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Mind in the gutter
So this is first solo show in Paris, it was in the mid 80’s i first saw stencil work on the streets, Nemo, Blek le rat and others. These heroes inspired me to take up the scalpel and paint on the street. Paris has always had a rich stencil history, from 1968 till today and it is a great honour to show in this city.
A bit about the show written by the gallery
“Mind in the Gutter” is the name Dotmasters gave this exhibition. It evokes for him dubious intentions, ambiguous actions, all these unsavory and yet jubilant things. Faithful to the vandal and provocative essence of urban art, this title captures the artists’ state of mind, who, jovial and lucid, enjoys taboos, contradictions, new gods and the absurdity of our contemporary lifestyles.
The exhibition offers several levels of reading: one can appreciate it as a pop, offbeat and impertinent visual experience or read in it an ironic critique of today’s society. Dotmasters develops the concept of “high-end waste” with brass sculptures of chanel paper bags. Through this realization, he takes note, reinforces and plays on the ambiguity between marketing and works of art, between single piece and disposable goods, between aesthetic value and commercial production.
Second theme dear to the artist, rebellious and cheeky cherubim populate the works of Dotmasters. Made from photographs of her nieces, nephews and friends, these stencils bring a mischievous and indocent hue to the exhibition. The turbulent and transgressive little angels who speak out or show their fingers to the spectator remind us of the joy that arises from disorder, the creativity generated by chaos and especially the importance of not being earnest.
GCA Gallery PARIS – 2 place Farhat Hached – 75013 – Paris
du mardi au samedi de 11h30 à 18h30
Tél : +33 6 09 07 75 99
Open till the 16th of March
show catalogue here
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Mind in the gutter- Paris
Mind In the gutter is a show based on my obsession with the naughty, the unpalatable and taboo. The show finds beauty in the dross of life and the joy in disobedience. iI’s been 12 years now of living in the gutter and looking at the stars, and In this group of works I play with the idea of innocence and corruption. My work often has a conflict between right and wrong, photo real stencils of rubbish, high class brands trashed by sweet children swearing. There’s a joy in playing with taboos and off- key ideas with my tongue firmly in my cheek.
The show is at GCA Gallery PARIS – 2 place Farhat Hached – 75013 – Paris
So to celebrate my first solo show in Paris i am releasing this Chanel print (part of the trash bag series). Edition of 53 its a 14 colour silkscreen print 40cm x 40cm on 375GSM cotton rag paper, signed, numbered and embossed and as usual printed by the wonderful Mesh silkscreens. As usual available now from my website for £195 + postage and packing.
Buy here
So come by if your in town, theres a whole new body of work inspired by Paris. There are new rude kids, new wallpaper inspired by the art deco paris metro, cast brass sculptures, I’ve even made a light! Drop by it would be nice to see you.
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Supreme Trash print
Supreme Trash
Edition of 55
16 colours on 375gsm Lambeth cotton rag
500mm x 500mm
Signed, numbered and blind stamped.
£185
Printed by Mesh Silkscreens, Bristol.
Released on Saturday the 5th of May at Graffik Gallery
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Been busy Painting
Noticed the other day that there hasn’t been a post up here since new years! Well i’ve been busy painting around the place. Below are some high lights from the first 3 months of 2018, Liverpool, London and Laos…All the L’s
Portobello
Nice to be painting in Portobello again, on the left you can see graffik Gallery’s indigo get up.
Penge
It’s not often i get given a wall to trash. I love painting these groups of bags, but the content is often a hard sell. Very few wall owners want a permanent reminder of the weeks refuse painted on their wall, so a massive thank you to the Kacper Deli and the very patient Penge Barbers for letting me drop a special Penge pile Halfway up their High St. Walls and support as ever from @ldncallingblog
Kings cross
Asked to try the Market Road gallery bookable wall system out. Yep! It works.
Great portland street
When snow blasted London in early March, a group of about 160 homeless people moved into the disused 17.5 million pound ($24 million) eight-storey building in Great Portland Street, making it the biggest single shelter in the capital.
The occupation – due to end on Monday with a court ordering their eviction – has sparked a citywide debate involving London Mayor Sadiq Khan about the treatment of growing numbers of homeless people.
Sleeping on the streets – or rough sleeping – has risen in England for seven consecutive years, according to government figures, with more than 1,000 homeless in London and more than 4,100 nationally, a 134 percent jump since 2010..
The building developers started to board the windows on the bottom floor after complaints from tenants, effectively blacking out the communal kitchen, with evection looming i was asked to draw some attention to their plight.
Laos
Crazy weekend…yep i did say weekend to Laos! Birthday madness in Luang Prabang with Nam Khan Projects.
Liverpool
January visits up north with one man arts. Lots of fun dropping the kids around liverpool
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That’s all Folks! 2017
It’s been an amazing year 2017! we’ve had trips to the Beruit in the middle east, Cannes, Glastonbury…Penge! It’s been a blinder! Bigger and better tings planned for 2018, with trips to Japan and South America already in the diary! Thanks to all that have been involved in this one. No doubt we’ll be at it again next year together. Happy Christmas and i wish you all you’d wish yourself for 2018!
It’s been a busy summer and i’ve noticed i haven’t posted since Glastonbury…whoops.
I have a new print out this week to coincide with an installation i’ve made for Graffik gallery for the Moniker art fair which opens tonight the 5th of October and runs over the weekend. Drop in, it’s a great group of galleries from all over the world.
The new print is a reworking of Indigo dropping a smile onto one of the first Dotmasters series, it’s a new work tagging an old work. i did a small edition years ago to coincide with a show in London, since then indigo has traveled the world from America to Japan. i’ve been asked for the print too many times so back by popular command here she is.
She comes in 4 great colours each an edition of 25, and was beautifully printed by Ben at Mesh silkscreens in Bristol.
Size | 35cm x 93cm
Method | 5 colour print screen
Paper | 375 gsm Lambeth cotton rag by Mesh Silk Screen.
Edition 25 of each colour-way, signed, blind stamped and numbered by artist
Colour-ways | Grey, Fluro orange, Silver and Gold
Price | £180 incl. p&p or £450 for the set
Available here
There’s loads of new stuff in the show so pop in and check it out, also dropping these new stickers during the weekend which will be available online from graffik and here in the shop.
Hopefully see you there.
Just back from Japan, i had a great time! First off a week in Tokyo with Gypsy eyes showing me around town, helping me find walls and the gallery Kawamatsu for a show on the 8th of October. I first visited Kawamatsu 4 years ago when i first had a show in Tokyo. The owner is a keen street art fan and had one of the only walls that you could paint legally in town. 4 years later i was exhibiting inside. Thanks to everyone who came, bought something and drank a little too much Asahi beer, it was a great night!
photograph Yuki Loroi
Finding walls to paint in Tokyo is tricky, Its a dense city with complicated wall ownership and a young appreciation of art on the street. However Gypsy eyes pulled it out of the bag with this stunning newly renovated cafe/bar soon to open called Kitsune (fox). A weird shape and full of windows with only the stencils i came with to work i think it worked. God knows it took us a couple of very long days to finish! Thanks to Taro who was an incredible help thorough out the week and to Murao who drove like a crazy man to get me around! Thanks all you made a fantastic visit!
address of the cafe
inside
outside
quick skateboard during the night.
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Christmas Show
Its that time of year again! Happy to be part of this show at the Crows Nest in Latimer road, West London. I’ve worked or played or both with nearly all of those on the roster, Its a proper fam affair. The last show there looked great, i’m not a huge fan of group shows but when they are done so well, they are a pleasure. Really looking forward to getting down to see what the combination of works produces!
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Calais Jungle report
With the media reporting that the conditions in the migrant and refugee camp in Calais , where about 4,000+ residents, including an increasing number of women and children, are living in conditions “far below any minimum standards for refugee camps” its hard to ignore calls that ask you to help. On friday night, I had just finished the ‘Biggest Toy in Toytown’ piece mentioned in the previous post when the phone rung. The Connor Brothers were calling to ask if i would help them build some shelters for some of the more vulnerable residents in the place they call the Jungle.
It’s not often you get asked to directly to make a difference in stories you hear about in the papers, so i said yes. We set off to France on the tunnel the next monday started work, money from a Connor Brothers charity print release had been sent before we arrived and lauberge des migrants had materials waiting for us. There are a core of volunteers that make sense of the sprawling squalor, it was hard to know who to help and where to start, but with help withing the camp (mostly David) we soon started making shelters for families.
Here’s our first shelter and occupant family, Coptic Christians fleeing persecution in Eritrea, they asked me to put coptic crosses on the doors, proud of the faith that was in part responsible for their displacement. Luckily i had some old religious themed stencils Adam & God and angels from Sistine Madonna.
Day two brought very different problems, after a days had work on our second set of shelters, we were just packing up and walking back from the Eritrean area when fighting broke out between the migrants and the CRS, a back and forth antagonism between the two drew tear gas from the police and stones from the migrants on the road below the motorway.
Twice as we tried to get into the vans we were tear gassed, wether it was at those throwing rocks or us opening foreign registration plated vehicles, it is hard to tell. Getting a face of gas with your eyes burning and streaming doesn’t make you very charitable to their motives. However we got out in the end safe and sound and returned the next day to build more dwellings for the folk who are forced to live in these dire conditions.
We made a difference to a small path in the camp, it will take months to get the most vulnerable the women and children housed for the winter with more turning up each day it’s hard to see an end to it. We will be back, having learnt some lessons in dealing with the terrain, people and materials it would sad not to make the next trip even more effective.