Previous Artists

Rana Begum

No. 196, 2009
Paint on powder-coated aluminum
20cm x 20cm x 5cm

Born in 1977 in Sylhet, Bangladesh, Rana Begum lives and works in London. Having graduated from both Chelsea School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art, Begum has exhibited in Dubai with the Third Line Gallery and most recently with BISCHOFF/WEISS in London.

Begum’s work is crystalline, simple, pure and hard-edged. She takes her experience of the vibrant collage of the urban environment and concentrates it through a process of refinement and filtration. Her work, minimal in its formal language, imposes order and system, as all art must, by abstracting those moments of accidental, aesthetic wonder. We find bands of deep colour that slowly bleed into each other or else, sit hard by each other. True to the complexity of urban forms, Begum’s works are both sculptures and paintings.

Though static they are activated by the mobility of the viewer, using relief and perspective to present the moving eye with shifting patterns of colour and form that ripple, brake and reform. Often formed from repetitive, rectilinear units that bring the wall into the visual play, they remember the fragmentary nature of our visual environments and the contingency of the visual relationships that they generate and yet articulate the human desire to draw out meaning from chaos.

Artwork kindly donated by Rana Begum, courtesy of BISCHOFF/WEISS Gallery, London

Ann Carrington

Pearly Queen of Finsbury, 2009
Pearl and agoya shell buttons
105cm x 117cm

Ann Carrington studied sculpture at Nottingham Art College where she received a first class degree before being awarded a place at the Royal College of Art, graduating with an M.A. in sculpture. Working on the premise that ‘objects have seven lives’, Carrington is renowned for creating works of art out of everyday materials, and has become a cult figure among recycling aficionados ever since the designer Paul Smith bought up half her MA sculpture show in 1987. Spending six months on an exchange program in Zimbabwe, she was hugely influenced by the ingenuity shown by children in the townships who would make their own toys by recycling the rubbish that lay around them.

The trip inspired her to create works that were not only playfully humourous, but questioned the ideas of disposability and man’s place in the natural world. A commission for Levis, for example, saw her create a 9ft wigwam out of scraps of denim, the iconic cowboy material, while those viewing her collection of giant crocodiles close up, would discover them to be made of discarded shoe uppers. Ann Carrington has exhibited internationally and fulfilled many private and public commissions.

Artwork kindly donated by Ann Carrington, courtesy of MDG Fine Arts, London.

Jake & Dinos Chapman

Etchasketchathon I (No.23), 2005
Etching with watercolour
62cm x 60cm

Jake and Dinos Chapman have worked together since their graduation from the Royal College of Art in 1990. They live and work in London. The Chapmans make iconoclastic sculpture, prints and installations that examine with searing wit and energy contemporary politics, religion and morality. The duo came to prominence in the nineties as part of the so-called YBA (Young British Artists) generation.

They first received critical acclaim in 1991 for a diorama sculpture entitled ‘Disasters of War’, inspired by Goya’s ‘Disasters of War’ etchings. Since then they have created an astounding and highly intelligent body of varied work that is characterised by its scepticism, parody, and irreverence. Their work is often challenging and addresses controversial issues such as man’s capacity for barbarity, war and violence, and the ‘banality of evil’ in the last two centuries.

They have exhibited extensively, including solo shows at Kestner Gesellschaft Hannover, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Museum Kunst Palast Düsseldorf, Modern Art Oxford, and PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York.

Artwork kindly donated by Jake & Dinos Chapman, courtesy of White Cube.

Banksy

Turf Wars, 2003
34.5cm x 49.5cm

Banksy is a prolific British graffiti artist, political activist and painter. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour and graffiti executed in a distinctive stencilling technique. His artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls and bridges of cities all over the world.

His work was born out of the Bristol underground scene, which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. He was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s.

He originally started as a freehand graffiti artist in1992. From the start he used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces but by 2000 he had turned entirely to the art of stencilling. His stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti- establishment.

Banksy is one of the most notorious and mysterious artist of our time. In less than a decade he has transcended his graffiti roots to become one of the most important artist’s of our generation.