The one thing that we didn’t think would be working in time was the wonderful coffee machine, so when on Saturday morning the Co-LAB shop slowly filled with the aroma of ground coffee beans everybody breathed a sigh of relief and smiles filled faces.
The shop was busy all day and filled with great tunes as the DJ line up took turns at the decks.
A huge thanks to everybody who mucked in to make this happen (and happen on schedule), to all those that made the effort to put your head through the doors yesterday (and hopefully in the days, weeks, and months to come), to the artists who made those extra special touches, to the DJ’s for banging out da tunes, to all those who helped get Co-LAB out there re-blogging, sharing and re-tweeting and of course to Ujima Radio’s Mistri, although if you weren’t listening I can’t tell you why! (98FM)
Co-LAB is now open everyday at 2-4 Fairfax Street, Bristol, BS1 3DB – Monday – Saturday 10am – 6pm and Sundays 11am – 5pm.
With only a day left to go until the doors were thrown open to the public, there was a lot to do on Friday.
The t-shirts crew’s were in hanging up stock and pictures were frantically being screwed onto walls. The huge music system got a make-over from a ‘mini’ Unwellcome Relatives’ crew, 3dom threw some colour around inside and the outside got a neon make over by Paris.
And with only a few finishing touches left to do first thing on the Saturday morning the opening was well on schedule!
The amazing coffee machine has arrived, Max Gregor has been busy adorning the walls with some beautiful spray art and the first pieces of art work have been hang on the Art-el wall.
A great DJ set is currently being put together for the opening on Saturday, which includes Dee Jay Dino, Bash Money, Luminous Mary and John Nation.
Join us 11am to 11pm, we’re sooo excited and can’t wait to welcome you all.
Co-LAB HQ was a hive of productivity all day yesterday, things are really beginning to take shape and we are all getting super excited.
A massive thanks to everybody who helped out yesterday, it made a huge difference and thanks to all those who put their heads round the door to show some love. Get the word out there, this place is going to be happening!
Taking a breather today to go visit some lovely Mum’s and then back to it on Monday!
This week Dreweatts hold their annual Urban & Contemporary Art Auction, they have also added a charity collection for Temwa to their catalogue.
The collection is currently on view at Dreweatts, 24 Maddox Street, London, W1S 1PP. There will be a launch party on Monday 10th December, 6pm-8pm, if you are in London you will be very welcome to come to the event which is sponsored by Staropramen & Averys Wine Merchants.
If you are interested in any of the art work, yet unable to attend the actual auction which will be held on Tuesday 11th December at 4pm, we can arrange phone bidding, online bidding or reserve bids.
This year’s ‘Art for Africa’ for Temwa collection is one of their strongest yet, boasting exceptional pieces from artists, including Mr Jago, andy Council, Jim Starr, Dicy, K-Guy and Adam Koukoudakis.
Each piece has been uniquely created and donated to the event which means that all the money raised goes directly to Temwa.
Temwa has strong links with the urban art scene and as been supported by a wealth of talented artist’s since the charity’s conception in 2003, with the Art for Africa auctions being held annually in Bristol and London. Temwa’s project’s in Malawi have expanded and are now helping to dramatically change the lives of thousands of people.
A full catalogue of the work for sale can be downloaded, please click here.
For further information please contact jo@temwa.org.uk or phone 07855 967 864.
Win a limited edition print!
And if you can’t make it to the auction in London, you can still get involved by purchasing a raffle ticket online (just go the website, and scroll down to the raffle link). Tickets cost just £5, and you will be in with the chance of winning one of these fabulous prizes…
First Prize: A Will Barras limited edition dry point etching: ‘Storm’. Artist proof. 5 of 10. Second Prize: A Rowdy print: ‘Neon Nightlife’. Digital screen print. 50cm x 70cm. Third Prize: A limited edition Paris design Temwa t-shirt. Created by Paris especially for Temwa.
The raffle will be drawn at the launch party, and online tickets must be bought before 4.00pm, Monday 10 December. 100% proceeds are going to support Temwa’s projects in Malawi.
After a decade of traveling the globe, taking in New York, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, the Gambia and many points in between, SheOne brings his signature bold expressive strokes and highly personalised abstract over-spray to Art-el Gallery in Bristol.
Opening at 6pm on the 26th October and entitled ‘Blackatelier’, the exhibition will feature a collection of brand new works and installation pieces created whilst in residency at the gallery. The work reflects on his expansive history of mark making that is deep rooted in the era of New York subway graffiti.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I discovered graffiti as a fully formed art culture, I took the idea of spray-painting a name and have been abstracting that concept ever since.
The new works are the latest entries in an aesthetic journal, information mapped out in a stylised argot, gathered from the immediacy of site specific painting in the abandoned edges and questioning the transient nature of public art.
In graffiti you have to be prepared to walk away from your works. It is a one shot deal, whether it’s a rooftop in the Bronx or an abandoned farmhouse on a Sardinian hillside, you will never personally see the work again. What is important is committing to a moment and the experience of making the works.
This latest show captures fragments of these journeys, externalised private moments, experience translated into permenance.
Blackatelier is wherever I am working, an ambient studio where internal impulses can be realised, a sloganised output made physical with spraypaint.
Please come and join us for what will be Art-el’s final exhibition of 2012. It’s been a great year and we’ve hosted some amazing show’s with some super talented artists, including Mark Lyken, Ermsone and Pinky. The remaining work from these shows can still be purchased through the Art-el website.
Art-el Gallery is delighted to announce the first solo London exhibition from one of Bristol’s most exciting young visual artists to have emerged from the street art scene, Acerone (Luke Palmer).
Entitled ‘Where is Iron John?‘, Palmer’s new body of work depicts images from his exploration of masculinity and the transition into manhood, inspired, informed and twisted from the iconic Grimm Brothers ‘Der Eisenhans’ fairy tale and it’s unique review through folklore and mythology by Robert Bly.
From innovative photo-shoots Palmer reveals some of London’s most classical statues and sculptures that evoke personal representations of the fragility, serenity and the complexity of modern masculinity and its links to the male of yesteryear. Blended with images depicting the pace and expectation of inner-city modernity, double exposure images are replayed in paint and print creating works that are anchored in history whilst emphasising the pressure on the modern male.
“Art-el Gallery is proud to represent Luke’s work in his principal London exhibition. His shows in Bristol have attracted a diverse range of admirers and collectors and we are delighted to have the pleasure to bring this work to the capital”.
ARTIST STATEMENT
The Scottish writer and activist Alistair McIntosh once told me ‘It’s tough to be a young man in this world’ and he was right.
Images of adult manhood given to us by popular culture and mass media appear worn out. The right man, the tough man, the true man, all of which have been force fed to us since birth and are neither accurate nor relevant to the real life of a modern male.
When I recently became a father, my preconceptions of what it meant to be a man were flipped upside down. I found that the irreversible transition between boyhood and manhood had begun and with guidance from a long forgotten fairy tale, my most recent work explores key moments from what is perhaps the most challenging and turbulent time in any man’s life.
The collection of work comprises paintings that juxtapose imagery of London streets and statues of immortalised heroes, double exposure photography and installations that use images of light and death as an allegory for change. ‘Where is Iron John?’ is a visual representation of a young man dissecting masculinity whilst negotiating the complexities of modern life in the inner city.
BIOGRAPHY
Acerone’s (Luke Palmer) paintings have been exhibited in a number of group and solo shows in his hometown of Bristol, as well as on streets and abandoned buildings in the UK and beyond since the mid 90’s. His recent gallery works are an accumulation of 17 years’ operating as a graffiti artist with the internationally recognised TCF Crew, whilst working as a freelance photographer and lecturer at the City of Bristol College. Blending together experimental photographic techniques, bursts of light and paint, Palmer’s innovative paintings capture the energy and vibrancy of his street based murals directly onto canvas.
Palmer’s mural work can be seen adorning walls in and around the streets of Bristol as well as in many esteemed public institutions and private collections such as the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery, the Tobacco Factory Theatre and the new M-Shed Museum in the regenerated docks area of Bristol.
He has exhibited in two solo shows; ‘Call to Adventure’ at the Colston Hall, Bristol (2010) and ‘Photographiti’ at Friend & Co Gallery (2009) as well as numerous group shows including ‘See no Evil’ the ‘Weapon of Choice’ pop-up gallery (2011), ‘Crimes of Passion’ at the Royal West of England Academy (2009), and he also co-curated ‘Distance Travelled’ & ‘Triple Drop’ at the Centrespace Gallery in 2010 and 2009 respectively.
In 2009 Palmer was the recipient of the first prize award in the ‘Bristol: A Second Look’ photography competition for his unique take on portraying the atmosphere of the city in a single image.
Palmer’s 2011 joint commission with illustrator Andy Council, for the City of Bristol’s flagship ‘People’s Museum’ M-Shed, was critically acclaimed by James Lachno in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, who commented:
‘If a centerpiece exists then it is ‘Window on Bristol’, a huge graffiti-esque picture of Bristol’s buildings as a looming, luminous dinosaur arching over the M-Shed itself, by artists Andy Council and Luke Palmer.’
With thanks to Bristol Beer Factory who will be providing the opening night refreshments.
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