Category Archives: Culture

Art London 2010 {Art Review} by Catherine Balavage

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Where: The Royal Hospital, Chelsea, London SW3
When: Thursday 7 – Monday 11 October 2010
Opening Times: Thursday, Sunday & Monday 11am – 8.30pm
Friday & Saturday 11am – 8pm

Prices: £12 for one, £18 for two – this includes a fully illustrated catalogue
Tickets & enquiries: +44 (0)20 7259 9399 or info@artlondon.net
Transport: Sloane Square Underground

www.artlondon.net

I have attended Art London every year for 3 years. There is a reason I always come back for more, Some 70 art galleries from the UK and around the world are exhibiting at the 12th annual Art London, which opens in the special marquee at the Royal Hospital in London’s fashionable Chelsea from Thursday 7 until Monday 11 October 2010. The eclectic mix of art on sale offers visitors works by internationally renowned names, as well as accomplished emerging artists. The art
comes in many forms and media, including: paintings, drawings, glass works, sculpture and photography. These all sell from a few hundred pounds to six figures sums.

Art London 2010 sees a number of new international contemporary galleries exhibiting including Comodaa (Australia), Dea Orh (Czech Republic) and Villa Del Arte (Spain) as well as other galleries from France, Argentina and Belgium. Returning exhibitors include Whitford Fine Art and the John Martin Gallery. New galleries include Waterhouse & Dodd, Rountree Fine Art and Arthur Ackermann.

HISTORICAL WORKS AT ART LONDON:
This year the fair sees an increased number of exhibitors showing and selling historical works:
Stern Pissarro uniquely specialises in the work of Camille Pissarro and four generations of his artist descendants, of which there are 17. The London gallery is selling an oil painting, full of impressionist texture and colour, by Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), ‘Le Pré avec Cheval Gris, Êragny’ signed and dated C.Pissarro ’93, priced at £1.5 million. Also on the stand will be works by four of his five sons: Lucien, Georges Monzana Pissarro, Ludovic Rodo Pissarro and Paulémile Pissarro. From the third generation, there are paintings by H. Claude Pissarro and his daughter Lélia Pissarro, who is showing part of her new series ‘Beyond the
Spiral’. Lélia Pissarro will be at Art London painting on the stand. Her watercolours sell for between £500 and £1,000 with her oil paintings priced between £5,000, and £10,000.

Whitfield Fine Art returns to Art London for the third time and is bringing a number of historical works, including a signed and dated bronze figure by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005), 1956, (£55,000) and ‘Head of Christ’, a gouache signed and dated ‘51
by Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993). Themes of Christ’s Passion were an enduring inspiration to Frink: her last work, unveiled
at Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral just a week before she died, was the bronze of `Risen Christ’. ‘The Abduction of the Sabines’, an
oil painting by Ceri Richards (1903 -1971), is another highlight on Whitfield Fine Art’s stand. Ceri Richards was fascinated by this
subject and made numerous sketches, influenced by his feelings about the devastation of World War II. This masterpiece was
subsequently acquired by Richards’ patron, Sir Colin Anderson.

John Nash (1893-1977), younger brother of Paul Nash, has become known for his early war subjects. However, leaving London for Buckinghamshire and Suffolk resulted in a change in focus. The collection of watercolours, drawings and illustrations on Rountree Fine Art’s stand demonstrates John Nash’s extensive knowledge of nature and botany. A newcomer to Art London, Rountree Fine Art has a sporting scene by Alfred Munnings and are bringing works by Cecil Aldin and Graham Sutherland. as well as an interesting watercolour ‘The Downed German Zeppelin L19 adrift and sinking in the North Sea’ (English School, Early 20th Century, artist not yet identified). L19 was on route to bomb the port of Liverpool but drifted off course to Wednesbury, an industrial town in the West Midlands. It suffered engine trouble, landing in the North Sea, where it was spotted by a British trawler.
A large collection of Sir Terry Frost’s art (1915-2003), which comes direct from the Frost family, is on show by Arthur Ackermann. Three works including ‘Moon Blue for ‘M’, which was the design for a Mozart LP cover, and ‘Khaki, Emerald Green’, an oil on canvas given by Sir Terry to his son Stephen on his 5th birthday. It hung above Stephen’s bed in their family home in Banbury. Arthur Ackerman also has work by Donald Hamilton Fraser RA (1929-2009) and two Ruskin Spear (1911-1990) oil paintings, which were discovered under the bed of a Chiswick pub landlady, having lain there unframed and wrapped in brown paper for over 30 years. The paintings were Spear’s bar tab, however, he was later barred from the pub for using profanity.

Daniele Pescali established Imago Art Gallery with his wife Elisabetta Tremolada in London in 2007, continuing his grandfather’s tradition of supporting up and coming Italian artists and collecting the finest modern Italian art. Daniele’s grandfather was one of Lucio Fontana’s first patrons and also knew Giorgio Morandi. Works by both these artists are for sale on Imago Art Gallery’s stand, together with emerging sculptor Matteo Pugliese, who had a successful exhibition at Imago earlier this year.

The Court Gallery in Somerset is bringing two extremely rare items: an early Picasso drawing, ‘Personnages et Deux Chiens’ from 1901, and a bronze by the celebrated English sculptor Frank Dobson ‘Wading Female Figure’, a study for Cornucopia, possibly a one-off cast relating to his most important carving, c 1925.
Edinburgh’s Open Eye Gallery has an early oil by Scottish artist John Bellany CBE, RA (b. 1942) ‘The Persecuted’, painted in 1968 during the time when his subject matter was the gritty reality of death and war, priced in the region of £50,000. Bellany numbers Damien Hirst amongst his collectors.

Whitford Fine Art has works by Pop artist Clive Barker, and painters William Gear and Kudditji Kngwarreye. ‘Landscape, Blue Element’ by William Gear, 1959, was painted at the time when this Scottish artist was curator of the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne. Aboriginal artist Kudditji Knwarreye’s landscapes include ‘My Country 06’. In September 2009, Prue Gibson wrote in Australian Art Review, “Although Kngwarreye’s paintings are personal, they are also collective. They document the stories of an entire people. They are closer to narrative than traditional landscape scenes.”

CONTEMPORARY PAINTING & PHOTOGRAPHY AT ART LONDON:
The Little Black Gallery, showing at Art London for the first time, is exhibiting a number of photographic works by Terry O’Neill,

Patrick Lichfield and Bob Carlos Clarke whose piece ‘Fantasy Females Are Impossible To Satisfy’ is priced at £7,000.
The Heartbreak Gallery, which recently opened in Marylebone, London, is exhibiting a solo show of works by Anne Magill in advance of her forthcoming launch in New York where she has been included as one of the few artists to be displayed in the new British Airways Concorde lounge at JFK airport.

Prague gallery Dea Orh is showing works by a number of Czech artists including Jakub Spanhel and Stefan Toth, a dynamic young artist and rising star on the Czech art scene whose paintings are most famous for their use of strategies of reinterpretation and appropriation.

The recently opened Apricot Gallery, the UK’s first dedicated gallery for Vietnamese art, whose collectors include the HRH the Duke of York, is exhibiting at the fair for the first time showing a mixture of up and coming and established artists including Do Quang Em, a founding father of the Vietnamese Young artist association, and Le Quy Tong.

Galerie Ariel Sibony from Paris is showing works by Benoit Trimborn who develops his work in rural landscapes, articulating between tradition and contemporaneity. His paintings are built up in layers to achieve a highly realistic effect that nevertheless flirts with subtle abstraction.

Galerie Olivier Waltman, also from Paris, presents photography by Jean-Pierre Attal with his lambda prints mounted on aluminium, Spanish photographer Aleix Plademunt from Spain and Israeli Tali Amitai-Tabib, as well as paintings by Patrice Palacio and New York based Jérôme Lagarrigue. The Metropolitan Opera, in New York, commissioned a large painting by Jérôme Lagarrigue for their last production of Tosca and photographer Tali Amitai-Tabib was commissioned to do a series of photographs on the Camondo Museum in Paris, which were exhibited at the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris. She is having a solo show at the Tel Aviv Museum in February next year.
The Woolf Gallery is showing works by artists including Clay Sinclair, who has built his career by painting ‘backwards’ onto his unique medium of Perspex, Marcus Egli and Brighton based Fiona Morley.

NOMINATED CHARITIES:
This year’s charity partners include the British Heart Foundation who will be auctioning off works designed by top British contemporary artists including pieces by John Hoyland, Bruce McLean and Sir Peter Blake.
Organiser Ralph Ward-Jackson, director of Art London, said “Art London has always been eclectic, cosmopolitan and relaxed.”

Featured image:
Fantasy Females Are Impossible To Satisfy, 2004, by Bob Carlos Clarke
24″ x 34″ giclee print, edition of 100, £1,500 + VAT or 41″ x 70″
giclee print, edition of 9, £7,000 + VAT

Young people in politics, Part 1: Young Conservatives & Zac Goldsmith strike gold at Kingston University.

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I recently joined the Richmond Park Conservatives and Zac Goldsmith at the Kingston University Fresher’s Fayre. Their aim? To start a Kingston Conservative Society. No mean feat since most people, when they are young, are incredibly left leaning. They need at least 10 members, or no go.

None of this is helped by the fact that, directly opposite, is the Socialist worker’s party, The Marxists and, less worrying, the Liberal Democrats. The Socialist Worker party chant, rather inaccurately “No Tory cuts!” When I point out to them it’s “coalition cuts.” I get a blank look.

Left to right: Editor Catherine Balavage, Zac Goldsmith, Ben Howlett.

The Project manager of the event is Gus Magalhaes. I interviewed Gus, 22, who”s Richmond Park CF is Canbury Ward Chairman and is policy formulator. He had some interesting things to say.

1) Why did you go into politics and why conservative?

I went into politics because I was passionate about making a difference in people’s lives and I felt politics was a good way to do this. I am a firm believer in giving individuals the opportunity to shape their own futures and this ties in well with the Conservative way of thinking with ideas such as meritocracy and entrepreneurship.

2) How do you think we get more people involved in politics?

I feel that in order to get more people involved in politics we need to engage them in issues that are relevant to their lives – a bottom up approach as opposed to a top down outlook. The best way this can be achieved is by inspiring localism as opposed to ‘big government’.

3) Tell me about setting up the Kingston Conservative society.

Setting up Kingston University Conservative Society was challenging, and at some points daunting, as in recent years it has failed to get off the ground but it has been worthwhile considering the numbers we have recruited. I am very proud of the society and of everyone who worked with me to achieve it success.

4) How big a help has Zac Goldsmith been to CF?

Zac Goldsmith has played a pivotal role in CF in Richmond as he has taken a keen interest in supporting its objectives and has provided vital support on numerous occasions. Zac himself has made CF a more formidable and respectable force within the Conservative Party.

5) You got 186 members. How does that feel?

Cracking! I am overwhelmed by the amount of students that signed up to the society over the two days of Fresher’s Fayre. This is a true testament to what I said before about engaging people in the right way in politics – you can get people interested in politics if it is presented in the right way. No one would have expected Kingston University to have delivered the biggest Conservative Society in London.

Gus Magalhaes

6) The Socialist worker’s party has been unpleasant. What is your reaction to people who automatically think all Tories are evil?

One of the great things about our country is that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, whichever side of the political spectrum that you may stand. Our challenge as Conservatives should be to continue to try and engage as many people in politics as possible.

7) What’s next?

The first and most important priority is to ensure that Kingston University Conservative Society continues to build on its recent success and build on its membership. After that, I would love to help in making Kingston – upon – Thames a Conservative seat once again.

Gus is joined by Ben Mallet, Nicholas Clarke, Ben Howlett – Who, a few days later, gets voted in to be Conservative Future Chairman-, Carrie Apples Symonds and Charlotte Borg. All young and passionate people who believe in making a difference.

I bring along Frost photographer, Anthony Epes to take pictures and the day ends up becoming an unqualified success. They get 186 new members. None of this is hurt by the presence of Zac Goldsmith. He pacifies the Socialist Worker’s party by listening to their questions and answering them with grace and dignity. He walks around the fayre and gives people his email address, invites them to have coffee with him. His manners stretch to the CF members. They are called ‘tory scum’ for two solid days and give it the contempt it deserves. One wonders why someone’s political believes means that can’t be friends with someone who has different ones. What a dull world that would be.

This is what Zac Goldsmith had to say about the fair: “there was real enthusiasm among students, but even so, I was amazed by the number of new members. I look forward to holding lots of events at the University.”

If you are a young person in politics and have a story to tell, contact info@frostmagazine.com

The Ed Miliband Wagon by Richard Wright {Politics}

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So Labour has a new leader. Ed Miliband. Never mind that he’s 40 years old and he looks like he’s just a work experience party leader getting to try it out for a bit. He’s true Labour. “Red Ed” is how they opposition are choosing to tarnish him. Oh no, socialism in the labour party who would have though such a thing would happen again. Why it’ll be the end of middle Britain as we know it. But Mr Miliband has a tough balancing act to perform and a mighty job to perform. But he’s has the job 5 minutes I don’t need to make my mind up about him just yet do I? Cause I don’t really know that much about him. And there is a reason for that.

This wasn’t how it was meant to go. David Miliband was the Miliband that was meant to be leader, not Ed. But Ed played the game of politics well. With endorsements from Labour Party luminaries such as Neil Kinnock and Roy Hattersley, the younger Miliband was making sure of a traditional support base within the party, a support base that had been ignored by the two previous Labour Leaders and Prime Ministers of our country, trade union members. And what endorsements they are because if it’s one thing Neil Kinnock knows its winning elections. Well, sort of.

As for experience Bob a Job Ed, another age joke there. If not as good an age joke, can boast a record as cabinet minister. He was Secretary of State for Climate and Energy Change, Or Energy and Climate Change. Whichever one has to come before the horse on that particular front. He also spent time as Minster to the cabinet office and Chancellor of Duchy of Lancaster. And if you think that job makes him sound like something out of Dickens then you’re not alone. He has spent time around such winners as Gordon Brown and former US Presidential Hopeful John Kerry. So clearly that’s where he picked up his charisma. Or at least realised the importance of it.

His speech to the Labour Party Conference, his first as Leader of the Labour Party, was impressive but if you can’t tell from the tone of this article I’m quite definitively hedging my bets. Because he says we are optimists in this country, and I honestly don’t think we are. I think we like to complain and I think we are ultimately quite pessimistic, and it was fears and pessimism that lead to the Government we have now rather then hope of change. I applaud optimism, I applaud a call for a grown up debate in this country and his comments on the War in Iraq are measured and, I feel, correct. Can Ed Miliband bring about a political atmosphere at Westminster that will lead to grown up debate? I very much doubt it, but we will see over the next 6 to 12 months if Ed Miliband can indeed create a Miliband Wagon and if he can I will be more then happy to jump on it.

Richard Wright

Boyarde on Saatchi, Belize, Charlotte Dellal: How an artist finds their voice. {Art}

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I met artist Boyarde through her mother, Nike. I was immediately taken by how original and beautiful her work is. I think Boyarde is a visionary. So, even though she is ridiculously busy, I got her to sit down and tell me about how she makes her fabulous photography, her inspiration and her idea to create a new piece with the help of her friend Charlotte Dellal. Read on…

Boyarde.
I was always destined to be a painter, at school at Bedales, everyone ‘knew’ I was going to be a great painter one day, destined for big things; after going on to do my foundation at Wimbledon School of Art, I suddenly dropped the paint brush, flipped the coin, and decided to do a degree in photography much to everyone’s surprise. And for years i listened to ‘she was so talented, she should have stuck to painting, her photographs are nice, but her paintings were stunning’…. I set out to prove them all wrong!

I was doing commercial photography in London after graduating with BA hons in photography from Bournemouth Arts Institute. At first i wanted to go into fashion, to follow in my mothers foot steps, but it became clear i was more of an environmental portraitist, interested in creative portraits from album covers to even doing music videos. In late 2006 my great friend set up her art company and asked me to create a body of work for her first show in Fulham, she said I had 2 months!

So having studied Kitsch and Post feminism at uni I decided to follow my love: to photograph and empower the female body, and to bring out the inner goddess.. I had dipped in and out of this idea for a while but now it was time to create. So out of nowhere i whipped up my goddess photographs and sold and got incredible feedback; i suddenly realized that perhaps i was a photographic artist after all, as i had never felt worthy enough to actually put my pictures on the wall.

The show was at the end of 2006 and i had my tickets booked already to go for three and a half weeks to Belize, in Central America, to photograph a friends wedding, and go and hang out at their brand new restaurant. I had never heard of Belize, I didn’t even bother to look what part of the globe i was going to! But it became pretty apparent that within a week or so, i had taken more creative pictures there than i had in 2 years in London. I felt so free, i felt alive, and the combination of the sun, the simplicity of the Caribbean lifestyle, the free spirit of the people and my subconscious need to get away from the constraints of the London rat race, enabled me to feel truly inspired for the first time in years.

The rest is history and when i came back i had this empty feeling inside that i had left my heart in Belize. So i started exhibiting my work and got the money to go back for a few weeks by myself which at the time seemed totally normal but actually i see was a bit bonkers! But i had made friends, i had found my place in a little village, and i was welcomed back with open arms. It was there that i had already made friends with this gorgeous belizean girl whose self esteem was completely battered. In Belize, it is not normal to photograph women the way i do, to photograph them nude. But this girl saw my work and she loved it and she asked me to photograph her. She became my belizean goddess, my muse and we started doing lots of photographs together. I brought a set of body paints over, i missed painting so much and was desperate to find a way to incorporate the brush, and through the help of the paint covering her body in one sense, it helped her to release her body in the other: i brought out her inner goddess. I started showing the work over here, and the reaction was incredible.

Nudity in photography is a strange thing in the western world still, but in a third world country it can automatically be seen as dirty or wrong. Men and more importantly, women, loved the pictures and i started getting other girls asking me to photograph them, it was such an amazing feeling knowing i was helping to transform the way the women looked at their bodies in a alpha male dominated country. My original muse gave me the biggest compliment of my life: she told me i had transformed her life forever and made her see how beautiful she was, i had given her her confidence back and her self esteem and she was proud of her body.
I still had many hurdles to over come with the stigma attached to nude photography, but i carefully and quietly started to build my new portfolio of photographs up.

I had to come back to England where i realised i needed to have Belize in my life, and slowly started the transition of my dual life, half in Belize, half in London. In the mean time i continued to exhibit in London, and i quickly saw that another element of my nudes, the bottoms photographs, were incredibly popular. what started from a snap shot of my girlfriend’s bottom sunbathing in the south of France in a pair of ‘naughty’ knicker on a totally accidentally matching colour towel, that sat on my computer hard drive for two years, quickly escalated into my best selling piece!

The Cynthia Corbett gallery in London, took my work on, starting with just the bottoms, and they were a huge success, selling my colourful bottoms in London, New York and Paris. We realised i was onto something, the demand for bottoms was high. I think it is because my bottoms are nudes technically, but they are fun, frivolous, mischievous and very colourful. they are sensual at best and definitely not sexual.

So i took this idea over to Belize, with my brand new set of paints and started slowly on creating a new body of hand painted bottoms to compliment my hand painted nudes. I was covering the idea of bringing out the inner goddess, from all angles, literally!!! My painted bottoms in the style of zebra and leopard patterns caught on, and despite the beginning of the recession, people still wanted bottoms!

So i go every year to my beloved Belize, where life is so simple, to create my body of work to get my inspiration. Life there is funny, it has helped me grow enormously as a person, and when i come back i appreciate London so much more, but i learn to disconnect from the parts i don’t like. London is a rat race, its mutli cultural and glorious but it can be so crammed with layers of whose who and whats what, and whose got the best job and the best restaurant reservation, that sometimes people don’t actually get to ‘live’ their lives. They stop feeling extreme emotion, smothered by the layers of London, so that some people never truly unravel their full potential.

In Belize, sitting on the beach in a small village, when life is hard, its really hard, and when life is great, it is fantastic and orgasmic, there are no layers to cover up those simple reactions and emotions. I have been through a lot of good times there and also bad times, but i cherish them all for helping to actually feel my true emotions and not cover them up conveniently under layers of cotton wool. It has also helped me appreciate the simpler things in life, i am quite a odd bod now, i am just as happy sitting on the beach, eating a plate of rice n beans, and playing cards in a pair of flip flops and jeans, as i am dressing up in a pair of sky scraper shoes, going for delicious dinner in a gorgeous restaurant in London, drinking sumptuous burgundy white wine! I love London, through Belize, Belize has helped me to love London… but i do love my simple life!

Anyway, so my dual life started, i started making the bottoms and it is this year that i threw myself into it and created a massive new collection of hand painted bottoms, i had so much fun painting, the women had so much fun, it was so liberating! And this collection is going to be exhibited, split between the Saatchi gallery and Art London Chelsea both at the same time!

and bouncing backwards a bit…

Tracey, the founder of Art of Giving came to one of my shows last year, i was exhibiting with Jason Bradbury, and she loved my work and immediately asked me to be involved in the Saatchi show and of course i was delighted and said yes yes yes!

It was only this year in July that i came up with the idea of doing an actual body painting installation for the event; this occurred because i was starting to get so bored of having to repeatedly tell people i hand painted the bodies, not the photographs, and nor did i project paintings onto the photographs. Even standing in front of my art pieces, the photographs of painted bodies, people still get so confused! And i technically am a trained painter, and i love painting i miss it when i don’t get to paint, so what a great idea to get the message across in the most gorgeously fabulous way! I was then asked to team it up with some kind of fashion designer for example and immediately jumped to mind, was my great friend Charlotte Dellal and her amazing shoes. She is so talented and her shoes are like pieces of art work in their own right. I have 5 pairs!!!! whenever i wear them to my private views i always get people asking about them and asking to take pictures its brilliant, although sometimes i say ‘you can photograph my feet in front of my art work’ ha ha!

I asked Charlotte and said i wanted to paint some godesses in the style of her shoes and she thought it was a brilliant idea. and that is that! I am currently making the designs for the body paints, but its going to be spectacular, no expense spared. Charles Fox, professional makeup, where i get all my body paint from is sponsoring me and we are going to make these girls look incredible, there is no way you are not going to notice these women! I am also trying to promote healthier toned curvy women, and am not using below a size 10, i want girls who look after themselves but eat healthily and embrace their bodies, and together we are going to liberate the inner goddess tee hee!

Anthony Epes: London at Dawn & Arboreal Dreams. {Art Review}

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Where: Pop-up gallery, Arch 5, Burrel Street, SE1
When: Thursday September 16th, 6-8pm.

Amongst the great, the good and others of Anthony Epes’s Private View where; John and Diane Bird , Nic Careem and Lizzie Mary Cullen.

Epes’s Private View showed off his amazing eye. He is an artist who can capture the very essence of a city, of a time and place. His London at Dawn photographs give a glimpse of London very few people see. Epes spent months getting up in the early hours of the morning to capture these photographs. His determination paid off. The photographs are spectacular. I have to admit I have been a fan for a while.

Epes’s use of colour is original and visionary. I look forward to the next exhibition. I can’t wait to see what he does next. To see more of his work. Click on the link below.

www.anthonyepes.com

Catherine Balavage

Minister lauches social impact Bond Pilot. { Politics }

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Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt and David Hutchison, Chief Executive of social investment organisation Social Finance, are today visiting HMP Peterborough to launch the Social Impact Bond (SIB) pilot.

The Social Finance run SIB pilot is the first scheme in the world that has used new funding from investors outside government to reduce reoffending with offenders. Investors will only receive returns on their investment from the Ministry of Justice if they reduce reoffending by a set amount.

At a time of tight public finances, payment by results models, such as the Social Impact Bond, can tap into new sources of funding to reduce reoffending and provide value for money for the tax payer

Justice Minister Crispin Blunt said:

“Our priorities are to punish offenders, protect the public and provide access to justice. But we want to initiate a more constructive approach to rehabilitation and sentencing, and re-think whether putting more and more people into custody really does make people safer.

“We want to actively involve individuals and voluntary and community organisations – not just in tackling crime and re-offending but in helping to keep people out of the criminal justice system in the first place. This payment by results pilot is both innovative and imaginative. I am delighted to be launching it at HMP Peterborough today.”

The six-year SIB pilot scheme in Kalyx-run Peterborough prison, run by Social Finance, will prepare around 3,000 short term prisoners for their lives post-release and will work with them to prevent a return to a life of crime

If these services are successful and re-offending drops by more than 7.5 per cent within six years, investors receive a payment representing a proportion of the cost of re-offending. The payment will increase based on the reduction in re-offending with the total cost of the project capped at £8m.

Secretary of State for Justice Kenneth Clarke MP said:

“This Government has a historic opportunity to initiate a more constructive approach to rehabilitation. This means making prisons places of punishment, but also of education, hard work and change. As part of our radical approach to rehabilitation we are considering a range of payment by results schemes like the Social Impact Bond.

“The voluntary and private sectors will be crucial to our success and we want to make far better use of their enthusiasm and expertise to get offenders away from the revolving door of crime and prison.”

David Hutchison, Chief Executive of Social Finance commented:

“The Social Impact Bond aligns the interests of government, charities, social enterprises and socially motivated investors around a common goal. We are delighted to be launching the first such structure in the world here at Peterborough.

Our work is driven by a desire to transform society’s ability to invest in addressing its most intractable problems. Developing the Social Impact Bond market will take years, but we believe that with care it can enable future investment of hundreds of millions of pounds a year in these crucial areas.”

Social Finance has raised capital from social investors that will be used to pay for the services in the prison and outside in the community. It is expected to close the £5 million fund by the end of the year. Initial investors include the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Monument Trust and committed individuals.

The development of Social Impact Bonds has been supported by a number of partners including Allen & Overy, Kalyx and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough community including the Criminal Justice agencies, Local Authority and the voluntary sector.

Phil Andrew, Kalyx Managing Director, said:

“We are delighted to be working in partnership with Social Finance. Our work is dedicated to preventing future victims by delivering rehabilitative opportunities to prisoners through work skills, educational qualifications, behaviour programmes, substance misuse interventions, and assistance with accommodation and employment.

“This project will complement our work by supporting ex-offenders through the difficult transition from prison to the community, and it will increase the chances of them avoiding further crime in the future.”

SCARED BUT FRESH. A Matthew Rose collection. { Art }

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A Collection of Works by Matthew Rose
6th October – 31st October

Preview works at www.orangedotgallery.co.uk

Matthew Rose spells with scissors and glue…..

I am very excited about this exhibition. Matthew Rose is very talented. An American artist now based in Paris, Matthew Rose is an exciting talent who creates pieces of visual delight through his cleverly crafted and beautifully laid out collages.

Know particularly for his installations, massive 1000-piece wall-to-wall displays of individual collage works reinvent the process of reading. His recent exhibitions ‘Spelling With Scissors’ and ‘The Whole Truth’ brought together the artist’s immense visual and textural vocabulary in what several critics cited as a dadaist exploration of sense and nonsense. Surrealism moves into the 21st century with Rose’s collages, text works, needlepoints and altered objects and books. Combining beautifully laid colours and patterns with secrets and riddles his works stimulate both the mind and eye.

Matthew Rose’s artworks have been exhibited throughout Europe, Asia and the United States for more than 20 years, and his art is collected both privately and by public collections. His work has been featured in numerous books and magazines, most recently MASTERS: COLLAGE (Sterling Publishing/Lark Books, 2010) which will be on sale at the Orange Dot Gallery for the duration of the show.

Matthew has also created an EXCLUSIVE PRINT to coincide with the show and will be available exclusively online from www.keepcalmgallery.com, with a limited number of signed prints also available from Orange Dot Gallery.

You can download the exhibition poster for the Scared but Fresh show from Matthew’s site. www.matthewrosestudio.blogspot.com/

An exciting artist, exhibition and opportunity to view his works in a more intimate space. Go see this!

Ground breaking artists exhibit New Ink Painting from China At Michael Goedhuis .

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The New Ink Painting from China is an exhibition carefully selected by Michael Goedhuis to reflect some of the finest contemporary works currently available on the market. The exhibition of 30 contemporary ink paintings is the first comprehensive display of Chinese New Ink Painting ever held in Britain and will take place at 16 Bloomfield Terrace, London SW1W 8PG. Timed to coincide with the internationally celebrated event Asian Art in London (4-13 November 2010), the exhibition will run from Friday, 5 November to 3 December 2010.

Ten ground breaking artists from internationally recognized Liu Kuo-sung to the new generation of the avant-garde, Qin Feng, will each exhibit three works. New Ink Painting is the genre poised to be China’s choice for the modern pictorial expression of Chinese civilization and as such is a must for collectors interested in this area. Michael Goedhuis was one of the first western dealers to enter the Chinese contemporary market. He identified artists previously unknown to the West such as Zhang Xiaogang, including one of his key works in the Estella collection which subsequently sold for $6million when the collection was offered at auction in 2008. These ten artists are Michael Goedhuis’ choice for where collectors and first time buyers, with an eye to the future, should now turn their attention. Prices range from $25,000 – $150,000.

“The New Ink Painting is perhaps the boldest pictorial experiment in contemporary Chinese culture. Artists trained rigorously in the traditional brush and ink on paper painting tradition, which is still considered the foundation stone of Chinese civilization, have, in the past few years, broken away from the classical canon and are making works which are meaningful for and relevant to society in modern China”, comments Michael Goedhuis.

Of the established figures Liu Kuo-sung, the most famous of the Taiwanese artists, is exhibiting works from both of his major styles: Snow Capped Mountain which is an example of his pioneering abstract expressionist period and Full Moon which draws on his interest in the cool colour-field works of the 1970’s.

Li Jin from Beijing has recently appeared on the front cover of the publication on ink painting Chinese Ink Painting Now and is known for his humorous and gently satirical brush paintings celebrating the good life in simpler times.

Qin Feng from Beijing and Qiu Deshu in Shanghai are both artists who are exploring ways in which to incorporate a clear link with tradition both technically and through the subject matter, but with a pictorial treatment that connects with society today. This is particularly illustrated in Qin Feng’s Desire Landscape, 2005 and Qiu Deshu’s Mountainscape (red), 2005.

The exceptional variety in this field is illustrated in the broad range of works from Xu Lei, whose blue figurative paintings evoke surrealism to the tough calligraphic abstraction of Wang Dongling.

The artists exhibited are from China or Taiwan and include Li Jin, Qin Feng, Liu Kuo-sung, Qiu Deshu, Lo Ch’ing, Wang Dongling, Zeng Shanqing, Zeng Xiaojun, Yao Jui-chung and Yang Yanping.

An illustrated catalogue of the exhibition is available.

www.michaelgoedhuis.com

Exhibition: New Ink Painting from China
16 Bloomfield Terrace
London SW1W 8PG
From the 5 November to the 3 December 2010
Open 11:00-17:00 Monday – Saturday