Posts – Page 23 – Exceptional Art & Design – Explorations – Acquisitions

December 11, 2015April 2, 2016

Tour at the Tate Britain – Frank Auerbach

Frank Auerbach Retrospective at Tate Britain

Frank Auerbach has been ranked alongside his friends Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud as one of the most important postwar figurative painters. His work has been exhibited all over the world. Still, many underestimate or simply don’t know about him. This retrospective is therefore a terrific opportunity to get to know the work of one of our greatest living artists, who at 84 is still creating masterpieces inspired by the studio sitters and the surroundings of North London where he leaves.

“I started off as a superficial person who was attracted to the arts willy-nilly. The more I realised how difficult it was, the more I knew that it was a challenge, that I would feel I had wasted my life if I didn’t try to grapple with it.” Frank Auerbach, 2015

This Exceptional Tour took place in December and January 2016. For information on future tours, contact: [email protected].

November 5, 2015December 11, 2015

Soheila Sokhanvari shared her “Boogie Wonderland” with passion

Iranian artist, Soheila Sokhanvari, met us last Thursday 12^th November at Kristin Hjellegjerde gallery to reveal her latest exhibition.

Her portraits and sculptures tell of the presence and absence of loved ones, both physical and in time. Soheila’s portraits are very personal yet resonate within us all.

Her work is many layered, based on one hand on family polaroids, and on the other strongly influenced by miniature-painting learnt from her father. In her sculptures, Soheila uses Jesmonite: her first being her 2011 graduation work, a stuffed horse on a blue orb – a striking piece now in the Saatchi collection and to be shown at the Saatchi Gallery in 2016. She has also used Jesmonite for her exceptional sculpture “self-portrait”, created to fill her absence in a family photo, reclaiming her presence in a past event. “This is clearly where I should have been in the family photo, but instead I was in England. The sculpture fills the negative space.” Her three-dimensional hair pieces woven into calf vellum also work around this message while exploring the relationships and rules pertaining to hair throughout history. Lastly, a room is dedicated to delicate drawings executed with the last remaining crude oil that she smuggled out of Iran. Throughout her work the combination of ancient craft and contemporary application reflects an intimate dialogue between the present and the past – a delightful exhibition

For more information about the work, please contact: [email protected].

About the Artist

Soheila Sokhanvari was born in Iran. She is a multimedia artist who graduated from the Chelsea College of Art and Design before studying at Goldsmith. She holds a degree in art history from Anglia Ruskin University, and has studied biochemistry at postgraduate level. Her work reflects the notion of displacement caused by migration and the subjective and fragmented understanding of important historical events of the past. She is regularly mentioned in the art press as a top emerging artist.

October 22, 2015November 5, 2015

Animals in folk tales

Children explored how animals are used to illustrate a great many traditional stories and folk tales, often with an underlying moral, from Beatrix Potter to Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

The children also learnt how to capture and draw the essential characteristics that distinguish animals from one another, and which can be used to enhance the telling of the story itself. As always we focused on developing important drawing skills.

We first observed British animals and how they are drawn naturalistically in reference books, observing and trying out different textures, features, etc. and to place the animal’s proportions onto the paper. Children then told a story and imagined their own scene with animals. We had rabbits and fox’ birthday parties, rabbit goes on holiday.