Work In Progress

Current work in progress on the cutting mat, (all these and more!) individually hand-cut from real butterfly species.

Corona

 Corona (Esmerelda)

copper leaf 

Derek Fordjour: The House Always Wins

Jamestown Champ

I discovered African-American Derek Fordjour's work online last year and was eager to see it first-hand, but didn't realise that he was represented by a British gallery. On learning about this, his first proper UK solo show at Josh Lilley I made the journey across town to Fitzrovia to see - The House Always Wins. There is a real carnivalesque feeling to Fordjour's work, and the exhibition is populated by his signature ensemble cast of show-girls, jockeys, prancing drum majorettes, ringmasters and athletes. The real revelations for me only previously having seen his work online, were the pleasingly large scale of the works, and how they are composed from complex layers of a mixed media collage technique which wasn't immediately apparent in the online thumbnails.

First impressions of the gallery are really impressive as visitors are treated to an installation by Fordjour entitled Storefront, across the whole of the windows of the gallery facade. It is a collection of nearly 1,500 wooden compartmentalised objects such as miniature balloons and figures cast in glass, plaster, resin, dirt and iron. It is a really effective tool in drawing in passers by for a closer inspection of the various objects displayed, and again adds to the spectacle of the circus/carnival atmosphere evoked by Fordjour's work. I really enjoyed this exhibition and look forward to seeing more of his work in the future.

Storefront

Storefront (detail)

Storefront (detail)

Carnival I

Carnival II

The Ringmaster & The Rider

 The Conductor

Installation view

 Pomp and Regalia

Southeastern Semi-Finals

Highstep Double

 Rower 

Rower (detail)

Colonial Headdress (after Cecil J. Rhodes)

Derek Fordjour: The House Always Wins

until 16th November

Josh Lilley

44-46 Riding House Street

London

W1

Lisa Wright - Infinite Forest

Porcelain Gaze (detail)

I have been an admirer of Lisa Wright's paintings for a while, and was delighted to happen across this exhibition on its penultimate day last week purely by chance whilst wandering in Fitzrovia. These paintings featuring her distinctive female figures, relate to her recent commission entitled Future Forest in collaboration with Tom Piper, (he of the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red poppies installation at the Tower of London, and Weeping Window, which took place a year ago at the Imperial War Museum here). Future Forest was commissioned by the Forestry Commission for their centenary year, and consists of ten life-sized figures based on figures from classical mythology associated with forests created by Wright, placed around Thetford Forest in Suffolk, and enhanced in dramatic settings within the forest by Piper. The paintings here are informed by the sculptures for the Future Forest commission, and feature women and girls swathed in foliage, or displaying 'inner landscapes' to show our connection to and reliance on nature and forests, and to remind us of our duty to safeguard the ecosystems of this planet.

Porcelain Gaze

Entwined

Grace

Vanishing Point

She Contains Small Things

Shaping Herself

Lisa Wright - Infinite Forest
closed 6th November
55 Eastcastle Street
London W1

Winter Show - Cambridge Contemporary Art

 Sospiri (Gold)

A few pieces delivered to Cambridge Contemporary Art last week, that are currently on display and available to purchase at their Winter Show, including a newly completed gold-leaf version of Sospiri.

Oscillate (Gold)

 

 Whisper (Copper)

The Winter Show

until 31st December

Cambridge Contemporary Art

6 Trinity Street

Cambridge

CB2 1SU

Tel: 01223 324222

Lina Iris Viktor: Some Are Born To Endless Night- Dark Matter

This is the first major show in the UK by Lina Iris Viktor which is currently on show at Autograph in Shoreditch and one that I was very eager to see. Viktor came came to my attention through the legal battle that she had with the rapper Kendrick Lamar who used designs which were very similar to hers in his video All the Stars. The works appear to be explorations of and meditations on black womanhood in which Viktor is both her own muse and model, emphasising her blackness by painting her skin even blacker, like the figures in paintings by Kerry James Marshall (here and here). "My whole project working with black exclusively began with this idea that you're not supposd to use black in your work. Students are taught that. What does that mean? Why is it so hated? The way we think about darkness, it's  ominous. What does it mean for black people to be aligned with this idea? And can you make it beautiful and arresting?" The blackness of the photographs is tempered by the use of gold leaf. References to the work of Gustav Klimt are inevitable given the use of strong geometric shapes in gold leaf used as a decorative backdrop to frame the female form. The pictures also bring to mind the similar imagery of a naked black female amid lush greenery in John Farleigh's wood engraved illustrations from George Bernard Shaw's 1932 book of short stories - The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God (and Some Lesser Tales). 

The ground floor of the exhibition contains works which are solely black and gold which have a richness and certain decadence about them. An installation of several large latticed screens titled The Black Ark are inspired by the Liberian fishermen's nets of Viktor's African heritage.

The upstairs gallery space is painted in an intense Majorelle blue which Viktor chose for its intense frequency. Cameras weren't allowed in this space, but the following two pictures are exhibited within the blue space.

Lina Iris Viktor: Some Are Born To Endless Night - Dark Matter
until 25th January 2020
Autograph
Rivington Place
London
EC2A 3BA