write a lot of poetry which is usually where my process begins – either with a few words that have been floating in the back of my mind or through something which someone has said – and will go from there. My process also includes equal amounts of pre-planning and intuition – I usually have a loose form indicative of where to start the piece, but more often that not it will take on a life of its own halfway through. 

Isis Bird

Lee Sharrock: As a next-generation sculptor how would you say you are pushing the boundaries of traditional sculpture?

Isis Bird: My work comes from an immaterial space through my dreams, thoughts and poems. I think it’s amazing to see these works exist within the Bowman Sculptue space, a space embedded with so many traditional representations of sculpture. 

Can you summarise in a few sentences the inspiration behind your work and the process of creating it?

Isis Bird: My recent work ‘The heart of the fool’ explores the immediacy of found objects. I was inspired by the historical and personal context that furniture holds. I have an interest in reverse-engineering neglected things: paper, chairs, objects from the street. Inspired by their previous context, I disassembled these furniture pieces, cutting, sanding and filing them to reveal the blueprints of new forms. This led to a reconfiguration process of assembling narratives.

The interplay of each connecting part and joint allows for an evolutionary lens, where both myself and the sculpture are defining our roles within the studio. Play is a key part of my process and has become intuitive. Each wooden component acts as a piece of the puzzle, guiding me towards the final sculpture which resembles an anthropomorphic object, insect-like and alive.  

I’m interested in metal as a material and it appears a lot in my practice. Metal has a memory as each mark made by the artist is recorded in the material and it naturally patinas and ages over time, this reminds me of nature’s state of flux. My work ‘Orchidaceae’ is a magnified view of an orchid, a flower symbolic of sex and female genitalia. Flowers are a recurring motif in my work as a reminder of rebirth and reproduction.

An orchid plant which is found now in nearly every office space and supermarket in London but has a history of manic wealthy Victorians sending explorers to collect and discover new rare breeds of the flower. I was intrigued by this as well as the feminine form –  An orchid represents perceived ideas of women’s sexuality as an equally dangerous and alluring creature. 

I used reclaimed metal pieces to make this piece, using a hydro-forming technique to inflate the stem of the sculpture with high pressured water. Merging both manufactured and found pieces of metal gives this work a quality which feels both assembled and ready-made.  

©2024 Bowman Sculpture Gallery

Lee Sharrock

Lee Sharrock is a global creative PR consultant, curator and writer for publications including; Art Doc Photography Magazine, ArtLyst, Creative Review, FAD Magazine, F22, Runway Gallery Magazine, Soho House Magazine and STATE.

Juan Antonio Guirado’s daughter Catalina Guirado is a model, TV presenter and former star of ‘I’m a Celebrity’. After her father’s death she inherited the Guirado Estate, and has spent many years arranging international exhibitions of his paintings to preserve his legacy. Guirado was a Spanish Surrealist artist who spent time in Australia and is considered Spain’s leading master painter in the school of “Intrarealism”. 

Previously unseen paintings by Guirado will be exhibited alongside paintings of Igor Gorsky, a Greek Abstract Expressionist who moved to the USA and invented a unique pouring technique. The exhibition is at Red Eight Gallery from 4th October to 14th November, 2024 at Red Eight Gallery in London’s historic Royal Exchange. 

Lee Sharrock: Your father was a Spanish Surrealist artist who was considered to be Spain’s leading master painter in the school of “Intrarealism”. Can you give some insight into ‘Intrarealism’?

Catalina Guirado: Intra-realism is not a widely known school and is a sub-form of Surrealism that was created in 1967 by the creator of the movement Abel Vallnitjana in Barcelona. It soon attracted a strong following of artists across the world of all genres from painters, sculptors, and poets to filmmakers and writers including Federico Fellini and writer J D Salinger (who became a collector of Guirado along with academy award-winning director John Schlesinger) At the core of Intrarealism lies a fascination with the unknown.

Artists of this movement sought to capture the essence of dreams, emotions, and thoughts that transcend the tangible world. Through their artworks, they aimed to transport the audience into a realm where imagination reigns supreme, blurring the lines between the known and the enigmatic. 

Guirado only decided that his paintings fit this school perfectly later in life after being categorized in surrealism and Essentialism in the 1960s and 70s. It was in the 80s that he learned about Intrarealism from fellow Spaniard and art critic Manuel Quintanilla who wrote the book ‘El Pintor Contemporaneo Andaluz Juan Antonio Guirado’. The rediscovery of Intrarealism has proved interesting to art academics like Editor in Chief ABC Culture Laura Revuelta, and Professor Paloma Rodera who created an Unnd Mooc online course in 2017 that covers the history and Guirado’s relevance to Intrarealism. 

After he immigrated to Australia in the 1950s due to the political climate, your Father became interested in Oriental religions such as the Hindu Philosophy Vedanta. How did he reflect this increasing interest in religion and spirituality in his paintings?

Catalina Guirado: Guirado was fascinated by the Veda and metaphysics. He was an enlightened individual who could see things others didn’t and could channel his third eye as he painted. Being away from the darkness of Spain and its Catholic authority as well as Franco’s dictatorship at that time meant he was allowed to explore new perspectives freely.

The landscape he saw in Australia affected him strongly as it was so different from Andalucía. In an interview conducted by Patricia Johnson in 1970, which was featured in a weekly Australian magazine, Guirado revealed that “My pictures in Australia were full of light, not many Australians realized how many things in their land had the quality of “soul”.  colours that he used in Australia compared to those used in Spain ‘were radically different […].

My pictures in Australia were full of light, and I used colours such as blue, white, and yellow. In Spain, all my pictures were in shades of brown and grey.’ On returning to Spain Guirado became great friends with the famous Spanish Yogi Ramiro Calle for whom he painted a series of ‘Karma’ paintings to hang in his Yoga studios in Madrid.

Guirado meditated daily and if you look at his paintings there are often tunnels of white light and shadow-like figures resembling spirits that represent the different realities and the difference between man, body, and soul. One of my favourite paintings is a self-portrait that hangs in my living groom of Guirado’s profile as an aura showing the shaft of white light connecting his crown chakra to the universe. When asked once by a journalist how best to view his work he said ‘It is the type of painting one has to see with the third eye, the eye of the mind’.

Juan Antonio Guirado was one of the most represented Spanish contemporary artists in museums including the National Museum Reina Sofia and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta, and collectors of his art included King Hussein of Jordan, J.D. Salinger, and John Schlesinger. He also received multiple awards including the gold medal at the El Grollo awards at the Venice Biennale in 1976. Since you inherited the Juan Antonio Guirado Estate, what exhibitions have you organised of your Father’s art, and why haven’t you exhibited his work in the UK for so long?

Catalina Guirado: I started working on re-introducing Guirado’s work internationally in 2011 a year after he died. I wanted to see what the reaction was to his paintings as though I had grown up surrounded by his art and attending exhibitions I didn’t pay it much attention as a child. I used my rent money to buy frames for 12 paintings on paper that I had taken to Los Angeles for my home and was kindly given a gallery space between shows for a one-night private view. The reaction to the art was staggering and it became my full-time occupation.

I was lucky enough to find art benefactors to help cover the huge costs and I had a very small team of brilliant women working with me in Spain and the UK. The process of reintroducing an overlooked artist, especially one who is deceased, is long and has to be done properly to gain recognition amongst academics. Being Spanish it made sense to start there. The first major show was in Madrid in 2015 at Pons Foundation in Madrid and included an educational night where Spain’s top art academics including Pablo Melendo and Laura Revuelta held a panel talk to Art history students.

The exhibition VIP night goes down in history as an amazing event in art with Vanity Fair covering it. No one left the gallery until midnight it was such a success! We then held an exhibition during ARCO 2017 showing Guirado’s Environmental paintings and partnering with Green Peace to promote sustainability and environmental issues. This was followed by a solo exhibition of the international guest artist at Coral Gables Museum in Florida where we also premiered a virtual reality installation using Guirado’s paintings by Los Angeles-based VR Studio kicking off Miami Art Week and Art Basel.

Finally, in 2018, Guirado was honoured by the University of Jaén, our hometown in Andalucía, to be inducted into the prestigious Cesareo Rodriguez- Aguilera foundation and exhibited alongside works in the collection including Picasso, Miro, and Tapies. After the pandemic, my priorities shifted as I no longer had benefactors helping and I decided it was time to start working with galleries starting with London as it is the centre of the art world and also where Guirado was often exhibited during the 1970’s. I hope that we can introduce Guirado to a new generation of collectors who appreciate the strong provenance and genius of the work, after all, it is more relevant than ever in today’s society. 

Your Father’s passion for reflecting environmental and spiritual issues in his paintings was rather prophetic, considering the increasing unrest and fear of climate change in the world today. Why did you choose paintings from his 1990-2010 ‘Vision’ series for the London exhibition?

Catalina Guirado: I wanted to start with his most contemporary and previously un-exhibited paintings as he considered these to be amongst his finest works. I feel they might resonate with new collectors for their abstract surreal beauty and the way you can look at one painting a thousand times and see something different. It is like gazing into multiple kaleidoscopic universes and I feel that many collectors are looking for something more interesting and intelligent that will be a conversation piece at dinner parties. His ‘Vision’ series reflects his mantra of opening the third eye and these paintings are his most optimistic about humanity.

As I mentioned Guirado painted in brown symbolizing oppression and depression whilst blues, yellow, and bright colours symbolize light and spirituality. The world is pretty messed up right now so I see these paintings as messages of infinite hope.‘Rediscovered Geniuses: Juan Antonio Guirado and Igor Gorsky’ is at Red Eight Gallery, Royal Exchange, London from 4th October to 14th November. 

‘Rediscovered Geniuses: Juan Antonio Guirado and Igor Gorsky’ is at Red Eight Gallery, Royal Exchange, London from 4th October, 2024 to 14th November, 2024

©2024 Catalina Guirado, Guirado Estate President

Lee Sharrock

Lee Sharrock is a global creative PR consultant, curator and writer for publications including; Art Doc Photography Magazine, ArtLyst, Creative Review, FAD Magazine, F22, Runway Gallery Magazine, Soho House Magazine and STATE.

Here is my Top 5 at the British Art Fair

1: SOLO Contemporary

SOLO Contemporary is curated by Zavier Ellis and features presentations of contemporary artists including; a  brilliant ‘alternative art history’ series of paintings by Matthew Collings featuring familiar art icons including Tracey Emin, Picasso and Frida Kahlo; James Vaulkhard’s fauvist paintings and pastel drawings of Nairobi at Guerin Projects; Abe Odedina’s magical paintings at Virginia Damtsa featuring serpents and hearts; and Kate McCrickard’s Schiele-inspired boudoir scenes at Julian Page Fine Art. 

2: WaterAid

WaterAid is the official charity partner of British Art Fair this year. Celebrities and leading contemporary artists including Dame Zandra Rhodes, Boy George, Colette Colbert, Pam Hogg, Pure Evil, Nettie Wakefield and Sophie Tea have repurposed toilet seats as unique works of art for a fundraising charity auction  in a humorously named ‘Best Seat in the House’.  

3: Cynthia Corbett

Cynthia Corbett is exhibiting a varied group of artists with standout pieces including geometric textile canvases by Margo Selby, intriguing ceramic figures by Gemma Gowland, and a vast canvas by Scottish illusionist painter Alastair Gordon, who merges historical references and familiar images of Scottish nature with the art of trompe l’oeil. 

4: PIVOTAL: Digitalism

PIVOTAL: Digitalism is a new addition to the fair and features a selection of digital art, with highlights including David Shelddrick’s AI photography and Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrom’s video installation offering a peek into the next frontier of art. 

5: GBS Fine Art

5 GBS Fine Art are exhibiting artworks in a variety of mediums, with intricate sculpture by Cathy de Monchaux, atmospheric paintings from Gill Rocca and Emma Tod paintings and Susannah Baker-Smith’s enigmatic portraits.

The British Art Fair is at Saatchi Gallery until Sunday 29th September, 2024

Lee Sharrock

Lee Sharrock is a global creative PR consultant, curator and writer for publications including; Art Doc Photography Magazine, ArtLyst, Creative Review, FAD Magazine, F22, Runway Gallery Magazine, Soho House Magazine and STATE.

These are just some highlights of an extraordinary career that has seen him go to extreme lengths for the sake of art, including a trek to Antarctica where he painted in ice caves and in an ice desert, and a pilgrimage to Lake Saiful in Kashmir with musician and composer Soumik Datta. Azam was born in Jhelum, Pakistan, and moved to the UK with his family in the 1980s. He lives and work between Birmingham and London. Azam’s artistic practice involves an ongoing exploration of his experience of diaspora and exile, including recent projects such as the Diaspora Project and Dog Days, a reflection on the racism directed at the first Asian Prime Minister of the UK.

I spoke with Azam about his career so far, his mission to democratize art through public installations such as the Diaspora Project, as well as upcoming projects in California and Pakistan.

Lee Sharrock: You have worked on some incredible projects during your career, and have gone to some extreme lengths for the sake of your art. For example, your expedition to Antarctica and to the mountains of Pakistan, for the project Saiful Malook. What has been the highlight of your career to date?

Azam: Yes, I’ve been fortunate to have worked on a number of pretty major projects, which have been logistically and practically challenging. For me, it was a matter of going to extreme environments, and seeing how that effected my vision, and the work that I made. It is a bit like Monet, you know, having to be outside in the landscape where he painted, rather than hiding in the studio, but taking this to an extreme. Antarctica was a really harsh environment, and presented major difficulties, but thanks to a really good team we managed to paint in ice caves, and in an ice desert. Some of the paintings are still there, buried in Antarctic ice.

Lee Sharrock: In 2019 you had a major solo exhibition at Saatchi Gallery, which was inspired by your pilgrimage to Lake Saiful in Kashmir. Was it a spiritual quest or a mission to delve deeper into your heritage, and how did you interpret the journey visually in your art?

It was a bit of both – I had come across the poem ‘Saiful Malook’ by the Sufi saint Mian Muhammad Bakhsh in the early 1990’s through a musical project Peter Gabriel was doing, and he had included a Qawwali singer from Pakistan named Ustad Nusrat Ali Khan, who had translated the poem into his musical interpretation.

I just fell in love with the song and then found that the Sufi saint came from the same city, Jhelum I was born in, around 150 years before. So, with that strong connection, I wanted to visit the lake as a creative project but wanted to collaborate with a musician – and it was amazing I could do the visit with the very talented musician and composer Soumik Datta.

The terrain & logistics were probably as tough as the Antarctica project – but the journey was a lot deeper given the context and heritage and especially given my own pre-conceived ideas of the poem. The creativity was centred around painting in situ on different locations and of the lake – including a work that I did in the lake on a floating canvas and trying to incorporate the main themes of the poem. We managed to visit the lake on full moon, which is a key element of the poem, and where I completed my painting ‘Full Moon for the Princess’.

Soumik created music at each point of the collaborative creative process, and I was pleased with the Saatchi show which incorporated film, photography and paintings done in situ and after the visit and encapsulated the pilgrimage well. It was amazing to show that Antarctica paintings and the Saiful Malook works together.

Lee Sharrock: You have painted portraits of some powerful, iconic women including the Late Queen Elizabeth II and Malala Yousafazi. How do you choose your subjects and what is your method for painting portraits?

Azam: I wanted to make images of powerful women, and it was incredible to receive the commission to make an official portrait of Malala. Her portrait was done from studies and photographs that I took when I met her, but the painting captures her personality, showing her dressed in her familiar and instantly recognisable red dress. The portrait of Margaret Thatcher, titled (Blue Lady, 2012), was in fact based on a painting by Picasso — although I’m not sure what Thatcher thought of Picasso! I painted Queen Elizabeth using her younger image but dressed in Elizabethan costumes to signify her longevity and the impact she had as the longest serving monarch.

Lee Sharrock: Malala Yousafazi’s family commissioned your portrait of her, which is on permanent display at the University of Birmingham. What was Malala’s reaction to her portrait, and did it feel like a full circle moment for you to have the painting exhibited at your Alma Mater?

Azam: I was honoured to share our Pakistani origin and to unveil her portrait at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, where I had my first show back in 1983 and which is part of Birmingham University where I studied. Her portrait was done from studies and images I did when meeting her and the large size of the painting captures the huge impact she’s had on girls’ education around the world. She had seen the studies I had done but only saw the finished piece at the unveiling.

I mentioned the aim of the size in my speech, and she appreciated it during her remarks, where she also mentioned she was proud to be a Brummie! And it was very fitting that the painting is now part of the University’s collection and permanently displayed at the Institute of Translation Medicine, which is a collaboration between the University and QE II Hospital, where she was first treated.

Lee Sharrock: You’re a multi-disciplinary artist and have created some epic public sculpture during your career including Athena at London City Airport (the tallest bronze sculpture in the UK) and a sculpture at the University of Aberdeen. How does your approach to creating sculpture differ to the method you use for portraits or immersive art experiences?

Azam: It was really exciting to work on monumental public sculpture projects and to create in bronze on such large scale. It’s fascinating that the process hasn’t changed in thousands of years and modern technology can’t interfere with it. I feel content that these works will be in-situ for a long time, but it is a type of work that I am not currently engaged with. As an example, Athena at London’s City Airport took me five minutes to create but five years to fabricate and in essence turned out to be more of an engineering project.

But the whole experience was enlightening – as shortly after getting the necessary approvals, we realised that there wasn’t a foundry in the UK which had done bronze sculpture at that scale – so I ended up buying Morris Singer Foundries, who were responsible for most of the public sculpture in the UK over the last century like the Lions of Trafalgar Square, to fabricate in time & it was amazing to work with the craftsmen and craftswomen.

Another inspiring project was working in collaboration with the renowned Danish architects, schmidt hammer lassen who were working on the futuristic library in Aberdeen University. We decided to go with my bronze sculpture, Evolutionary Loop 517 at the entrance, marrying the new technologies with the old. The name was selected by the university in a competition they held and signifies the age of the university.

Lee Sharrock: Your most recent public art installation ‘The Diaspora Project’ involved displaying paintings in public spaces around London. How did you choose the locations and how did the project come about?

Azam: The Diaspora Project is a continuation of my fascination with democratizing art, which initially began with my public sculpture. During the lockdown, I painted a portrait of the Queen wearing an NHS mask in oil and hung it outside my studio in Islington. I was curious to see how resilient the painting would be, and even after two years, it remains on display, looking surprisingly fresh.

A more recent inspiration for the project was the Ben Uri Museum and Gallery’s acquisition of two early paintings from the 1980s, created after I arrived in Britain with my family from Pakistan. This made me realize how important the experience of diaspora and exile is for millions of people around the world, and how being part of that community can be a positive experience.

I then considered how I could showcase my original paintings as a permanent public space installation. I selected various areas in London where I have lived since arriving from Pakistan as a child in 1970. The project proved to be a significant logistical challenge due to the approvals and installation requirements. However, now that the paintings are up, I am planning to create a detailed narrative for the project and add works relevant to the Diaspora experience.

For example, I painted Dog Days around the time of the recent elections to capture a dramatic moment in British politics—racism directed at the first Asian Prime Minister of the UK—that highlights the tensions still present in our society and that shaped my own upbringing. The Diaspora Project is an ongoing, permanent, evolving, and deeply personal initiative for me.

Lee Sharrock: What projects do you have coming up that you’re allowed to talk about?

Azam: Alongside ongoing work on the Diaspora Project, I am working on a series of works for public display in Beverley Hills, California and planning a project later this year in Pakistan, exploring the rich heritage via local traditions and crafts and collaborating with artisans there. We are also working on ideas for a project creating works about British waterways and the coastal environment, creating a connection with the paintings I made in the mountains of Kashmir and Antarctica.

©2024 Azam

Lee Sharrock

Lee Sharrock is a global creative PR consultant, curator and writer for publications including; Art Doc Photography Magazine, ArtLyst, Creative Review, FAD Magazine, F22, Runway Gallery Magazine, Soho House Magazine and STATE.

The featured artists Asiko, Christopher Day, Donald Baugh, Othello De Souza, Elaine Mullings, Maggie Scott and Theresa Weber explore themes of worldmaking and legacy.

CasildART Contemporary is a not-for-profit gallery dedicated to addressing the underrepresentation of Black artists in fine art institutions, commercial galleries, and museums. Founder Sukai Eccleston launched the gallery with a mission to be a catalyst for change and transform the visual landscape in the UK by inserting Black narratives into the culture. 

I spoke with some of the featured artists, including Christopher Day, Donald Baugh, and Maggie Scott.

Christopher Day

Day creates highly personal works in glass and mixed media, and his intention is to discuss and investigate the treatment of black people in Britain and the USA, with much of his research focussing on the history of the slave trade in the Eighteenth Century and the events leading to up & during the Civil Rights Movement.

Combining materials used in both heating and electrical systems into his creations, Day finds he is able to create the perfect marriage of his artistic path and technical knowledge, both of which rely on dexterity and high levels of skill and craftsmanship. A reoccurring and signature theme are ‘copper cages’ which enclose his glass, representing the restriction of movement both physically and mentally that traders possessed over other human’s lives that were viewed simply as ‘commodities’. 

Lee Sharrock: Why did you choose glass as an art form? 

Christopher Day: To be honest, I didn’t choose glass, it chose me. When I started at University doing a BA course in  glass and ceramics, I was studying slavery and civil rights, and looking into my own identity. The first time I blew into a piece of glass it wanted to escape from me because I didn’t have any control over it. 

So it turned out that the medium of glass matched what I was studying – the fluidity of glass means that it wants to break free when you try to enclose it. So when I made these copper cages and I blew into them, the glass wanted to break free from the cages, so it was like a metaphor for the control of slavery. Being dyslexic, glass gave me a vocabulary and meant that I could visualise the concept of being incarcerated in a cage and trying to break free. Yeah, so the cage comes first.

It’s a bit like building a ship in a bottle – nobody knows how you get that ship in the bottle. I don’t come up with a drawing or anything, to create these cages I just manipulate the wire and the copper tube. Then, once I start to blow the glass I’ve got no control, and I think what I really love is that for the first time in my life I’ve got control. I’ve been controlled by society, controlled by identity, and being mixed-race, I don’t fit in, so the glass for me is a metaphor for trying to escape from that incarceration of somebody putting me into an identity that I don’t fit into.

Lee Sharrock: Can you talk about ‘Unconditional Love’, the sculpture you made for this exhibition? 

Christopher Day: Yes, it references the transatlantic slave trade when children were taken away from their mothers and sold off into slavery. But the piece has layers and layers of meaning for me, and the title ‘Unconditional Love’ relates to my back story: I have a mixed-race Jamaican heritage and don’t know who my father is.

I was born in a society where mixed relationships were stigmatised, so that stigma of being mixed race has been with me all my life, but it’s only recently I’ve been able to talk about it. ‘Unconditional Love’ means that somebody should love you unconditionally no matter who you are or what background you come from. I never had that because my mum resented me, so ‘Unconditional Love’ is talking about that, but its main purpose is to talk about the trauma of African Mothers that were separated from their children when they were sold in auction, and never saw them again.

I wanted to tell that story with this piece. It’s hard to tell because it’s such a brutal story, and I tell the story with glass, which is such a beautiful material that used to decorate rich people’s tables in the 18th Century.

Maggie Scott

Scott graduated from St. Martin’s School of Art in 1976 with BA honours in Fashion Textiles, and set up her first studio in London in 1980. Scott creates art from the particularity of who she is: a black woman, a feminist, a daughter, a mother, an activist and a British textile artist. Her large-scale works draw on the aesthetic and symbolic potential of the process of felting.

The hand-felted re-interpretations of photographic images often explore the politics of representation and tensions and contradictions of a Black British identity. Photography and specifically portraiture has played a key role in all her work.  While many of the manipulated images become textiles, each series of work always generates ‘stand-alone’ prints. Scott’s technical practice is unparalleled in the landscape of contemporary British art, sitting at the boundary of tapestry and digital media, she employs a combination of photography, digital collage and silk in a process known as Nuno felting. She achieved notoriety in 2013 for Zwarte Piet, a body of work exploring the eponymous Dutch phenomenon of ‘blacking up’. Using self-portraiture, she referenced the quaint and offensive Dutch ‘character’ by creating an alter ego for Piet.

Lee Sharrock: How did you get involved in the exhibition at CasildART Contemporary? 

Maggie Scott: It was an invitation from Sukai. We were speaking a couple of years ago, and I was very preoccupied with a big show in Hastings. I live in Hastings and both Elaine (Mullings) and I we were involved In a large exhibition, and I had no space to do anything, so when she came to me for this show I was really pleased to be able to contribute.

Lee Sharrock: Can you talk a bit about your process and the materials you used for the artworks in this exhibition? 

Maggie Scott: I used a technique called Nuno felting where you push fibres through silk, allowing me to print on the silk before I felt, and make the image I want on my computer. This piece references Zwarte Piet, the offensive Dutch phenomenon of ‘blacking up’ at Christmas. I created an alter ego for Zwarte Piet called ‘Big Sister‘. With ‘Big Sister‘ I’m inviting the viewer to re-evaluate Zwarte Piet as no longer a slave or child-like fool, but a commanding adult female present.

I’ve used Nuno felting for years, but now I’m moving into a different kind of technique after receiving some devastating news about my health, which was affected by exposure to textiles. So a new portrait in the exhibition is a self-portrait in response to the devastation I felt about not being able to work with textiles any more after 50 years. It’s from a series of personal portraits that are deeply personal because they are a response to this news about my health.

Donald Baugh

Baugh honed his craft at the world-renowned Rycotewood Furniture School in Oxfordshire Middlesex University and graduated in 1996. Since then he has exhibited extensively in London, Tokyo, Paris, Milan and Folkestone, building a solid international reputation with his passion for wood and creating elegant furniture for interiors and one-off carved vessels.

Baugh specialises in simple line and colour to create elegant solutions for lighting, furniture and his sculptural one-off vessels sourced from sustainable wood. Baugh is passionate about the sustainable practice of harvesting timber, working closely with the Forestry Commission and tree surgeon Dariusz Salarski to source his materials allowing each vessel a story to be told, celebrating the uniqueness of nature.

Lee Sharrock: How did you get involved in the exhibition at CasildART Contemporary? 

Donald Baugh: I did a show last October and Sukai came to it and saw my work, and then she asked me to be in this exhibition when she opened the gallery. I want to do a show with Chris Day and Chris Bramley which is based on the passage of slaves from Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas. My work is not political, it’s about aesthetics. It’s about things I see in nature and my environment. I’m nomadic by nature. I’m a Forager. 

Lee Sharrock: So are your pieces all found/ reclaimed pieces of wood, and can you talk about your process?

Donald Baugh: Some of it’s given to me by friends. The piece downstairs in this exhibition is from a friend’s walnut tree in her garden. Others I’ve in the workshop for 5 or 6 years. Some is from tree surgeons, and some from parks. 

I haven’t had a TV since they changed from analogue! I got rid of it. It effects your work and your mind. I just design and make. I lost my father during covid, so it wasn’t a good time in that sense of personal suffering. But as a creative it was a good time because I could get up and go for a run, stretch, eat, then work from 11 or 12 until 6pm just putting down ideas, and the light was amazing. 

My process is sketching on lining paper because the gauge is quite thick. Then I work out proportions and sizes and visualise how things will look in 3D.  When you make a chair you make a thing called a rod, so you get the front, side and plan elevation all super imposed on each other in different colours. I use that process in my work and build a picture in my head roughly.

“The Future is Now PT.II: Re/Form~ation” is at CasildART Contemporary, 32 Connaught Street, Connaught Village, London W2 2AF until 7th September, 2024.

©2024 CasildART Contemporary

Lee Sharrock

Lee Sharrock is a global creative PR consultant, curator and writer for publications including; Art Doc Photography Magazine, ArtLyst, Creative Review, FAD Magazine, F22, Runway Gallery Magazine, Soho House Magazine and STATE.

Carl Cox and Mark Vessey’s collaboration at Enter Gallery is the latest in a series of artistic exchanges between artists and icons of the music industry, following artist collaborations with Fatboy Slim and Simon Dunmore. I spoke with Cox and Vessey to learn more about their new collaboration.

Mark Vessey

Lee Sharrock: Whose idea was it for an artistic collaboration between you and Carl
Cox, and how long did the creative process take? 

Mark Vessey: My idea came after hearing Carl speak about how he had drawn upon his vinyl collection during lock down to aid his own comfort during that period, but also to share what he described as the ‘medicine’ he shared with everyone through his online shows from his studio, ‘Cabin Fever’.  In those shows you could see how Carl connected emotionally with his collection, the love and passion he had for his music and how that had shaped him. I wanted to work with Carl drawing upon his 150,000 pieces of vinyl to be able to visually tell his story. 

Lee Sharrock: Your work has been inspired by music in the past including collections inspired by David Bowie and various dance music subgenres.  A lot of musicians went to art school before their careers in music, including Jarvis Cocker, Brian Ferry, Brian Eno and Florence Welch.  Why do you think art and music are so closely related, and have you always been inspired by music? 

Mark Vessey: I’ve always been inspired by pop culture and how art can connect us through storytelling.  How our shared histories are all intertwined and connected.  We learn so much about ourselves through the shared stories of others. I believe music and art are so closely related as they create such strong emotional connections and reactions within us.  We are emotional beings, music and art remind us of who we are. 

Lee Sharrock: Your work has been inspired by music in the past including collections inspired by David Bowie and various dance music subgenres.  A lot of musicians went to art school before their careers in music, including Jarvis Cocker, Brian Ferry, Brian Eno and Florence Welch.  Why do you think art and music are so closely related, and have you always been inspired by music? 

Mark Vessey: I’ve always been inspired by pop culture and how art can connect us through storytelling.  How our shared histories are all intertwined and connected.  We learn so much about ourselves through the shared stories of others. I believe music and art are so closely related as they create such strong emotional connections and reactions within us.  We are emotional beings, music and art remind us of who we are. 

Lee Sharrock: How did you and Carl decide on what vinyl from his 150,000 plus collection to photograph for the exhibition, and what sort of camera did you use? 

Mark Vessey: Carl and I spent the first day going through his vinyl collection over two locations together pulling out various vinyl albums.  It was magical to see Carl’s reactions and get to listen to him talk about the albums we were discovering.  At the end of the first day, we had a big initial first edit we then came back the following morning with fresh eyes and did another edit from which I was able to create the artwork.  I photograph my artwork using a Mamiya RZ medium format camera, the 6×7 negative give the photograph a great deal of detail and quality.  

Carl Cox

Lee Sharrock: How did your collaboration with Mark Vessey and Enter Gallery originate? 

Carl Cox: The collaboration was born out of our shared love of music and it has been great to map out my career through the medium of photography with Mark taking the time to explore what each of the records I chose means to me as part of his artistic process. As part of this Mark flew out to Australia where most of my collection is housed and spent a few days getting to know me and the records and the stories behind them.

Lee Sharrock: What was the creative process like with Mark – did you work closely together on the selection of vinyl from your collection that inspires the art? 

Carl Cox: We worked together to go through what my collection means to me before I chose the records that I wanted to represent me and what I feel embodies special moments in my career as well as the tunes that have helped define my sound. As you can imagine with 150,000 pieces of vinyl, it wasn’t the easiest task to make the selection but I feel like this was spot on. Once Mark and I started digging inti the meaning behind each piece it helped shape his vision of how to tell the story. This isn’t just a pile of records, Mark spent a lot of time expertly curating them which is why the resulting art work is so amazing.

Lee Sharrock: Describe your relationship with Brighton and how has it inspired you? 

Carl Cox: Brighton is a special place where I’ve had some of my best experiences.  It always feels like I’m coming home which is why my Brighton beach summer show is one of the highlights of my year.

@carlcox

@markvessey

‘Carl’ is a photographic print from a limited edition of 50 and comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by both Mark Vessey and Carl Cox.

©2024 Carl Cox, Mark Vessey

Lee Sharrock

Lee Sharrock is a global creative PR consultant, curator and writer for publications including; Art Doc Photography Magazine, ArtLyst, Creative Review, FAD Magazine, F22, Runway Gallery Magazine, Soho House Magazine and STATE.

David Speed is a prominent London based aerosol artist known for his signature neon pink artworks, and host of of #1 podcast Creative Rebels. He rose to fame whilst painting the streets during the pandemic, becoming one of the most recognised creators in the UK’s contemporary art scene, and creating artwork for high profile brands and musicians including Shaquille O’Neal, Fortnum & Mason, and MTV. 

Nobu Hotel London Shoreditch is at the heart of East London’s creative district and the City’s financial centre, and the hotel and restaurant combine industrial chic with Japanese simplicity. David Speed’s mural can be found on the new Nobu Shoreditch Bar & Terrace. 

Lee Sharrock interviewed David Speed for Art Plugged at Nobu Shoreditch and ate in the Nobu Shoreditch restaurant. Thank you to Jorge Figueras Maillarbaux and the team at Nobu Shoreditch for the incredible food and hospitality. Highlights of the menu included the mouth-watering Alaskan Black Cod marinated in Miso sauce with Japanese baby peach, Yellow tail tartare with Caviar, Beef tenderloin on a bed of caramelised onion with Shitake and Enoki mushrooms and the most incredibly fresh sushi selection. 

Lee Sharrock: How did the collaboration with Nobu Shoreditch happen – did the curator notice your art in the area?

David Speed: Yes, it’s pretty crazy that just painting in the street would lead me here, but here we are!

There are three main blocks to my career. My first 10 years was spent painting as predominantly an illegal graffiti artist, and not ever being told I was particularly gifted or good at art, as a kid. I got a C for GSCE art. I was never going to be an artist. But I found this graffiti, in the early 2000s it wasn’t very fashionable and was kind of frowned upon. But I just loved it. I had always been told there are people with natural talent, and because I didn’t display any of that, I thought well I’ll never be any good at anything, because I’m not one of the gifted or special people.

The more I was painting, the more I realised ‘hang on’, if you enjoy something and you do it a bunch, as a side effect you get better at that thing. But still from every angle, I was told I would never be an artist. My tutor told me being an artist wasn’t a valid career option, and I should be more realistic. 

Then after about 10 years, around 2010, I had a near-death experience when I was painting the underneath of a bridge on the A23 on the way to Gatwick airport, and I stepped backwards to view my work, and my friend grabbed hold of me and saved my life. That was the point I realised I wasn’t invincible. I was taking too many risks doing my art, and people were getting in trouble. So I became a commercial painter. By 2010 the view around Graffiti art started to change quite a lot and there was a real shift. You started to get coffee table books with Banksy, which you’d never had in the past.  

Me and a couple of artists started a project called ‘Joy Collective’, where we were painting brightly coloured murals and doing community projects. So for the next 10 years, my career involved painting people’s officers and painting billboards for brands. We worked for Nike, adidas, BMW, eBay…literally anyone you can name we were doing billboards for them. But when you paint for a job, I was getting more lazy with the artwork for myself. So when the Pandemic hit and all my commercial work disappeared, just to keep myself sane I started doing my own stuff again and just having fun. 

And that’s been become the third block of my career. I didn’t expect it to, but my work took off online and my life changed as I painted in the streets more and more often.

Lee Sharrock: And that was all in this area? (Shoreditch)

David Speed: Yeah, for the most part.

Lee Sharrock: Are there designated areas in Shoreditch for street art?

David Speed: There are, but they get covered up really quickly. In the Pandemic I was finding there were so many shops that had been boarded up, so I thought, although this is technically not legal, I’m trying to create something beautiful here. And at the end of the day it was a hoarding that was going to be thrown away. I didn’t expect it to become a success or anyone to be blown away by it.

Lee Sharrock: Did people start photographing and posting your murals?

David Speed: Yeah, and through a very local community, people started basing their lockdown walks around my murals, which was lovely. I was getting messages from people saying ‘you’re brightening up our lockdown!’ which kept me going.

Lee Sharrock : Why did you choose the Neon Pink colour, is it an uplifting colour for you?

David Speed: When I first found neon spray paint, which was only really being used in arts and craft projects at that time, I thought it was so bright and delicious I just fell in love with it! My favourite artist is Caravaggio, which although my work is nothing like his, in a way it kind of is because I’m using the brightest pigments and the darkest darks, and I’m very inspired by Chiaroscuro, which is the effect he used in his work.  By finding this really bright pigment, I realised I could create dramatic contrasts with it. The other thing was, a few years ago, I heard an interview with David Choe, he got his break painting the Facebook offices in return for shares, in the early days. 

He said he uses black when he paints in the street, because its hard and aggressive, and graffiti art is the art of rebellion. But that’s not my character.  I tend to not paint celebrities, I like to celebrate people who deserve celebration rather than people who are already celebrated.

I wanted to make work that’s about love and light, as cheesy as that might sound.

Lee Sharrock: I think we all need a bit of Love and Light right now!

David Speed: Yes, I think so. I suppose on hearing the interview with David Choe & him saying it was a hard and aggressive colour, I thought ‘what’s the opposite of that?’  

Graffiti is a ‘Boy’s Club’ and I thought what’s the furthest I can go away from that Bravado, which is more my character, which is softer and about love and kindness.  It was quite a scary thing to do really (using the pink), because I thought no one would like it and people would tag over it. But they didn’t. And a few years later I’ve gained hundreds of thousands of followers and I’m working with dream clients, like Nobu!

Lee Sharrock: Did you meet Chef Nobu and how did you come up with the idea of painting his hands? 

David Speed: I had a meeting at Nobu Shoreditch, one of the team who works there became a fan of my work after seeing it during lockdown. She found my stuff and was following me, and they were having a meeting about what to do with their outside terrace, and she suggested me. We came up with the concept of basing the paintings on Chef Nobu’s 6 six steps for making Nigiri sushi. 

About a month later I had a call asking if I was free to go and meet Nobu San in Paris.  So of course, I hopped on the Eurostar and went to Paris. I went to the Presidential suite where Nobu San was staying, and I set up a photo shoot with pink and blue lighting and photographed his hands.  

Later on me and the team at Nobu Shoreditch went through with some different options of how to paint the hands, and in the end we came up with the idea of six circles in differing sizes.

Lee Sharrock: I can see the Caravaggio reference with the foreshortening, except you’re using neon pink! 

David Speed: Yes maybe if Caravaggio had access to neon pink he would have used it too! 

Lee Sharrock: What kind of pigment do you use? 

David Speed: It’s UV reactive so at night they turn the terrace lights on and the paintings will glow.  It’s a completely different experience at night. 

Lee Sharrock: You host a #1 podcast ‘Creative Rebels’ to provide a platform for creativity and mentor young artists. How did that come about?

David Speed: When we started Joy Collective in 2010, there were a few business books around, but nothing on how to start a creative business. So we thought, let’s put out a podcast about everything we wish we’d known when we started out.  We’ve interviewed some really interesting creative people on Creative Rebels, including Reggie Yates, Fatboy Slim and Emma Gannon.

After doing the show for a couple of years, we realised that although everyone will have a completely unique journey, really there are just a few fundamental things that the people who have ‘made it’ have in common.  One of the main lessons of the Podcast is ‘just keep going’, because you only fail when you stop creating.

David Speed ‘Process’ is at Nobu Shoreditch

©2024 David Speed

Lee Sharrock

Lee Sharrock is a global creative PR consultant, curator and writer for publications including; Art Doc Photography Magazine, ArtLyst, Creative Review, FAD Magazine, F22, Runway Gallery Magazine, Soho House Magazine and STATE.

Titled Abeba Esse, the garden depicts a Black Diasporic journey from Africa to the UK via the Caribbean through plants, flowers and sculpture. Visitors follow a path through a Caribbean landscape to an English country garden, encountering Ové’s Invisible Man sculptures along the way, and botanical labels planted in the soil are inscribed with information about key players in the shameful slave trade.

I was interested in the many layers of the Slave trade, the journey of the African Diapora but the trail of the money, beginning in Africa as a ‘Paradise Found’

Zak Ové

Abeba Esse encourages important conversations about the themes central to Ové’s work – African Diaspora, contemporary multiculturalism, globalisation, and the blend of politics, tradition, race, and history that informs our identities.

Lee Sharrock: The garden’s title ‘Abeba Esse’ is derived from ‘Abeba’, the Ethiopian for flower, and ‘Esse’, meaning essence or the essential nature of something, and both words are Palindromes, meaning they can be read the same backwards or forwards. How did you come up with the title?

Zak Ové: I wanted something playful and African sounding. Due to the serious topic matter, I wanted a title that was attractive and ‘light hearted’ – like attracting bees to the honey…. so to speak. Palindrome’s have that playfulness, of reading back and forth, I like that movement, it echoes the movement found in elements of my practice with a return to the past from the future and back again, of reciprocal time travel. The sculptures that I’ve placed within the garden were originally created for an installation at Somerset House entitled: ‘The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness’ (1.54 Art Fair).

‘The Masque of Blackness’ was a play written for Queen Anne in 1605. Queen by Ben Johnson, with Inigo Jones creating costumes, sets and stage. What I was fascinated by was the script that they were personifying in the actual performance. In the play nine English princesses play Deities from the Niger Delta, who have to come to Britain to bathe in a sea of whiteness in order to proclaim their true beauty. They were played by nine English Princesses, Queen Anne included, and it was the first ever use of ‘Blacking Up’. This was 3 years after ‘Macbeth’ was written, post which King James ramped up the trade in enslalved Africans. I made this as a kind of rebuke in that situation. I like the fact that my figures are sculpted in the past and forged in the future.

Lee Sharrock: So there’s an Afrofuturism relationship to the sculptures?

Zak Ové: Yes you could loosely call it that. But the thing I liked in particular is the idea that they come from the future as Time Travellers to investigate their own history. To unearth the invisible history that was never really spoken about, and a history beyond that, which was given to them by so called, Colonial Masters, in place of any real investigation of their own. That was my point of reference. A lot of my work is to do with the unveiling and re-telling of invisible histories.

I was interested in the many layers of the Slave trade, the journey of the African Diapora but the trail of the money, beginning in Africa as a ‘Paradise Found’, moving through to the Caribbean, shown here with tilled earth, as a marker of the beginning of monoculture and finishing in an English country garden, common to stately homes. What I’m looking at is how the money from slavery financed many of these situations.

Lee Sharrock: Financed these country homes

Zak Ové: Yes, many of them. It’s all there in the records. The vast sums of money awarded from the compensation scheme in 1833, and the flow of money that came from imported goods from the Caribbean.

Lee Sharrock: Are these the same sculptures you exhibited at Somerset House?

Zak Ové: Yes, the sculptures were at 1.54 Art Fair, then they went on to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the Rodin Garden at Los Angeles County Museum and San Francisco City Hall. So they’ve toured quite a few locations already.

Lee Sharrock: Is there any relationship to when Picasso and the Cubists plundered African art and sculpture and called it ‘Primitivism’, or the way that Western artist referenced African artists?

Zak Ové: No, I wouldn’t say so. I don’t look at these as Primitive in any shape or form. A lot of my practice is really looking at old world cultures and Old World mythologies, and using New World materials, that give them a new lease of life and opening them up to a contemporary conversation.

Lee Sharrock: So they’re more like visitors from another time period?

Zak Ové: Yes in this instance I’m playing that game. I like the idea that time is reciprocal, and I’m very interested in the idea that in African culture, we move forward to the future with our ancestors. So it was really embellishing that view point with a deeper understanding of the culture that they come from.

I would never contextualise them as primitive. Not even in the instance in which they were made. I think Primitive is a title that was given by Colonial Conquistadors, which simplifies what this work was about, without any real value of its history its connotation to the history of Africans, how history was recorded, why the sculptures were used in the way they were used ceremoniously. So I think it’s quite the opposite for me in that sense.

Lee Sharrock: You worked with garden designer Dave Green on the Saatchi Gallery garden to depict a African diasporic journey from Africa to the UK via the Caribbean, using sculpture, plants and flowers. How was the collaboration and did you do a lot of research together?

Zak Ové: Working with Dave has been really easy, due to his extensive experience and knowledge. We discussed at length the design and types of plants available in our short time frame, and the placement.. We only had three months to put the project together, so we had to make use of the available resources during this time – I would have liked other things that weren’t available like Cotton trees or flowering tobacco plants, but that takes long term planning. But I’m super happy with David’s interpretation, I think it’s fantastic, it’s what I envisioned.

Lee Sharrock: Garden design and horticulture is an art form in a sense. As a multi-disciplinary artist, how do you find the creative process of garden design, did you enjoy creating a garden, and how did it work marrying your art with garden design?

Zak Ové: I’ve really enjoyed it. I enjoy art placed in nature. Normally they’d be seen in a clinical white room. So I think it gives them a sense of context.

Lee Sharrock: Do you think the garden makes your art more accessible for people, and makes it more immersive in a way?

Zak Ové: I don’t know if it makes it more accessible. I don’t think they’re not accessible. but I think it gives a context to their background, their history, and the story that I’m using them to represent in this instance.

Lee Sharrock: The botanical labels in the ground, which look like they might be the plant names, are actually based on names of people that benefitted from the slave trade. How did you decide on what names to feature here?

Zak Ové: The research was all done through the UCL website, which is completely accurate and factual. I was interested in highlighting some of the principal individuals and institutions, that developed the Slave trade, and people like Sir Moses Montefiore and his brother in law Nathan Meyer Rothschild, known as ‘the Rothschild syndicate’ they were awarded the contract to raise the loan that financed a £20 million compensation scheme for owners of 800,000 enslaved Africans. The Bank of England paid out nearly 45% of what it had in compensation in that point in time. The compensation payments of those loans were only completed in 2013. If you think of a country like Haiti, it’s still paying reparations to France for loss of income from the trade in enslaved Africans. What’s fascinating to me is that, this is a history that I was never taught in school, and it’s my history and it’s very important to understand how the money moved in the UK, and what it then supported post Abollition. The British Empire grew on the money that came from Slavery.

Lee Sharrock: Why do you think this conversation is only now coming to the forefront?

Zak Ové: Because I think it’s a conversation that people don’t want to have, quite literally. We’re not taught about the movement of money or the compensation schemes that were paid out to secure Abolition. It was massive amount of money, the largest government bailout until the bank bailout in 2009..We can go through this garden and look at what different people received in compensation.

It was monstrous. I’ve included two barrels full of murky water in the garden to reference the water that was carried on the enslavement ships.20% of enslaved Africans held captive – over 1.5 million died on the ships many literally dying of thirst. It’s quite incredible when you think of how many people were transported, and then obviously the children they had who were born into slavery, and how that extended and extended.

Lee Sharrock: So the generational trauma needs to be acknowledged by the institutions and people who benefitted from the slave trade, and someone should be compensated. And basically all the institutions were involved, including the Church of England?

Zak Ové: £433 million in today’s terms were invested by the Church of England in the South Sea Company, who were big traders of enslaved Africans. Queen Anne dramatically expanded the nation’s slave trading activities by trading slaves from South America to other European countries who were extending their own empires and colonies.

Lee Sharrock: It’s such a strange concept to think it was acceptable to buy a person, that a human being could be traded. And that so much money was made out of it.

Zak Ové: Yes, and this went on for more than 300 years. It changed the face of the British landscape forever, many our Stately homes, businesses and our trading abroad was all based on the value of this currency (people). It was also the beginning of Monoculture in the Caribbean, because Islands like Barbados were stripped of any produce other than tobacco, cocoa, sugar etc. It was the beginning of our environmental disasters also, because that same mentality was taken and put into how those landscapes were planted and what was removed. In the garden I’ve planted fists coming out of the ground to represent ‘seeds of resistance’. Because rebellion was a daily occurrence, and the treatment of the enslaved Africans was horrific.

Thomas Daniel, who has a label in this garden, was one of the largest enslavers in Barbados. There is plaque placed by TTEACH in Bristol Cathedral. I’ve been working with an organisation called T Teach, which is run by a lady called Gloria Daniels. Her surname has a direct lineage as a slave to Thomas Stanley, as do her ancestors. It’s incredible to think that some people still carry the names of their slave owners and have no knowledge of their own histories. It’s deplorable.

Lee Sharrock: It’s so important to have exhibitions and installations like this and the education that you’re giving people.

Zak Ové: Thank you.

Zak Ové’s Saatchi Gallery 2024 RHS Chelsea Flower Show Garden is at the Royal Hospital Chelsea until 25th May, 2024.

©2024 Zak Ové

Lee Sharrock

Lee Sharrock is a global creative PR consultant, curator and writer for publications including; Art Doc Photography Magazine, ArtLyst, Creative Review, FAD Magazine, F22, Runway Gallery Magazine, Soho House Magazine and STATE.

Dobreva’s paintings explore the geographical and cultural obstacles faced by hundreds of thousands of migrants around the world who are forced to flee their home country by war, climate change, political unrest or persecution. Dobreva herself is a migrant, born in Bulgaria where she studied classical painting, and now living and working in London after a period in Munich where she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts (Akademie der Bildende Kunste Munich).

During her time in Munich, Dobreva spent 8 years working with refugees of many nationalities, teaching them German and helping them to resettle in their new home.  Dobreva got to know the refugees and hear the stories, often traumatic, of the journeys they undertook to escape their country of birth and find freedom or a better life.  She made sketches of the refugees and remembered their narratives, using them as inspiration for the exhibition at Fiumano Clase, which seeks to elevate the people she met and engage with their narratives in the form of vast abstracted figurative canvases.

She creates contemporary history paintings depicting tales of journeys endured and futures yet to be realised, such as ‘Field work II’, a large scale oil on canvas depicting a figure seen from behind embracing an abstract anonymous form, inviting the viewer to imagine their story. Her dramatic brushstrokes, abstracted figures and use of impasto lends the canvases a visceral feeling that evokes the drama of Gericault or Delacroix, with the primal undercurrent of Francis Bacon. 

Andreana Dobreva was born in 1982 in Sliven, Bulgaria. Her solo exhibitions include; “Persephonium”, Lachenmann Art, Frankfurt: “Recent Paintings”, Emanuel von Baeyer Cabinet, “Against Nature” Heldenreizer contemporary, Munich. “Cancelled the Birds and Kept the Waves” , Heldenreizer contemporary, Munich. Her work has been featured at both TEFAF Maastricht and Frieze Masters London.

Lee Sharrock spoke to Andreana Dobreva at Fiumano Clase.

Lee Sharrock: The exhibition is a comment on the migrant crisis title is inspired by Georgian author Eteri Nozadze’s Dadaist book ‘Giganbishe Trauben’, which straddles art and poetry and is full of absurd words and grammar. Is ‘Public Grapes – Anonymous Meat’ a quote from the book, and is your art often inspired by literature? 

Andreana Dobreva: All of my titles have been inspired by literature and initially I wanted to become a writer. Eteri Nozadze is a friend of mine. The somewhat meaningless title of the exhibition was meant to reflect those many narratives, that are simultaneously going on in my work. There are several paintings on this show, where you can find mentioning of migration. But other themes are present as well and they may not make a lot of logical sense. So, I decided for a title, that leaves the broadest possible range for interpretation.

Were you inspired by Vanitas paintings?

Andreana Dobreva: Yes. When I prepared this body of work, I was looking at Flemish still life paintings of the 17^th Century a lot.  Some of them were in the Wallace collection. It is inspiring how, despite all the display of opulence, riches and abundance, Flemish painters managed to insert a layer of deeper, philosophical meaning and find an interesting narrative. I think of Jan Weenix – his still Lifes are displaying dark themes, and the compositions stretch far beyond the still life.

‘Public Grapes – Anonymous Meat’ is your comment on the absurdity and tragedy of the migrant crisis. You worked with refugees in Munich over a period of 8 years and depict their journeys in your paintings. How have you translated the stories of the refugees into your paintings?  

Andreana Dobreva: I used to work with migrants from 2012 until 2019. Before I was admitted into the art Academy in Munich, I studied psychology. And I was particularly interested in migration. At the beginning I went to the shelters with a charcoal and paper and simply asked the people to sit a portrait for me. And this was our means of communication to begin with, because of a language barrier. As we got to know each other, I heard many stories, which were quite shaking for me. By the time those stories were still fresh in my head, I couldn’t reflect upon them. It took me years before I found a way to integrate them in my painting. Yet, the works in the exhibition combine many different narratives, not necessarily in a linear way.

The theme of the 2024 Venice Biennale is ‘Foreigners Everywhere’ and it’s been curated to include many migrant artists and artists from minority groups such as indigenous artists. So I think your exhibition has a relationship to the Biennale theme.  Did you know the theme of the Biennale when you were making these works? 

Andreana Dobreva: I wasn’t aware of the Biennale theme, when I’ve been working on this show. But it’s interesting to know that. When I see images of migrants in the media, it does something to me. It draws my attention stronger than any other topic.

You said you are inspired by Flemish Old Masters, but the drama of the paintings such as the sea crossing paintings remind me of Delacroix. Your paintings are really passionate and visceral, and the story behind them gives them a sense of urgency and pathos, in particular ‘Inverted Roots’ which tells the story of migrant sea crossings. There are hints of the Romanticism of Delacroix (‘Christ on the Sea of Galilee’ (1853) comes to mind) and influences of Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt (for example his ’The Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633)). Yet you combine the influences of Old Masters with a bright contemporary palette and inject them with a hint of abstraction.  What artists would you say influence you the most? 

Andreana Dobreva: Every time I visit a new city, I would first visit the historical art museums and second the contemporary ones. But I look at everything. So, art history is simply part of my language. Besides that – I love Delacroix and Gericault. I have been also strongly influenced by Oskar Kokoshka, Karel Appel (Dutch) and many others.  

You had a classical training and studied painting in Bulgaria and in Munich at the Academy of Fine Arts. Do you always work with oils and what’s your process – do you make preparatory sketches before painting, and do you work from source material or from your imagination?  

Andreana Dobreva: Yes, I usually work with solid preliminary – a long way of composing and searching for the image. the painting process is full of unpredictability.  Oil is unpredictable and unfathomable medium. Just the physical part of it – the amount of impasto and how it behaves on the canvas.

Another interesting thing for me is how to implement the narrative. Because in art school in Munich, narrative was somewhat taboo. You could depict people and situations but please don’t tell us stories. Well, initially, I wanted to become a writer. And besides, I love taboos. So, it became my theme, how to make a narrative that isn’t telling a story.

Andreana Dobreva ‘Public Grapes – Anonymous Meat’ is at Fiumano Clase until 24th May: fiumanoclase.com

©2024 Andreana Dobreva

Lee Sharrock

Lee Sharrock is a global creative PR consultant, curator and writer for publications including; Art Doc Photography Magazine, ArtLyst, Creative Review, FAD Magazine, F22, Runway Gallery Magazine, Soho House Magazine and STATE.