http://blog.ccagalleries.com/Wed, 26 Oct 2016 12:09:48 Europe/Londoneccemedia blog version 1http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/14092015/getting-to-know-emma-talbot.htmlCCA is delighted to offer three new silkscreen edition by contemporary British artist Emma Talbot.   The editions were printed at and published by Coriander Studio.      A Walled Garden (Bronze)                 A Walled Garden (Red)                  A Walled Garden (Orange)   We interviewed Emma to find out more about her life and work: - 'A Walled Garden' has three colour variations (each an edition of 50), is the ability to vary colour and create alternatives the reason you chose to make them as prints? ET-Yes, I was keen to make use of the possibilities print offers that other media don't, so the idea of different colour options was really exciting. I also like the qualities of the ink used for screen prints and it was great to include iridescent, luminous and pearlised colour. - How important is printmaking to you? ET- I find the processes of printmaking really suitable for my work. The different qualities that can be achieved add a great deal of interest for me, in terms of how my images are realised. Printmaking offers so many possibilities and variations, it has opened my work up even further. - Pattern is a central feature of these works- in this case of foliage and flora that relates to the text- where did that idea come from? ET- I've been looking a lot at pattern in textiles and Persian carpets and the meanings attached to the motifs. In particular, I was interested in images of the tree of life and walled gardens. I like the way image and pattern are combined and  references they have to life experience, growing, developing and changing. I drew the pattern out by hand  from looking a very old Indian woodblock print, (adding the colour separation) and then repeated it as a complex background - like something growing wildly. -Your figures are often featureless, what is the significance of that? ET- I'm often trying to capture the way I think visually, remembering scenes and scenarios I have actually experienced  or imagined (in ideation based on reading or anecdote or by dreaming). Often, in the mind's eye, the features of the figure are far less important than gesture or details of place and setting and so this is what I concentrate on. The scenarios I depict are not exclusively unique to me, they are part of the contemporary experience of being alive. I like the idea that the figures, being faceless, could be anyone, like a well known role which is played by different actors. When we speak of our private lives, we often find a common understanding and I like the fact that something personal can become more universal and easily read by others. -Is a story being told in 'A Walled Garden'? ET- I was thinking about an Indian miniature I'd seen with the image of a woman longing for her lover. There is never a linear story in the work, but there is a narrative idea, about the way we open up when we're in love. There's a psychological reference that walls can be broken down, things grow. - Text features in these pieces and your work generally, could you tell us a little about the appeal of merging word and image? ET- There is little difference between writing and making images for me, both convey messages and ideas. The text is painted just as much as the words and I like to combine both without a sense of hierarchy. - Do you use your own words or quotes? ET- Both - my work is a space where all different things can come together, my own voice and my voice reading others. - How would you sum up what you are trying to achieve as an artist? ET-I'm trying to articulate what it's like to be me, alive today. I'm trying to capture the kinds of thoughts that are in my head. (see the first part of the answer about featureless faces above) - What do you take inspiration from? ET- Japanese Prints, Indian and Persian miniatures, Textiles, handcrafts, woven carpets, song lyrics and writers such as Helene Cixous, Anais Nin, Paul Ricoeur and Pablo Neruda. -Which artists do you most admire?  ET- Sassetta, Thomas Hirschhorn, Harun Farocki, Henri Rousseau, Louise Bourgeois - Did you always want to be an artist? ET- Yes, alwaysMon, 14 Sep 2015 10:44:55 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/getting-to-know-emma-talbot.html#106http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/19082015/getting-to-know-edy-ferguson.htmlCCA Galleries is delighted to publish original limited edition print by Edy Ferguson. We caught up with Edy at Worton Hall Studios (where all our prints are made, and where Edy has a personal studio space) to ask her about her life and work:     -Have you always wanted to be an artist? EF-  I always felt I was an artist so I never experienced 'wanting' to be an artist. I even had easels with drawings ‘on exhibit’ in my bedroom at a very young age, it was a gallery as well. I have a twin brother and we both painted and drew competitively from a young age. My parents' house is filled with traditional landscape and still life oil paintings that we made from the age of 12.  For this reason I was always very curious about other topics that would inspire my artwork. I really wanted to get a liberal arts degree, but I was offered a very substantial merit-based art scholarship to attend an art school within a university. So I took as many literature and philosophy classes as I could, because I really wanted a rich base to work from. This idea continues today; I do a lot of research for my work. During High School we attended the Art Institute of Chicago for Figure Drawing, Painting and Printmaking. We had full scholarships and could attend as many classes as we liked. - How would you describe your work? EF- My work doesn't fit in any neat contemporary category or genre. I paint, make drawings in a daily basis, create sculpture works, as well as sound and video installations.  My themes are social and psychological issues, and my work often explores the effects of violence in architecture, both the tearing down and rebuilding of structure as architecture in the abstract sense.  I'm constantly reconciling these two things. Either the violence is trying to get outside of the architecture, or the architecture is trying to contain the violence. But the two can never separate. -What are you first visual memories? EF- The first is the crank of the pedal from my Mother’s bicycle as she cycled around the neighbourhood. Visually it would have made a perfect Michael Craig-Martin and I totally understand and relate to all his work. - You are from the US originally, have travelled widely and are currently based in London- are you enjoying being here? EF- London is very interesting to me, it's irreverent and very proper all at the same time, with many layers of meaning in conversation with humour as a philosophy of life. There is a great energy here. It is wonderful having lots of foliage around and plenty of spaces to explore, after living in Manhattan. There is a social network here that is lacking in the States. I've lived in several different countries, and really London has the most to offer. I'm really happy here. However like all big cities, its getting clogged, and that’s when artist development suffers.  Art needs space to grow.     Valentino Yellow (2015)   -Why is printmaking important to you? EF- I like the idea of duplication. I often find iconic images from history that reflect our contemporary cultural myths, and it would be a shame to only have one example of it. They are cultural hallmarks that mean so much to so many people. It's not about my vision only; it's about our cultural collective consciousness. It's often an homage to someone I really admire, and I don't think any one person should own that. They make a difference in so many lives, not just my own. - Describe making a print at Warton Hall Studios. EF-  I create a study of the image I want to work with.  The original study is an artwork in its own right, complete. However in transferring it to an edition, it becomes another work of art. I might scan the image and have it rebuilt onto a computer file and printed to size so that I can where I need to hand paint. I paint onto many transparencies that are then photographed and made into silkscreen. Then the print is put together step by step in layers.  It’s a very technical process, carefully crafted. I like to play with this process and leave it open-ended for change. Printmaking is a fascinating synthesis of hand and machine. I've always been looking for a way to create a seamless marriage between painting and photography and silkscreen and etching is a great way to do it.   -What is an average day in the life of Edy Ferguson? EF- I wake up and I think about art all day.  I let my instincts lead me on what I need to do.  I work in a variety of media, so I let myself be drawn to what needs my attention.  I need to be free of distraction to be a mediator of creative inspiration, and before I go to bed I try to meditate, this is very important.  At the same time I try to build alliances with like minded people and I’m always interested in collaborative work with other artists of every field - including  curators, critics, and art dealers.  Hopefully these fields are still populated by artists as well.  I can’t see a life without art. -Popular culture is often at the centre of your work- why? EF- I'm a visual person, so the images I see as I go through the city affect me. I look at advertising in the same way as I look at art. Anything presented is a possibility.  I see the advertising landscape as a good barometer of how sensitive our culture is. What we see on the walls of the Tube is who we really are. Economic factors are incredibly important in the creation of culture, however when economics take over all consideration, the reality is very crude, and timely art will find a way to address this.  The present needs our attention; this is our anthropology and our cultural heritage in the making, so we better look at it. I want to make art about our daily lives and how we live. I want to be very specific about that. - What is your favourite work of art? EF- My favourite works of art are the ones that affect me the most powerfully on an emotional level. The biggest reaction I ever had in front of a work of art was Michelangelo's David in Florence. That was a big surprise to me, because one sees so many pictures of it, you think it will be familiar yet the experience of it 'live' was completely overwhelming.  In many ways all great art performs, even inanimate objects. Paintings perform.  The Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park a few summers ago was a powerful work of art as a performance.     Sleeping Beauty (Kate with Pines) (2015)   - What is your favourite exhibition space? EF- Foundation Beyeler near Basel, Switzerland. I also like White Cube in Bermondsey because it is so big. Art needs a lot of space around it, I think. - Which artists have had the most influence upon you? EF- Andy Warhol. Joseph Beuys, Jean Michael Basquiat, Wilhelm DeKooning, Alexander Calder, Anthony Caro. I love Joan Miro as well. Vermeer. . .Van Gogh. The musicians of the 60’s who integrated American blues into pop music. Finally William Eggleston, Saul Leiter, Martin Parr - all documentary colour photographers, which I practice using film colour negative. - Which book would you take to a desert island? EF- The Odyssey. I read in once on a Greek island, and the wildlife around me seemed to come alive and play various characters pertaining to my life and the book. It's a highly interactive narrative, and I'm sure if I had read it over and over again, I would never tire of the phrase 'rosy finger-tips of dawn' at the break of each day. - What talent would you most like to possess? EF- The ability to convince people to give me large amounts of money to make great things. -Which historical figure do you most identify with? EF- The David again. - How would you like people to view your work in the future? EF- If I do my job right then the work will be a living entity with incredible amounts of energy flowing through it. Which is all that really matters. We all have a story and it gives us something to talk about, but what matters most is how we tell it. It's not what you make, but the intensity of feeling that goes into it as you take it apart and put it back together. This perspective allows a view of humanity that is many sided.  We are here to explore questions and craft them so others can see them, so they may see the world in a different way.   Sleeping Beauty (Kate with Pines) and Valentino Yellow are available to order from CCA Galleries now.  Edy Ferguson's new works will be shown at MULTIPLIED print fair October 16-18th October, Christie's South Kensington.   www.ccagalleries.com  Wed, 19 Aug 2015 04:00:12 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/getting-to-know-edy-ferguson.html#105http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/01122014/dan-baldwin-solo-show-wows-in-new-york.html     CCA Galleries has been delighted to publish limited edition silkscreens by acclaimed British artist Dan Baldwin for several years, this autumn he followed  his highly successful solo exhibition in London in 2013 with a show in New York, Clare Clinton  caught up with him to find out  all about it,     CC: You had an amazingly successful solo show in London last year, how did NY compare? DB: It was amazing, first trip, first solo show, the buzz of being in such a great venue in the meatpacking district and the response from people was so positive, it changed a lot for me mentally this trip.       CC: Why NY? Do you have a connection to or particular affinity with that city? DB: It's been a dream for 24 years, having grown up looking at Warhol, Basquiat, Joseph Cornell, Rauschenberg, Keith Haring, Koons, and the history of the city. It's something I've been daunted by in the past, and I'm so glad now that it has happened - the people are what makes that place so special. CC: Your sculptural work has expanded to include work in bronze as well as ceramic- could you tell us a little about how this happened? DB: I was introduced to a foundry in Athens by Stavros Kotsireas, a Greek artist I know, he asked whether I wanted to make a sculpture. My response was that I have always made sculpture in the sense of putting mixed media objects together, but not actual traditional sculpture like bronze. I decided to send them the figure of a girl I had made for a show in 2008 (where she was placed in the gallery in this peep hole cupboard, after the show she went into the window of the fashion boutique owner Brix Smith Start- from the band The Fall- for a Halloween installation, then she sat in my garden rotting away for five years or more). I tweaked her; pulled her mask back and added bits to her as an experiment in lost-wax casting. I was amazed by what came back from the foundry. I then made four more smaller pieces for the NY show. I feel that my practice has grown a lot now, as every show will have bronze, painting, works on paper and ceramics. NYC was really the testing ground for the bronzes, and the response was very positive.   CC: There was a huge body of work in the show- 30/40 pieces, including works on canvas, mixed media, ceramic and bronze- any favourites?  DB: 37 pieces in all- I use acrylic rather than oil on canvas (I'm too impatient!), acrylic is my new favourite medium on un-primed linen, and primed canvas, and wood.  There's also a hand-made terracotta tile painting with 3d cast objects and metals (which is like a logical halfway extension between a pot and  a canvas). The paintings that got the most response were the 'Subvert' series- they are more simplistic and a new direction for me. The giant pots had big impact, and the  bronze mouse stole the show (selling 6) and the big bronze got major attention. . .I was pleased with every piece, also the works on paper did well, as they have a looseness and un-preciousness about them. CC: There was great press coverage of the show with emphasis on celebrity visitors- could you tell us a bit about a few exciting people who swung by?   DB: Daphne Guinness, she's an amazing character-very eccentric and charming. Alison Mosshart, very cool front woman of the band the Kills, Max Lousada- chairman of the Brit Awards and Warner UK  (he is the reason Paolo Nutini saw my art). Art dealer Patrick Fox, who worked with Keith Haring and Basquiat, heavyweight pro fighter and undefeated champ Bryant Jennings, and many more great people. .   Baldwin with Alison Mosshart CC: While you were stateside you also took the time to donate work to a Teen Cancer America auction in Hollywood, what was that like?   DB: I sadly didn't attend but my pot raised $20,000 and was in the live auction with only  9 others, all major names as you mention below - I've supported the Teenage Cancer Trust three years now through the Groucho Club. . CC: Does having your work auctioned alongside works by Hirst, Turk and the Chapman Brothers make you feel that you have 'arrived' as an artist now?   DB: Not really, as I haven't reached the places that they have, like the galleries they work with, but it’s all moving in the right direction, always forwards, that's the main thing. It was a real honour to be included in that line up and it all counts for something, to be in the room with those people i look up to, and last year Jake Chapman bought one of my pots, which was a real compliment as I'm a big fan of the Chapman Brothers.     CC: What's next for you?   DB: A very busy year in 2015 planned with CCA galleries arranging solo shows of my prints across the UK, one in January at GX gallery (Denmark Hill, London), others in Padstow, Salcombe & Jersey. . .some pot commissions, including the largest we have ever made. There may potentially be a solo show in London, in discussion, for the end of the year, as it will have been two years since my last one, a new scarf launching with www.thisisalimitededition.com , moving house and studio to relocate to Norfolk. CC: Wow- busy year! Any new print editions in the pipeline that we can look forward to?   DB: There are three potential new editions being discussed at the moment. They are all from the NY show and represent quite a change in my work from my recent prints, they are Anomie (Fear of the Dark), Rejection from a Fool is Cruel and The Flood. Watch this space. . .     Mon, 1 Dec 2014 12:39:56 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/dan-baldwin-solo-show-wows-in-new-york.html#104http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/11092014/new-release-antares-and-love-x-and-album-cover-for-the-madden-brothers-by-joe-webb.htmlCCA is delighted to present the newest print edition from JOE WEBB: Antares & Love X.  Antares & Love X Anatares & Love X is the latest in this series of collage-based prints from Joe Webb (Antares & Love IV is also published by CCA Galleries). Webb’s collage-based images are sparing in their composition; using only two or three elements. The images Webb uses tend to be sourced from vintage magazines and advertising. TheAntares & Love series shows glamourous golden-age-of-Hollywood-type women in amorous poses with male figures suggested only in silhouette. Webb creates a vacant space where the romantic hero should be; using collage technique to define that empty space by pattern or texture-in this case a starry night sky. The series drips with old-fashioned romance, but also poses some interesting questions: are these men merely daydream fantasies? Is the artist suggesting that men are simply ciphers to female beauty? Is the absent lover in fact suggestive of the hopelessness incompatibility of male and female outlook? Or is the ‘dream lover’ a remembrance of someone loved and lost? We caught up with Joe to ask him more about the new work, 'Antares & Love X is a progression from a series of collages I’ve made over the last few years. I wanted to explore further the themes of romance and nostalgia these images evoke, and what happens when elements of them are manipulated with a scalpel. Removing a figure and revealing the space underneath creates a mysterious playfulness, which I'm inviting the viewer to decipher. I was interested in the the way they are gazing into the heavens and at the same time are being absorbed by it. It has a visual narrative which is something I try to weave into all of my collages. There's also a sense of hope embedded into the image somehow. ' Webb has also recently collaborated with The Madden Brothers (originally from the band Good Charlotte) to create the cover art for their album 'Greetings from California'. We asked him about working on the project,  - Have you collaborated with musicians/done any album artwork before? JW- No, I’ve had a few requests from but was waiting for an album I really liked and that was going to be released internationally. It’s already made number 1 in the charts in Australia so am really happy I held out. Once you let a band use an artwork that’s it, it can’t be used again ever, so it has to be the right artist. -How did you come to work with The Madden brothers? JW- They contacted me after seeing an interview with me in Fault magazine. They were doing an interview with the same magazine. They’d been looking for artwork for ages apparently, but weren’t happy with what they had so far. They felt my artworks was a perfect fit to their music. All of a sudden I found myself meeting up with the guys in London and that was it!    -Is music an area with which you feel an affinity as an artist? Is it important to your work? JW- I’m a musician myself and used to play in bands a few years ago so definitely yes. I also used to sample unsusual pieces of music from vinyl and remix old obscure records, like an aural version of my collages really.  I was always a massive fan of Storm Thorgerson and Peter Blake amongst the many other artists who made classic album covers.  I like the way a piece of artwork can be tailored towards a body of music. Record sleeves are perfect little canvases to reach a larger audience on. I used to buy albums based on the album cover quite often…the cover is an important part of the whole package of an album.  -Is the image on the cover a special commission or did they pick something from your existing work?  JW- It was an existing piece. We tried lots of other ideas but kept coming back to this one. They guys wanted something iconic for the cover and felt this image encapsulated the feel of the album perfectly.  -Tell us about the image JW- I guess it’s quite an uplifting optimistic image…It’s conveying the idea of taking on the world, jumping in with gusto, having no fear and seeing what happens.   Greetings from California is out Sept. 16th on Capitol records.  See Joe Webb's latest work at Multiplied art fair October 17-20 October at Christie's, South Kensington.        Thu, 11 Sep 2014 10:09:03 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-release-antares-and-love-x-and-album-cover-for-the-madden-brothers-by-joe-webb.html#103http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/20062014/lucy-farley-exhibits-at-royal-academy-summer-exhibition.htmlThis year CCA artist Lucy Farley has been selected to exhibit 'Golden Valleys, Gloucestershire' at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition. Clare Clinton caught up with Lucy to find out more about being part of this prestigious and unique event.    CC: What does it mean to you to have a piece selected for the RA Summer exhibition? LF: Each year I feel very lucky to be included in the summer show, having been at the RA  completing my fellowship, I have been around when the buzz of the selection process is taking place upstairs and I know how competitive it can be.   At the Royal college I was taught printmaking by Chris Orr RA and Eileen Cooper RA and they always encouraged us as students to enter works that demonstrated the best of our printmaking abilities/ personal style and have our work seen by a wider audience. The show attracts around 150,000 visitors and I really value the individual, personal response to my work. I am now in touch with a loyal group of people who have been coming and buying each year and follow my progress. You must, as an artist have your work seen as much as possible so you can investigate that interaction further and hope that what you are communicating touches people- this makes the lonely studio days worthwhile!  There is a lovely quote by David Smith, the American post-war Sculptor who inspires my drawing- ' The point at which my sculpture 'meets' the world is when it is complete' CC: Tell us about the piece you are exhibiting.  LF:  'The Golden Valleys in Gloucestershire'. The image came from many drawings of the same place in Chalford Valley (near Stroud), along the canal. I love to interpret a particular spirit and visual deconstruction of place, which has meaning to me and through editing, re-introduce it to a public audience. American painter Richard Diebenkorn who inspired this piece, had a way of obsessively painting the same streets and valleys in Ocean Park in California and somehow his angle on these familiar streets starts to draw attention to aspects that would otherwise go unnoticed. This is the point at which, when viewed within the new context the artist has placed them, objects and places become symbolic and command fresh enquiry from the viewer. I grind the lime stones by hand upon which this Lithograph was drawn, and  drawing on this three dimensional object makes the whole process very tactile and sculptural. There is more sensitivity with Stone lithography but it is becoming rare these days as Zinc plates and photographic litho have taken the place of stones and enable  mass production. I always hand colour my work using a variety of media, so as a result each one is unique.   CC: How does the selection process work? LF: The selection process takes place over three stages- the first is a submission of the image, if this is successful then you are asked to deliver the picture in person and the final stages are the hang. A work can still be under consideration once it's hung and sometimes taken down and rejected at this final stage. CC:  As a fellow at the RA you obviously have strong ties to the institution, do you feel that it's relevant and accessible for young people and young artists? LF: I think young people and artists should enter work every year as the benefits of being seen are fantastic. As well as sales, you receive a great deal of enquiries about your work in general and I have had other shows happen because of this. There are many hidden gems at the RA to make the most of- the prints and drawings archive (which is open by appointment for public viewing) is truly inspiring, I discovered whilst doing my fellowship, that so many of the works by British artists I have looked at over the years are in the collection and for printmaking purposes it makes a huge difference to see these techniques on paper up close. It is also worthwhile to keep an eye on the smaller shows in the Sackler wings which often get overshadowed by the blockbuster shows in the main galleries- I'm particularly looking forward to the 'Modern Art of South America' opening on 5th July and Allen Jones RA in Burlington Gardens on 13th November. CC: What are you working on at the moment? LF: In the studio at the moment,I have just finished a series of monoprints made at a Barcelona print residency which are based on Carribbean seascapes and wildlife I experienced by boat. My Father crossed the Atlanic and I was able to join him at the finish and bring my art equipment.  The  next project I'm looking forward to starts this weekend, when I travel to Jersey to make work in response to the coastline and history of the Island. This will result in a show in the Autumn at CCA Galleries International in St. Helier,  which will include paintings, watercolours, prints and new ceramic painted reliefs which I haven't shown before.   The RA Summer Exhibition runs until 17th August. For more information please visit www.royalacademy.org.uk  Fri, 20 Jun 2014 12:10:22 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/lucy-farley-exhibits-at-royal-academy-summer-exhibition.html#102http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/14052014/usa-series-by-peter-blake.htmlCCA Galleries is delighted to present a new edition by Peter Blake: USA Series.   Following from the success of 2013’s Wooden Puzzle Series Peter Blake takes the USA as the inspiration for his latest series of collage-based works. Creating pop art compositions from his own eclectic collection of Americana Blake explores a nostalgic world of movie stars, childhood games, sports and everyday objects. Through the use of collaged elements, embossing, glazes and glitter Blake gives this series a tangibility and depth that is akin to the original materials. The series has been made into two editions, with a smaller edition of 25 using 3D printing technology.   USA Excelsior Blake uses a diverse range of source materials including currency, cartoon figures, lettering, matchboxes, movie stills and bus tickets to create a vision of what the USA means to him.   USA Boxer Using the bold colour blocks and geometric shapes most associated with his pop art work, Blake balances everyday objects including a knife, an airline label, matchboxes, a sports card of boxer Sam McVey, and children’s playthings such as spelling blocks and toy soldiers around the iconic star spangled banner.   USA Stones & Shells Blake creates a richly tactile surface through the juxtaposition of natural materials such as shells, pebbles and wood with man-made elements like porcelain fragments, coins and plastic. Using finishing techniques including silver leaf and glazes Blake seeks to mimic the original materials as closely as possible.   USA James Dean James Dean, a vintage postcard of Florida oranges, textile patches, children’s board games and a silver dollar feature in the fourth USA collage.   USA Pacific Park At the centre of the image is a metallic plaque of New York City with an eclectic array of objects and imagery surrounding it from advertisements to postcards and games. Each print is available to purchase individually or as a boxed set portfolio of all five. Watch this space for details of the forthcoming 'USA Series-3D' a small edition of 25 made using 3D printing technology.           Wed, 14 May 2014 05:27:09 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/usa-series-by-peter-blake.html#101http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/08042014/peter-blake-pop-victoriana-at-the-watts-gallery.html  PETER BLAKE: POP VICTORIANA Exhibition at Watts Gallery 7th June- 31st August 2014   Watts Gallery in partnership with CCA Galleries are delighted to announce Peter Blake: Pop Victoriana an exhibition of original limited edition prints by this renowned British contemporary artist.   Famous as the ‘godfather of British pop art’ Peter Blake is fascinated by Victoriana; an interest that has surfaced in his work throughout his career. The exhibition will include a cross-section of the artist’s print editions from the rare Through the Looking Glass series of 1970 to the iconic album cover artwork for Band Aid (2005) and his latest  ‘found art’ pieces such as To a Darling Child (2013). These works all reflect Blake’s focus on nostalgia as a key tenet of pop art, as well as his desire to explore mass culture from an intrinsically British perspective. Whilst Blake’s work is concerned with addressing the issues of its day, it is also full of backward glances both to his own personal history and to Victorian aesthetic and social culture.   The work reflects his fascination with all streams of popular culture, and the beauty to be found in everyday objects and surroundings. His interest in popular leisure activities and commercial art naturally traces back to the nineteenth century when such concepts started becoming relevant to an emerging middle and working class. Many pieces feature found printed materials such as photographs, comic strips or advertising texts. He takes much inspiration from his own collection of objects and printed materials acquired over a lifetime and stored in his studio, which includes Victoriana such as postcards, magazines, advertisements, toys, fairground and circus art, animals from taxidermist Walter Potter’s collection, illustrated reference books and much more.  There is a strain of sentimentality and nostalgia running throughout his work, with particular focus towards childhood innocence and reminiscence that taps in to a certain type of Victorian sentimentality.   Printmaking has been central to Peter Blake’s career; both in reinforcing his belief that art should be accessible, affordable and as democratic as possible, and also allowing him to experiment with new techniques, pushing the boundaries of his work. Pop Victoriana will showcase the variety and longevity of his printmaking career featuring media ranging from silkscreen to digital, and method ranging from the centuries-old to the latest computer technology. This desire to use new techniques, to learn and to experiment id what keeps the artist’s work so fresh into his 80s,   ‘I started to be an artist at the age of 14, so it’s been 66+ years as a student and then artist, so it’s become a long career. And it’s had its high points, and it’s had its bad points. I think most of my ambitions have been achieved. Most of the things I’ve wanted to do strangely I’ve done. I’m delighted to have a show at the Watts gallery, I was lucky enough to have been here a few years ago and see GF Watts’ own collection of photographs and postcards as well as admire the marvellous restoration of the gallery.’    Blake became interested in English folk art and Victorian painters whilst studying at the Royal College in the early 1950s. Later on in his career he was a founding member of the Brotherhood of Ruralists; a group of artists who had turned their backs on city living and moved to the west country, and whose name as well as their aims bore an obvious affinity with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood from a century earlier.  Their aims were ‘the continuation of a certain kind of English painting; we admire Samuel Palmer, Stanley Spencer, Thomas Hardy, Elgar, cricket, English landscape, the Pre-Raphaelites, etc.’. His knowledge of folk art and homage to artistic predecessors had always been a distinguishing characteristic of his pop art in comparison to his peers, and the ruralist phase in his career marked a decisive break from bold geometric urban pop art into an exploration of nature, literature and fantasy. During this period Blake depicted Shakespearean subjects (as GF Watts had done before him) and well as children’s literature including Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’.   Pop Victoriana is a welcome return to Watts Gallery for Blake (as well as the Art Bus), whose love of Victorian fairy painting resulted in him judging wands and wings created by children for the Fairy Fair held at the gallery in 2010. The CCA Art Bus- a mobile art gallery designed by Sir Peter- will be visiting on the evening of 25th July and exhibiting further work by the artist on its top deck. It also marks a local collaboration between the gallery and Tilford-based firm CCA Galleries leading publisher and gallery for British original contemporary prints.   For more information on Peter Blake: Pop Victoriana please visit www.wattsgallery.org.uk  or for further information about Peter Blake’s limited edition prints contact CCA Galleries on 01252 797201 or visit www.ccagalleries.com To coincide with the exhibition at Watts Gallery Wey Gallery in Godalming are showing an exhibition of Blake's pop art prints. for more information please visit www.theweygallery.com  Tue, 8 Apr 2014 12:32:00 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/peter-blake-pop-victoriana-at-the-watts-gallery.html#100http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/19032014/cca-archive-artists.htmlDid you know that as well as publishing new silkscreen and digital editions by established and emerging contemporary artists CCA Galleries has an archive of past publications by artists including Sandra Blow, John Hoyland, Terry Frost, John Piper, Patrick Hughes, Kathleen Caddick, Richard Tuff, Ken Howard, Terence Millington and many more. A few highlights from the CCA Archive:   SANDRA BLOW Sandra Blow RA (1925-2006) was one of the leading lights of the abstract art movement of the 1950s. Her works are often on a large scale and consist of abstract collages made up from cheap discarded materials such as sawdust, cut-out strips of old canvas, plaster and torn paper. The use of such materials is designed to create an expressive informality and promote a natural, organic feeling. Her works have a tactile as well as visual emphasis on surface, and her use of simple large geometric shapes lends a feeling of expansiveness and dynamism.   TERRY FROST Sir Terry Frost RA (1915-2003) was a giant of British abstract Art. Born in Leamington Spa in 1915, Frost left school at the age of 14 and worked at Curry's Cycle shop and then Armstrong Whitworth in Coventry until the outbreak of war. He served in countries as diverse as Palestine and Greece, before being captured in 1941. Frost remained a prisoner until the end of the war, an experience that changed his outlook on life and introduced him to the possibilities of art. In prison camp in Bavaria Frost began to paint and draw, encouraged by young artist and fellow prisoner Adrian Heath. Frost's work reflects his gratitude and joie de vivre at having survived wartime incarceration; it is full of colour, light and the pleasure of existence 'a sense of delight in front of nature'. Frost took his inspiration from nature; the sun, moon, water, boats and the female form are recurring motifs abstracted into sensuous circles and curves. These shapes are often coloured in dramatic blues, reds, oranges, yellows and blacks. Frost believed that the interplay of colour and shape could realise an event or image more successfully than imitation. He combined strict formal discipline with great expressive freedom and a natural sureness of touch.   PATRICK HUGHES Born in 1939 Patrick Hughes had no formal art education and was largely self-taught. He became fascinated by paradoxes and visual trickery at a young age.  From 1964 to 1969 he was Senior Lecturer in Painting and Drawing at Leeds. His first solo show was at the Portal Gallery in London in 1961. He has held several one-man shows particularly at the Angela Flowers Gallery and has participated in various group exhibitions in the UK and Europe. His work is in several private and public collections including the British Council, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Print Collection at the Tate Gallery. In 1979 he won first prize at the Tolly Cobbold/Eastern Art National Exhibitions. His first one-man exhibition in New York was held at the Edward Weston Gallery in Soho in 1983. Hughes' surrealistic leanings have been influenced by artists such as Paul Klee, Marcel Duchamp and Rene Magritte.   JOHN PIPER John Piper’s (1903-1992) career in art spanned over sixty years and has incorporated a huge range of artistic media including printmaking, painting, drawing and illustration, photography, stained glass, fabric design, murals, stage sets and costume design. However, Piper is most well known for his prints and paintings of the romantic heritage of Britain; his explorations of rural Britain throughout his life (a passion that started with bicycle adventures in his native Surrey as a boy) have much influence on his paintings. Piper developed a fascination with vernacular and ecclesiastical architecture. In his prints, his subject matter was predominately architectural; often abbeys, churches, houses, castles, cottages or details of architectural design . His style comes both from his English heritage and his commitment to the emergent modern and abstract movements that were developing as he left art school. Dramatic, romantic combinations of colour, calligraphic line and experimental textures are the tenets of his oeuvre.   KEN HOWARD Ken Howard RA is undoubtedly one of the most acclaimed artists of his generation with a successful career spanning more than 50 years. Ken was born in North London in 1932 and studied at the Royal College of Art . After several years teaching he decided to dedicate himself to painting full time. He now divides his time between his studios in Cornwall and London. He has earned numerous awards and appointments for his work. He is renowned for his preoccupation with the effect of light upon the subject such skills were handed down from such artists as Monet Whistler and Sargent. A constant source of inspiration is the human figure Ken is fascinated with the relationship between the figure and the space surrounding. Ken Howard has established a reputation as one of the most accomplished figurative artists of his generation. He is renowned for his remarkable draughtsmanship. Ken Howard is a member of the Royal Academy Royal Watercolour Society Royal West of England Academy and the new English Art Club. From these Ken has had a number of sell out exhibitions.   TERENCE MILLINGTON Terence was born in Birmingham in 1942. He studied painting at the Birmingham College of Art before moving to Manchester to attend a printmaking course. Since then Terence has taught at many art colleges around England. He has a long established reputation as an accomplished etcher and printmaker and has been regularly published by CCA Galleries since the mid Seventies. His painting and prints have been exhibited across the UK and overseas. His work is also included in public and private collections worldwide notably the Arts Council of Great Britain Tate Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum. Terence's favoured subject matters are landscape and still life. His work often follow a theme where one subject can hold so many different images for him that he will create a series of paintings or prints. Although working in the European still life tradition Terence does not set about imposing his specific artistic style upon his subjects. Each object has its own innate character and his skill is in identifying and expressing it independently. The result as always is a highly individual and jewel-like image.              Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:43:39 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-archive-artists.html#99http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/21022014/collage-collection-by-joe-webb-to-be-shown-at-art14.html CCA Galleries is delighted to announce a special exhibition of original collages by Joe Webb at Art 14 (London Olympia 28th Feb- 2nd March). Joe Webb (1976-) worked for many years on computers as a commercial artist and designer before deciding to return to fine art...his artworks are strictly hand made and 'analogue' after growing tired of the unlimited options of Photoshop, he wanted to get back to a more simple way of working. Recently Webb has worked with CCA Galleries at Coriander Studio to make limited edition silkscreens, but at Art14 we are delighted to present a collection of his original collage work. Webb’s collages explore a range of ideas from the political to surreal, each piece carries a visual message to be deciphered by the viewer. The artist often displaces the central figure or object into an unusual setting, holding a mirror up to conflicting cultures and experiences.         Antares & Love X                            On a Platter                                    Small Steps "I started making these simple hand-made collages as a sort of luddite reaction to working on computers for many years. I like the limitations of collage...using found imagery and a pair of scissors, there are no Photoshop options to resize, adjust colours or undo. My collages work to a basic rule of sourcing just two or three images... I then present them as a reinvented single image to communicate a new message or idea. I suppose I'm fairly anti-technology although I now promote my art on websites, own an iPhone and use Facebook...I wish I had been born 100 years ago.    At the Gallery Super Conductor Collage has a long running tradition of political satire, sourcing material from the mass media and manipulating it to explore topical issues of the day. My recent artworks pick up this baton and attempt to run with it - observing worldwide, economical, social and environmental dilemmas…as well as contemplating our place in the world and beyond, far off into the cosmos.  Distraction The core of the work appropriates ideologic imagery of 1950s home and garden magazines, juxtaposed with conflicting and alternative ideas, reinventing the scene and weaving narratives within. The messages embedded into the artworks are not intended to take a higher moral position, but aim to reflect on and to consider the world we live in. The high impact graphic nature of collage helps me communicate these ideas directly with immediacy, as the old cliché goes, 'A picture is worth a thousand words'.   In a time of the remix, bootleg and mash up, collage seems to have become a more relevant medium than ever before."      The Cloud Eaters                                                       Voodoo Child Art14 taking place at Olympia, London from 29th February-2nd March. Come and see us on STAND M4.  We will be exhibiting work by artists including Peter Blake, Dan Baldwin, Joe Webb, Bruce McLean, Barbara Rae, Lucy Farley and Henry Hudson.  Friday 28 February 11am – 7pm Saturday 1 March 11am – 7pm Sunday 2 March 11am – 5pm     www.artfairslondon.com/site     Fri, 21 Feb 2014 01:15:55 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/collage-collection-by-joe-webb-to-be-shown-at-art14.html#98http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/04022014/paolo-nutini-uses-dan-baldwins-cyclone-for-cover-of-new-single-scream.html  CCA's Dan Baldwin's print 'Cyclone' is being used as the cover art for Paolo Nutini's new single 'Scream'. This is not the first time that Baldwin has collaborated with musicians, most recently he worked in partnership with Alison Mosshart of The Kills to create the imagery of 'This is the Big City Baby', in 1996 he created almum artwork for The Levellers,  in 2007 for Dylan Donkin and in 2011 for Kill Keneda. Baldwin's training in illustrative art as a student created a respect for and a desire to create commercial art. I caught up with him to find out more.  CC: How did the use of your art for the 'Scream' cover come about? DB: Unbeknownst to me the Head of Atlantic Records in London, his wife bought him one of my paintings back in 2006. He has one of my 'Cyclone' prints in his office. Paolo saw it there and loved it, he felt it was perfect for his new album cover 'Caustic Love'. We didn't know much about each other; I had only heard a few of his songs. Before we met in December I bought his two albums and played them solidly in the studio for two weeks. . . they are excellent, he really is a great songwriter and musician. CC: How did the process of deciding how to use the image work? DB: In the end we changed it to the single cover- though excerpts from 'Cyclone' may be used for several of the singles from the album, with different parts of the image used each time. So the image is cropped, focussing on about a quarter of the original 'Cyclone' image. In that one quarter is love, pain, religion, conflict- and even a Scottish thistle. I was very open to however they wanted to use my image; their ideas allowed me to see my own work in a new light. I really like the simplicity of the end result and enjoyed working in a collaborative way.  CC: What else is on your agenda at the moment? DB: I am currently working on my new collection to be shown in New York in December, the working title for the show is The Innocent.  CC: Best of luck with that, really looking forward to seeing the new work.  An overview of Baldwin's career with over 100 images and exclusive interview is now available from ccagalleries.com: DAN BALDWIN 23 YEARS.   Tue, 4 Feb 2014 11:10:37 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/paolo-nutini-uses-dan-baldwins-cyclone-for-cover-of-new-single-scream.html#97http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/06122013/cca-galleries-introduces-lucy-farley.htmlCCA Galleries is delighted to present our first publication with British contemporary artist Lucy Farley: To the Lighthouse, Ile de Re.    Lucy Farley (1982-) lives and works in London. She studied at Central St. Martins graduating in 2005, and has an MA in printmaking from the Royal College of Art (2009), she is currently completing a two-year Fellowship at the Royal Academy. Exhibitions in London have included the ‘Originals’ Printmaking show at the Mall Galleries in London, as well as The Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy in 2008, 2009 and 2010. “Painting, drawing and printmaking are all part of my practice. I am interested in depicting places that I have a personal connection with or a history that inspires me. My work aims to build up a record of time, spirit of place and changing feelings which occur through travel, my existence in the city and a connection with nature and the landscape. ‘The fragments of memory, past sensations and experiences, that are associated with a particular urban or natural landscape, form the basis of my work.' To the Lighthouse, Ile de Réshowcases Farley’s fresh and dynamic take on nature, landscape and the spirit of place. Romantic and windswept, Farley’s sweeping lines and washes of colour draw the viewer into this coastal scene of lighthouse, boats, ominous sky and swelling water. She combines a tremendous sense of atmosphere with a modernity and minimalism that reflects her personal connection with the landscape. The title of this piece reminds us of the novel of the same name by Virginia Woolf, and indeed the flow of line and colour is reminiscent of Woolf's stream-of-consciousness style of writing.    Fri, 6 Dec 2013 01:25:08 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-galleries-introduces-lucy-farley.html#96http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/03122013/new-releases-by-bruce-mclean.html CCA Galleries is delighted to unveil two new limited edition silkscreen prints by renwoned British contemporary artist Bruce McLean. Tulbagia McLean finishes these two beautiful new silkscreen prints with hand-painting, giving them texture and depth, as well as making each one unique. The use of collaged elements adds an extra tactility to the surface. His perfectly balanced compositions are dynamic and have an abstract quality, whilst the floral subject matter gives an overall tone of tranquillity and serenity. McLean has been exploring nature, flora and plant forms in his recent paintings and prints, here we see the embodiment of that journey in print form.  Tall Dutch Tulips  Tue, 3 Dec 2013 10:36:25 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-releases-by-bruce-mclean.html#95http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/06112013/new-release-by-peter-blake-aquarium.htmlCCA Galleries is delighted to present a new limited edition silkscreen print by Peter Blake: The Aquarium (large).    The Aquarium (large)- signed limited edition silkscreen print with glazes by Peter Blake.    Following 2009’s Aquarium from the Classroom Suite, Peter Blake continues his exploration of aquatic life complete with underwater palaces, a sunken galleon and coral reef. By enlarging the scale we are able to see every detail of this marine menagerie, to immerse ourselves as if we were one of the crowd in the foreground. Combining his interest in popular leisure activities with that of vintage illustration and collage, Blake creates a beautiful complex and richly detailed composition.   Every fish, figure creature and object in the piece are sourced and cut-out from old reference, fishing books and encyclopaedias by hand. Blake describes these "cutting" sessions as his relaxation time; he doesn't consider it work. ‘I have a very comfortable desk in the sitting room and I sit with my back to the television – although if the football is on, I’ll turn round to watch the goal when they play it again- and cut things out or do illustrations for Under Milk Wood. It’s how I relax.”   The result is a visually arresting collage from which this silkscreen has been created. Aquarium is so densely packed with fish it appears almost pattern-like.   Wed, 6 Nov 2013 11:32:23 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-release-by-peter-blake-aquarium.html#94http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/04112013/new-release-by-peter-blake-wooden-puzzle-series.html CCA Galleries is delighted tp present the Wooden Puzzle Series- 5 signed limited edition silkscreens with glitter, collaged elements, embossing and glazes by Peter Blake. A series of five new silkscreens created from collages of printed ephemera and objects from Peter Blake’s extensive personal collection. Through the use of collaged elements, embossing, glazes and glitter Blake gives this series a tangibility and depth that is akin to the original materials. His theme throughout the Wooden Puzzle Series is once again the everyday and popular from a bygone age. Cutlery and crayons meet postcards, cartoons and pin-ups. Each work is a jewel of colour and form; together they tell a story of the major influences in Blake’s work; from his interest in found art and objects to his nostalgia for a childhood age of innocence and excitement.  Also available to purchase individually: 50, Friendship, Landscape, Everley Brothers, The Kiss A collage of different omages and objects ranging from vintage postcards and matchboxes to cutlery and crayons, The Kiss brings together colour and texture in a composition focussed on the high romance of a kiss.  The Kiss   Blake's collage of image and object includes a shell, knife, a ruler, a house number plaque and a picture of Elvis Presley. From these diverse and meaningful sources he creates a harmony pf texture and colour- a feast for the eye.  50 Featuring iconic pop art imagery including Mickey Mouse, Coca Cola and the Everly Brothers, as well as the Union Flag and fragments of tile, ruler and film.  Everly Brothers Featuring objects and images from the personal collection of the artist, Friendship wooden puzzle blocks, a gemstone union flag, a russian postcard of a saint, Mickey Mouse, a palmistry chart and poetry plaque. A vision an balance of texture only possible in the musings of Peter Blake.  Friendship A collage composed from elements including a postcards of Victoria and Albert, and the american wilderness, a metchbox, tile fragment, doll and wooden puzzle blocks. Blake combines diverse source material to create a warm and nostalgic pleasure tour for the eyes.  LandscapeMon, 4 Nov 2013 01:46:03 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-release-by-peter-blake-wooden-puzzle-series.html#93http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/29102013/new-releases-by-brad-faine.htmlWe are delighted to present two new limited edition print by Brad Faine: Yellow Brick Road and The Visible at the Service of the Invisible.  Yellow Brick Road- signed limited edition digital print with silkscreen glazes by contemporary artist Brad Faine.  The cowardly Lion, the Tin man, the Straw man and Dorothy may all be construed as metaphors for some aspects of the artistic personality. The Yellow Brick Road may be said similarly, to lead some to an Oscar and the pinnacle of artistic endeavour that it represents  This print comprises two inter-weaving spirals made up from stills from the movies that have won for their stars best actor and actress awards.  The line drawn Oscar is made up of yellow bricks and the numbers on each frame relate to the year the trophy was presented. The images include all the films since the inception of the awards in 1929 until the present day.  However some may think that Dorothy Parker blurred the gender distinctions when she wrote "Scratch and actor and you find an actress". The Visible at the Service of the Invisible- signed limited edition digital print with silkscreen glazes by Brad Faine.  ”My works inspire and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined.”                                        Odelon Redon. Brad Faine, ‘I have used the formal elements of the jig-saw puzzle as the basis of this print, as I have for some time puzzled as to why, once we could read, we continued to use one visual image to represent something else. I can understand the use of the symbolism of the medieval church to educate and engender fear in the population, but I can’t help wondering why we wish to continue using animals, or objects to represent abstract qualities, such as Apes to represent the uninhibited, or Ermine to represent fidelity.  It seems to me that one has to know the language of symbolism in order to understand the meaning of what is being observed. This print contains a spiral text, in the form of an A to Z of some of the more common examples of images and their symbolic interpretation or meaning.  However I must concede that during the middle ages and the Renaissance the introduction of a vision of hell, in a church or cathedral i.e. Fra Angelico’s Altarpiece for St Marco’s in Florence would always result in an increase in the number of the faithful.’  Tue, 29 Oct 2013 09:48:10 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-releases-by-brad-faine.html#92http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/28102013/new-release-by-peter-blake-eiffel-tower-lenticular.htmlWe are delighted to launch our first lenticular editions by Peter Blake: Eiffel Tower in large and small versions.  Both are signed limited edition 3D lenticular prints.  Once again proving his interest in the latest techniques and advances in printing technology, Peter Blake has worked with Martin Richardson (artist, imaging pioneer and Professor of Modern Holography) to create a moving 3D image of one his most loved creations Eiffel Tower.The larger scale of the piece allows the butterflies to be seen in greater detail and depth; their jewel-like colours and range of motion giving one the sense of being immersed in the scene.     Richardson lenticulars are made using proprietary print software and a special lens material, otherwise known as a micro-lens. This combined with other optical components create a 3-D moving image called a lenticular. As we move into the digital epoch, lenticular technology offers artists the opportunity of constructing mini three-dimensional representations of our physical world, allbeit an illusion.   Richardson’s work is a marriage of technology and art, ‘I am able to create ever more realistic images- greater resolutions, greater animations using a much more fine art development approach. I can now capture five seconds of time into one feature- there is a real potential to tell a narrative. The technology in itself is an art and has potential to display new art and new ideas.’  Mon, 28 Oct 2013 10:20:47 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-release-by-peter-blake-eiffel-tower-lenticular.html#91http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/27092013/peter-blake-exhibits-works-inspired-by-under-milk-wood-for-dylan-thomas-centenary.htmlThis autumn sees Peter Blake unveil works from the on-going project that he has been working on for over 25 years: the illustration of Dylan Thomas' 'Under Milk Wood'. This play for voices was created in 1953 and concerns the thoughts and words of over 60 characters in the course of a day in a small fictional Welsh coastal town called 'Llaraggub'. These previously unseen works by Blake will be exhibited at the National Museum Cardiff from 23rd November-14th March 2014 to launch the year-long Dylan Thomas 100 Festival celebrating the centenary of the poet's birth.  Blake's illustrations include over 200 drawings, watercolours, collages and photographs depicting the characters, dreams, scenes and locations; their ongoing fascination for the artist explained by his devotion and admiration of Thomas and 'Under Milk Wood' particularly,  'I still love it and still play a recording of it at least twice a week. I get new things all the time, even now. I've been working on this collection of illustrations for a long time, about 25 years I think, so it's great that it's going to be displayed at National Museum Cardiff for visitors to see. I think the works wil fit in wonderfully in the gallery at NMC particularly as there are two important portraits of Dylan Thomas in the collection and I'm very happy that this will be part of the Dylan Thomas centenary celebrations.' _ During the year of the  Dylan Thomas 100 Festival celebrations of the poet's work will range from theatre performances and visual arts to comedy, television, film and exhibitions thoughout Wales.  Blake's interest in 'Under Milk Wood' reinforces the fascination of popular culture that runs throughout his career and exemplifies how inspiration can flow laterally between artistic spheres; from literature to painting, from music to fashion and so on. This cross-fertilisation has been an key aspect in Blake's work.  For more information visit: www.museumwales.ac.uk or www.dt100.info  Fri, 27 Sep 2013 12:42:44 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/peter-blake-exhibits-works-inspired-by-under-milk-wood-for-dylan-thomas-centenary.html#90http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/12092013/cca-art-bus-visits-st-george-s-hospital-tooting-19th-september.html Special Art Event at St. George's on the CCA Art Bus!- 19th September. Come aboard the CCA Art Bus for a special day at St. George's- the Art Bus is a mobile art gallery and an artwork itself- having been designed by British pop art legend Sir Peter Blake. The Art Bus will be at the hospital on Thursday 19th September from 11am-5pm and will be open to all visitors. Come on board to see two special exhibitions in our top deck gallery: we will be showing a selection of original limited edition silkscreen prints by Sir Peter Blake AND a selection of original limited edition silkscreen prints from the 'Breath of Life' portfolio- a unique collection created by leading British contemporary artists in aid of the British Heart Foundation.   In association with GX Gallery  Thu, 12 Sep 2013 12:14:19 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-art-bus-visits-st-george-s-hospital-tooting-19th-september.html#89http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/03092013/new-solo-show-by-tom-phillips.html This autumn don't miss the exhibition of new works by Tom Phillips at Flowers Gallery, London from 4th September-12th October.    This exhibition by leading British artist Tom Phillips consists of an entirely new body of work. With extraordinary delicacy  Phillips has dissected his previously used, discarded plastic palettes and converted fragments of them into intricate oil  collages mounted on panels.  Throughout Phillips’ broad practice he has been drawn to materials, texts and images, often those that appeared unloved,  (hair, mud etc.) and reconfigured them into artworks, aiming as he says ‘to be the complete recycler’. This body of works  continues this preoccupation, originating in a series started in 1969 called Terminal Greys, which form a border to some of  the new paintings.  Although the nature of this process is improvisatory, the suggestive forms that are composed have been carefully  orchestrated. In The Screens the cuttings are transformed into a collage reminiscent both of a stained glass window and  an old master landscape. Here Phillips is working with an unprecedented collage technique via minute palette mixings  of jewel like colours. These tiny fragments have been caught in resin then through the  application of varnish have been  unified to construct complex images. The collages’ textured surfaces catch the light giving the artwork the appearance of  being illuminated enticing the viewer to look closer and into the artwork.  This unique process conjures up both abstract and figurative works, some strictly linear referring to musical staves,  others more ambiguous reflecting classical images or resembling storyboards for operas such as Wagner’s Ring or more  personally, his own Humument based opera, Irma.  Born in London in 1937, Tom Phillips attended St. Catherine’s College, Oxford and Camberwell School of Art. He was elected  to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1989 and was Chairman of the Royal Academy’s Exhibitions Committee from 1995 to 2007.  He has had retrospective exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, London; The Royal Academy, London; The Victoria  and Albert Museum, London; and The Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. A prominent figure in contemporary music,  art, film, stage design, literature and criticism, Phillips is known for his pioneering explorations of word and image and his  forty-year long Humument project, exhibited in part at Flowers in 2005 and in 2007 at the Dean Gallery, National Galleries of  Scotland, Edinburgh. He is also currently exhibiting at The Massachusetts Museum of contemporary art showing the first  version of A Humument completed in 1973 as well as a substantial selection of the revised edition, still in progress. This  spectacular display contains 1,000 individual book pages    Flowers Gallery- 21 Cork Street- London- W1S 3LZ Tue, 3 Sep 2013 10:56:59 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-solo-show-by-tom-phillips.html#88http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/15082013/dan-baldwin-23-years.htmlCCA Galleries is delighted to announce a new book: Dan Baldwin: 23 Years. It will be launched at Baldwin's first solo show in two years: Fragile which opened at Gallery 8 in St. James' this week.    The show has garnered huge interest from the press with pieces in The Sunday Times, Evening Standard, Daily Mail and Harper's Bazaar to name a few. Famous faces at the opening were as diverse as footballer Frank Lampard and TV presenters Holly Willoughby and Ant McPartlin.    The book is a visual retrospective of the artist's career from art school through the struggle to become a full-time artist, to his current international career. Featuring a foreword and quotes from Baldwin, an essay by Dr. Ben Cranfield, an exclusive interview with the artist and over one hundred carefully selected images- including original paintings, ceramics, sculptures and prints. Baldwin has worked closely with CCA to create this overview of his career so far; carefully selecting pieces for inclusion that best show his artistic progression. The book includes images of early works and studio photographs, as well as new pieces that will be seen for the first time as part of Fragile.  LOVE Fragile also showcases Baldwin's latest original work, and CCA has unveiled several new silkscreen editions at the exhibition, including Faith-Less and Lost Souls I & II. The show explores the concepts of mortality and beauty through the artist's distinctively colourful works that defy categorisation as figurative or abstract, real or imaginary.  The theme of fragility has long been associated with Baldwin's work, not only in its commentary upon the temporality of life but also in the delicate materials he utilises. He begins each work without any preparatory studies but builds upon each one with meticulous care utill a harmonious composition is achieved. The works are each deeply personal and often incorporate objects which Baldwin has been collecting since he was a child. A large proportion of the show will be dedicated to a series of delicate ceramics, a medium with which the artist has started to experiment further in recent years. Now working with a Sicilian pottery workshop, the artist is creating increasingly elaborate urn-like vessels which are representative of death and the fleeting nature of our existence. The most ambitious to date is perhaps 'Sacrilegium', which is adorned with a real human skull cast in clay as well as 20% pure gold paint, crucifix, cherubs and an antique Russian bear figurine. These motifs increase the funerary connotations of the object, making it appear fragile in more ways than one.  Tantrum Confession In addition to working with vases and pots, Baldwin has also developed a series of large-scale tile paintings for the exhibition. The use of this technique is something rarely seen in contemporary art or in a secular context having been associated with the decoration of mosques and churches. Baldwin changes these associations in his work 'The Picnic' which is made up of 96 tiles overlaid with several glazes and precious metals. The dreamlike scene is filled with juxtapositions of life and death, innocence and corruption; children play with a severed head whilst Mickey Mouse dances with a skeleton. In a  final act of 'iconoclasm' the artist smashed the tiles before assembling them, to demonstrate their fragility.  Faith Less Continuing the exploration of symbolism and narrative, the artist's large-scale acrylic works are also like contemporary anti-establishment interpretations of religious themes. 'Faith-Less' is an apocalyptic vision of the destruction that human society could bring upon itself through its consumer focus. A figure representing 'Faith' is seen taking off from earth in a space shuttle whilst chaos envelops the ground below. This work develops ideas formed in an earlier series 'The Road to Hell' after Hieronymus Bosch, whose complex schemes populated with symbols and imaginary figures have been a great inspiration to Baldwin. By contrast, the artist has also developed a series of abstract canvasses which are devoid of any motifs but instead explore further his fascination with colour harmony. In comparison to others in the exhibition, these works evoke a positive responsive response in the viewer but still ask us to consider the uncertain and short-lived nature of human happiness.  All the prints in the exhibition are available to purchase online at Dan Baldwin's artist Page. DAN BALDWIN: 23 YEARS will be available to order online shortly.   FRAGILE: 20th September-4th October Gallery 8, 8 Duke Street, St. James', London, SW1Y 6BN Thu, 15 Aug 2013 10:43:22 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/dan-baldwin-23-years.html#87http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/09072013/iconic-british-artist-patrick-hughes-on-cca.htmlAs Patrick Hughes prepares to open his London studio to the public this weekend, CCA celebrates his print editions. Patrick Hughes has been a luminary of the British art world for over 50 years, he is now perhpas best known for his 'reverspective' work; an optical illusion on a 3-dimensional surface where the parts of the picture which seem farthest away are actually physically the nearest. CCA is delighted to have published a selction of limited edition prints by Hughes across his career; from rare 1980s editions to recent works.  Hughes, 'I am opening up my Shoreditch studio on three Saturdays this summer because I think people will enjoy seeing my illusions in their birthplace. This big space has been my workplace and home for sixteen years now, and I know how much people like getting behind the scenes and understanding more about the processes that go into the making of art. I will be here showing people round, signing books and cards, and giving a short talk with Q & A at the end of the afternoon. '     Cloudy II is also a signed limited edition silkscreen print with glazes and extends Hughes' theme of hearts- a theme which has always been central to his oeuvre. Here Hughes juxtaposes the severe grey interior of a room with a brilliantly blue sky-filled heart. Cloudy II perfectly captures Hughes' optimistic and romantic outlook. Tue, 9 Jul 2013 10:40:22 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/iconic-british-artist-patrick-hughes-on-cca.html#85http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/24062013/unique-print-portfolio-in-aid-of-british-heart-foundation.html Breath of Life is a portfolio of 15 limited edition silkscreen prints by a group of Britain’s leading contemporary artists, published by CCA Galleries. However, this is no ordinary portfolio; it is part of the Mending Broken Hearts Art Appeal: an ongoing effort to raise awareness and funds for the British Heart Foundation (BHF) through the use of contemporary art. These images have become icons used by the BHF to promote their activities across the country, harnessing the unique power of art to grab our attention and to move us. The group of artists taking part in this project is a cross-section of all that’s best about British contemporary art: Sir Peter Blake, Maurice Cockrill RA, Brad Faine, Duggie Fields, the late Donald Hamilton Fraser RA, Gerard Hemsworth, Maggi Hambling CBE, the late John Hoyland RA, Patrick Hughes, Bruce McLean, Antony Micallef, Brendan Neiland, Tom Phillips CBE RA, Barbara Rae CBE RA, and the late Storm Thorgerson. Breath of Life is unique in bringing together this particular set of artists for the first time. That they have all taken inspiration from the same theme gives a very rare opportunity to compare their concepts, making the portfolio very collectable.   Each of the artists was asked to create an original artwork based on the theme ‘mending broken hearts’: a universal theme with endless possibilities that sums up the work of the BHF. As you can see by glancing at the following few pages, each artist’s interpretation is completely unique and the images as a group are as diverse as they are beautiful. This diversity is essential to what the BHF is trying to achieve: to put contemporary art into the mainstream public view and to use its power to make people think. Everybody will see different things in a work of art and have a different emotional response to it; this is the beauty of the Mending Broken Hearts Art Appeal. Of these 15 images there will be one or two for everyone that particularly appeal to us or relate to an experience we have been through. In the end, Breath of Life is about the redemptive power of love, about triumph over adversity, about hope and science combining to conquer heart disease. This positive message encapsulates what the BHF are trying to achieve; to find a way to repair damaged hearts and save millions of lives.   All publishers’ profits from sales of the Breath of Life portfolio will be donated to the BHF. This money will be used to help fund a programme of medical research into regenerative medicine. The BHF’s long term goal is to enable the heart to repair itself once it has been damaged; having a heart attack would therefore become no more serious than breaking an arm. The development of regenerative techniques will help to save millions of lives. Nadja Hale of the BHF explains the importance of the Mending Broken Hearts Art Appeal,   ‘The proceeds of the Art Project will go to the Mending Broken Hearts Appeal. This is the British Heart Foundation’s biggest fundraising appeal ever, which is being launched to celebrate the charity’s 50th anniversary in 2011. The BHF has decided to mark 50 years of saving lives through cutting edge research by raising £50million to fund a specific programme of regenerative medicine that will include stem cell research. Unfortunately, the heart is unable to repair itself so for example, when a heart attack occurs and a portion of the heart dies, this damage is currently irreversible and leads to debilitating symptoms and premature death. This appeal could change all that.   The BHF has been overwhelmed by the response of the artists who have contributed to this project, lending their limited time and considerable talents to produce incredible works of art for the Appeal. Beyond simple fundraising, this project has presented the work of the BHF to an entirely new audience through the medium of art.  It has been inspirational to see how the artists have translated the ‘Mending Broken Hearts’ concept in such diverse and beautiful ways.’   For the artists that have contributed to Breath of Life helping the BHF to achieve this amazing goal was at the heart of their work. As Brendan Neiland says, ‘Using contemporary art to raise awareness of the BHF is a brilliant idea. It is an absolute step forward. What we have in Britain is the foremost artistic talent in the world, for the BHF to use this creative talent as well as standard advertising methods allows a completely different approach. Artists use their creative freedom to respond to their own idea of ‘mending broken hearts’ and therefore bring endless possibilities to the table. I have been incredibly impressed by the breadth of vision and interpretation.’   For many of the artists involved with the project, the work of the BHF has personal significance. I asked Duggie Fields why he had taken part,  ‘ I was very happy to be given the opportunity. My Father died of heart disease in the late 1960s, so I am very aware of the devastating effect of it on peoples’ lives. To make a contribution towards lessening its impact on others was irresistible, and it was also a great group of artists to be included with.’ Duggie’s statement of the private impact of heart disease on his own life reinforces the fact that all of us have been affected by it in some way, whether directly or indirectly. That is why helping the BHF is so important.   Breath of Life ranges from the child-like innocence and joy of Patrick Hughes’ Cloudy, to the dark melancholic emotional power of Antony Micallef’s I Brake Everything, to the witty word play of Tom Phillips’ Take Art for the Heart and the abstract exuberance of John Hoyland’s Soulless Stars Cascade. Each image has a story behind it and each has personal resonance for the artist. One of the loveliest stories is that behind Donald Hamilton Fraser’s Valentine. Fraser sadly passed away in September 2009, but had been keen to take part in the Mending Broken Hearts Art Appeal. Honouring his wishes, his widow Judith gave CCA Galleries access to a Valentines card that Fraser had made for her, feeling that the image would be particularly appropriate. Every year Fraser made his wife a Valentines card, which Judy would then keep in a collection that spanned their sixty-year marriage. Valentine is one of those precious testaments of his love that perfectly captures the power of art to mend the heart.   One of the youngest artists to contribute to Breath of Life is Antony Micallef whose image I Brake Everything has caused a huge buzz from excited collectors. Micallef, whose work has been exhibited all over the world, including the Royal Academy and National Portrait Gallery combines exquisite draughtsmanship with raw emotion in this study of the power of love. Mending Broken Hearts by Sir Peter Blake will be the lead image in the BHF’s appeal, and over the coming year will become instantly recognisable nationwide. Blake (a patron of the Mending Broken Hearts Appeal) has created classic pop art composition that is reminiscent of his iconic works I Love You and Q is for Quarters. His bold colours and geometric forms create a sophisticated balance of form.   The late Storm Thorgerson adapted his iconic album cover artwork for Dark Side of the Moon to create Teardrop, a softer and more emotional rendering of this classic image. The theme of healing is brilliantly taken up by Bruce McLean in Healing Garden, a vibrant collaged piece with the bold compositional elements that we have come to expect from McLean. Both Gerard Hemsworth and Duggie Fields use cartoon-like linear images that subvert viewers’ expectations in Brief Encounter and Madonna and Heart. Alternatively, works such as Clare’s Inspiration by Maurice Cockrill and Sunrise Heart by Maggi Hambling are much more transparent in the joy and optimism they convey, both artists choose to base their composition around a heart-shape, suffusing the paper with colour and movement.   Brendan Neiland and Barbara Rae have taken inspiration from the urban environment; in Calypso Neiland uses the neon lights of Las Vegas to create a ‘sign’ reminding us to take care of our hearts. Barbara Rae has based Repare! Por Favor on the graffiti and street posters of Madrid, using text to reinforce her message. Finally Brad Faine uses visual and textual wit to encapsulate mending broken hearts. He juxtaposes the popular sweets Love Heart-s with their phrases such as ‘kiss me’ etc, with a grid of text made up of scientific words relating to heart health.      Mon, 24 Jun 2013 01:01:46 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/unique-print-portfolio-in-aid-of-british-heart-foundation.html#84http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/17062013/bbc-your-paintings-features-cca-artists.htmlThe BBC has launched an online resource called 'Your Paintings' which aims to catalogue all the painted works owned by the nation. Tom Phillips has his own artist page where you can view 48 paintings by the artist in public owenership, along with information about where the paintings are held.  Other CCA artists whose work features on the site include Sir Peter Blake, Sir Terry Frost, John Hoyland, Maggi Hambling, Sandra Blow, Bruce McLean, Maurice Cockrill, Patrick Hughes, Donald Hamilton Fraser, Brendan Neiland, John Piper, Barbara Rae, and Feliks Topolski.  Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:32:16 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/bbc-your-paintings-features-cca-artists.html#83http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/10062013/cca-galleries-at-the-royal-academy-summer-exhibition.htmlBritish Summer time means cricket, strawberries and cream,  and the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition. This unique event is on from 10th June- 18th August and 2013 is its 254th year! What makes the Summer Exhibition so special is the combination of work by leading contemporary artists combined with submissions from lesser known artists selected by a panel of RA's.  Highlights include original works by CCA's Tom Phillips CBE RA in a room dedicated to portraiture. The exhibition also features prints by Brad Faine, Barbara Rae CBE RA and Dan Baldwin.  Tickets can be booked in advance or bought on the day, for more information please visit www.royalacademy.org.uk Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:21:04 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-galleries-at-the-royal-academy-summer-exhibition.html#82http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/15052013/cca-introduces-british-contemporary-artist-denis-ryan.html Denis Ryan RWS(1948-) was elected a member of the Royal Watercolour Society in 2008. Denis was born in London and studied for an MA in Fine Art at Watford, Hornsey and Ravensbourne colleges of art. His career began in film animation and, later, illustration. Successfully combining both he worked on award-winning films as well as numerous TV and film commercials. Having worked in commercial art since leaving art school he now focuses exclusively on fine art. He exhibits with the RWS and has exhibited in Cork Street, the Royal Academy, Mayfair and internationally in Italy, China and the USA (Charleston, Texas and the OK Harris Gallery in New York, home of realist painting). Denis fills notebooks with sketches and ideas on his travels, collecting collage material and taking many photographs. He has a strong emotional attachment to the city and the recurrent motifs in many of his paintings reflect this, particularly his recent series of neon signs. He exhibits regularly with the “Art of the Real” group, a collective of like-minded artists sharing the same philosophy, style and approach to painting, of which he was a founder member in 2010. ‘I work from my own photographs, the urban environment offering me a lot of raw material. The current neon series has the metal, glass, stainless steel and strong colours that I find both a pleasure and a challenge to paint. I hope the strong composition and my palette, along with the interesting light sources, which play a pivotal part in all my paintings, create the desired impact, producing a painting full of visual excitement.’   Neon Alphabet: On a trip to Coney Island Ryan painted a ‘Playland’ neon sign, ‘That sign pushed the right buttons for me. I realized it had all the things I enjoyed painting- bits of rust, electric cable, worn-out plaster, the hard-edged shapes of the sign itself, the reflective materials and the deep shadows.’ This initial work has led to a series of paintings featuring neon signs. The Neon Alphabet transfers these ideas to the medium of silkscreen, offering new challenges and opportunities to the artist. The print series uses collaged elements and glazes to create texture and depth. Each print in the series depicts a different neon letter; the silkscreen stencils being built up from photographic studies made by the artist. The series represents a love letter to the urban neon landscape,  as well as the artist’s fascination with these gritty, old-fashioned and decaying signs that are rapidly giving way to more modern electric alternatives; echoing the ever-changing nature of our cities.      Wed, 15 May 2013 01:19:58 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-introduces-british-contemporary-artist-denis-ryan.html#81http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/08052013/new-releases-by-joe-webb.htmlCCA Galleries is delighted to present new limited edition silkscreen releases by British contemporary artist Joe Webb: Back to Black (diamond dust) and Back to Black (gloss).  Black to Black is about the beauty of the female form with nothing to distract from it. Webb’s image is the epitome of understated elegance and glamour. The simplicity of a female figure highlighted against a black background is enhanced by the delicate sparkle of diamond dust on her jewels. By excluding most of the face from the picture frame, the figure becomes anonymous; Webb puts the emphasis on the shape and form of the body. Examined objectively, the body parts appear to float out of space, an almost abstract shape.     "Back To Black is taken from a series of new collages I've recently made. There's a continuous unbroken line throughout the body parts...it's my most minimal work yet, only the flesh of the subject is left which produces an almost abstract shape. These were in part inspired by Henri Matisse's 'Blue Nude' cutouts. I like Matisse's idea of 'painting with scissors' and the way his work became so minimal and concise in his later years. I enjoy referencing other artists work then taking it somewhere else."    Wed, 8 May 2013 01:48:16 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-releases-by-joe-webb.html#80http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/03052013/new-releases-by-martin-richardsons.html CCA Galleries is delighted to present three new limited edition lenticular print by Martin Richardson: Eve, Star and Strips (blue), Star and Strips (vermilion).  These new works by Martin Richardson represent a departure from three-dimensional imaging into real-time animation. 'Eve' is the first in a new process that combines laser etching with lenticular print in a composition that depicts the female figure in movement. The second and third, 'Star & Strips' (blue and Vermillion), combines three-dimensional abstract form in vivid colour to complement a dancing Elvis figure as musical tribute.      Richardson’s work is a marriage of technology and art, ‘I am able to create ever more realistic images- greater resolutions, greater animations using a much more fine art development approach. I can now capture five seconds of time into one feature- there is a real potential to tell a narrative. The technology in itself is an art and has potential to display new art and new ideas.’    Fri, 3 May 2013 10:23:39 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-releases-by-martin-richardsons.html#79http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/01052013/new-release-tv-eyes-happy-happy-by-dan-baldwin.htmlCCA Galleries is delighted to present a new limited edition silkscreen diptych by Dan Baldwin: TV Eyes/Happy Happy.  Originally conceived as two separate pieces, chance led to TV Eyes and Happy Happy being placed next to each other in Dan Baldwin’s studio. Viewing them next to each other made the artist consider them both in a new light and see parallels and connections between them that he had not originally considered. Baldwin re-worked the right side of TV Eyes so that the abstract composition of Happy Happy seemed to flow into it, creating a diptych that moves from figurative to abstraction and from complexity to simplicity. Happy Happy is an abstract exercise in colour and form, in which Baldwin plays with the ideas of art as therapy, and how chance can be incorporated into art.  Ink dripped from pipettes created the lines of the grid; the element of chance dictating whether the lines merge, become fatter or thinner or veer off.  He then counted every blank area created by the grid (1829 in total) filling each one with one of one hundred colour tones he had mixed. The act of filling each blank square and choosing the tone that created the best balance and harmony was a very satisfying and almost therapeutic process for the artist, ‘You realise that an experiment in randomness is not possible. As an artist you are making instinctive decisions-may be subconsciously-all the time; which colour should sit next to another and so on. There is a satisfaction in being liberated from figurative composition, being free to balance colour and form only. Once the work was completed I found it really hard to drag my eyes away from it; there is something mesmerising about 100 colours competing with each other and merging together. It reminded me of when you stare at a television screen and your eyes go off into pixellated abstraction.’ TV Eyes reflects both Baldwin’s concerns as the parent of a young child and the modern domestic environment generally. Figures, symbols, and motifs pertinent to these ideas populate the composition, and as the eyes of a telly addict glaze over and become mesmerised, so TV Eyes melts into the abstract colour grid of Happy Happy;  after all what is a television screen but millions of tiny pixels of colour? The photographic image of a young boy on the left side of the piece represents the innocence and vulnerability of children as they are exposed to mass culture through the television screen.  Warm domestic and childhood motifs: the loving mother, toys, chicks, childish scribbling, are contrasted with darker imagery: skulls and eye sockets being pecked by those afore-mentioned innocent chicks, as well as scientific motifs- reflecting the beneficial educational power of TV.  original mixed media on canvas of TV Eyes/Happy HappyWed, 1 May 2013 11:17:31 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-release-tv-eyes-happy-happy-by-dan-baldwin.html#78http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/30042013/new-releases-by-peter-blake.htmlCCA Galleries is delighted to present six new Found Art limited edition prints by Sir Peter Blake.  Found Art: Peral Buttons- signed limited edition inkjet print with silkscreen glazes by Sir Peter Blake.  Commercial objects and art can be things of beauty. By enlarging them and presenting them as fine art, Blake enables us to see things in a different way. He also awakens a sense of nostalgia for an age where even the humblest of products were produced and presented with great care and great design, as we see here in this gorgeous set of pearl buttons. This image combines the domestic with the elegant simplicity of Japanese design.  Found Art: Eggs- signed limited inkjet print with silkscreen glazes by Sir Peter Blake.  Found Art: Eggs reflects Blake’s admiration for the beautiful illustration in natural history encyclopaedia’s of the nineteenth century, this page showing the diversity of egg-types in nature is a perfect example of this beauty. Blake collects such books as part of his collection of printed materials and searches through them for inspiration as well as for images to use in his collage work. The key tenet of the Found Art series is to enlarge non-art objects and images to allow the viewer to see them in a new light. The enlargement of this page allows us to see every detail and sheen of texture of the eggs depicted, to see the page takes on an almost abstract quality, concerned with pattern colour and texture. The scientific layout of these specimens with their labelling etc. would hold great appeal to the collecting instinct of the artist.  Found Art: 1d Book- signed limited edition inkjet print with silkscreen glazes by Sir Peter Blake.  The Found Art series continues with this exuberant cover from a ‘dime novel’. Frank Reade was the protagonist of a series of dime novels published primarily for boys. The four Frank Reade stories concerned adventures with the character's inventions, various robot-like mechanisms powered by steam. A very long series of juvenile novels followed which featured the son of Frank Reade, Frank Reade Jr., as its teenaged inventor-hero. These stories were written by Luis P. Senarens (1865–1939) with the pseudonym Noname. Frank Reade Jr.’s inventions included airships,  submersibles, steam-driven and electrical land vehicles, and steam-powered robots- as seen here with the ‘Steam Horse’.  The Frank Reade stories are perhaps the best known of the many boys' invention fiction series published in America during the later 19th century. The choice of such a subject is typical of Blake’s oeuvre; combining a nostalgia for childhood objects, an interest in popular entertainment and the use of rare printed materials from him personal collection.  Found Art: Clowns- signed limited edition inkjet print with silkscreen glzaes by Peter Blake.  The circus and clowns in particular have always been a motif in Blake’s art.  The subject matter is reminiscent of his exciting childhood excursions to the circus, and also reflects Blake’s interest in the folk and commercial art and signage that can be seen at circuses. Here we see a selection of vintage illustrations of clown faces in all their gaudy painted glory, a sort of rogue’s gallery of the circus. These faces evoke all the joy, colour and exuberance that we associate with clowning.  Found Art: To a Darling Child- signed limited edition inkjet print with gold leaf and silkscreen glazes by Sir Peter Blake.  This delicate and touching image has been selected by Blake from his collection of Victorian and Edwardian occasion cards. The use of these cards has recurred in his work from 1991’s V is for Valentine to last year’sFaith, Hope and Charity. Their appeal for the artist lies in their heartfelt sentiment as well as the opportunity to show that the manner in which that people expressed love one hundred years ago isn’t so very different from today. The detail and varied texture of the card is showcased by enlarging it (up to 50x its original size); highlighting the intricacy of the paper-cut border and painted petals.  Found Art: Yellow Buttons- signed limited edition digital print with silkscreen glazes by Sir Peter Blake.  Blake continues to explore the beauty, elegance and simplicity of commercial design in Found Art: Yellow Buttons. This vintage button set from France is presented an object of beauty and interest beyond the brief glance we might give it if we were buying said buttons as a day-to-day domestic purchase. Blake urges us to re-assess the objects and design we see around us, to question the boundaries of what should be considered ‘fine art’. The regular layout of the buttons is reminiscent of the repeated images in Andy Warhol’s pop art prints, highlighting the relentless production of machine-made culture. The use of digital printing enables Blake to capture the texture of each thread binding the button to the card, and he texture of that card. By enlarging this run-of-the-mill object he makes it somehow alien, allowing us to assess it aesthetically rather than practically.   Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:34:28 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-releases-by-peter-blake.html#77http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/19042013/storm-thorgerson-a-tribute.html The Directors of CCA Galleries are sad to inform you of the death of Storm Thorgerson (1944-2013), described by novelist Douglas Adams as ‘the best album designer in the world’. The imagination and invention of Thorgerson’s work was legendary and his passing leaves a giant void in British art and design. His hugely successful career spanned five decades, and though he most famously worked with Pink Floyd, he also designed album covers for Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Led Zeppelin, The Cranberries, Muse, Black Sabbath, 10cc and Genesis to name a few. Thorgerson’s style is immediately recognisable; he disdained the over-use of technology, preferring to keep his images as ‘real’ as possible by using straightforward photography. His visions were surreal and thought provoking. ‘I want our productions to tell a story. My goal is to invest a picture with ambiguity. To make people curious. To make them want to look again. I like photography because it is a reality medium, unlike drawing, which is unreal. I like to mess with reality…to bend reality. Some of my works beg the question of is it real or not?’ After an MA in Film and Television at the Royal College of Art, Thorgerson set up a design partnership, Hipgnosis, with flat-mate Aubrey Powell. Childhood connections with Pink Floyd led to Hipgnosis being commissioned to design the cover for the band’s second LP, A Saucerful of Secrets, in 1968. The originality and success of this work led to commissions from other bands, and the rest is history. On his approach to creating album cover art Thorgerson said; ‘I listen to the music, read the lyrics, speak to the musicians as much as possible. I see myself as a kind of translator, translating an audio event- the music- into a visual event- the cover. I like to explore ambiguity and contradiction; to be upsetting, but gently so. I use real elements in unreal ways.’ Thorgerson’s 1973 design for Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album genuinely merits that overused term ‘iconic’. It is considered by many in the music and design worlds to be the best album artwork of all time. The album itself is one of the best-selling albums worldwide. Other particularly memorable works include a giant inflatable pig floating over Battersea power station for the cover of Animals (1977), a burning businessman in a studio lot for 1975’s Wish You Were Here cover, and the endlessly repeating Ummagumma image of 1969. Later in his career Thorgerson expanded into directing music videos, adverts and documentaries and, in 1987, after the Hipgnosis partnership came to and end, he founded Storm Studios. Following his death, Pink Floyd have described him as ‘a graphic genius’; but let’s leave the last word to Storm, ‘People pay me for my thoughts and my dreams. I think in that sense I'm very fortunate.’Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:45:00 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/storm-thorgerson-a-tribute.html#86http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/10042013/cannes-statuary-by-sir-peter-blake.htmlWe complete our World Tour with Peter Blake with Cannes Statuary. Blake combines the serenity of a sunny evening in Cannes with a bizarre crowd of collaged figures who are appreciating a collection of statuary. We see Blake's joy in playing with perspective, helping to accentuate the surreal nature of the image. The statuary Blake chooses is dominated by ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, whilst the crowd is composed of figures from every conceivable time and location. Perhaps Blake is making a witty play on the idea of people 'posing' on the beach. Certainly the human body as depicted in ancient sculpture has always been considered the height of perfection, something we all strive to achieve when posing in our beachwear! Wed, 10 Apr 2013 01:15:55 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cannes-statuary-by-sir-peter-blake.html#76http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/03042013/new-dark-side-of-the-moon-40th-anniversary-print-by-storm-thorgerson.html CCA Galleries is delighted to announce the release of Dark Side of the Moon 40th Anniversary by Storm Thorgerson, In March 1973 one of the most successful albums of all time was released: Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. The artwork for the album became as famous and iconic as the musical content and was designed by Thorgerson who was then part of the graphic art group Hipgnosis. Hipgnosis had designed seven rough concepts for Pink Floyd to choose from; they selected the simple and bold prism design immediately. The refracting glass prism was a reference to the light shows that the band used in their concerts. The prism’s triangular shape is a symbol of ambition and also echoes the shape of a pyramid- touching on themes in the lyrics of the album. For the 40th anniversary Thorgerson has created a limited edition silkscreen print divided into a 7x7 grid of squares. Forty of these squares are variations of the original Dark Side image- displaying an incredible level of imagination, inventiveness and humour from the artist. The remaining squares are filled with individual letters spelling PINK FLOYD. The variations on the prism image reflect many different facets of Thorgerson’s work. Over his career the majority of his album cover artwork has been created using photography rather than computer graphics, painting or drawing. As Thorgerson explains it, ‘I like photography because it is a reality medium, unlike drawing which is unreal. I like to mess with reality…to bend reality. Some of my works beg the question of is it real or not?’ Here the majority of the images are photographic; picture of physical installations that Thorgerson has created using various media including flowers, food, wool, liquid on glass, beads, the human body, buttons, collage etc. Some of the images reference other works by the artist; the prism motif painted onto bodies is redolent of Thorgerson’s Back Catalogue works. Several of the images recreate the prism design in homage to great artists including Dali, Miro, Lichtenstein and Picasso.   Though The Dark Side of the Moon 40th Anniversary is complex and multi-layered, like the original 1973 image it also retains an elegant simplicity in its grid structure. This infinite variety on a single theme is fascinating to examine and is exacerbated by the textural detail also lavished on the piece. Each individual square in the grid has been given it’s own finish which vary from gloss or matt glazing, to embossing, gold leaf and diamond dust.   Wed, 3 Apr 2013 10:26:40 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-dark-side-of-the-moon-40th-anniversary-print-by-storm-thorgerson.html#75http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/28032013/paris-parade-by-peter-blake.htmlContinuing our exloration of Peter Blake's World Tour, we remain in Paris for Paris- Parade.  Paris exudes a certain fascination for Blake, it is a city that he visits in his art again and again.   Here he revisits the place de la concorde at some point in the early 20th century. The Parisian square slumbers gently in the delicate muted tones of the sunset behind it, whilst in the foreground a surreal parade is taking place. Members of the parade incude a knight on horseback, an ancient pontificator and a man travelling in a sedan-style hammock. Blake combines historical and geographically-diverse figures to create an unexpected and comedic composition.Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:08:12 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/paris-parade-by-peter-blake.html#74http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/22032013/chicago-boating-by-peter-blake.html World Tour: Chicago- Boating signed limited edition silkscreen print by British pop artist Sir Peter Blake. Blake takes a break from Europe and hops over to Chicago for a spot of boating. The boats themselves are particularly American; with a paddle steamer emblazoned with the word 'Iowa' visible in the background, and a motor boat with 'America' painted on its hull in the middleground. The boats are also reminiscent of the many who emigrated across the sea for a better life in the United Sates. This feeling is heightened by the figure of a man paddling on a makeshift raft in the foreground, and the array of international costume worn by some of the passengers. Available individually as as part of the set of 10 World Tour images.  Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:45:07 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/chicago-boating-by-peter-blake.html#73http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/21032013/paris-mugging-by-sir-peter-blake.htmlPeter Blake gives us his own inimitable and humourous view of a financial crisis with this collage-based scene of panic outside the Paris Bourse (the stock exchange). By 'mugging' he may be making a tongue-in-cheek jibe at the way the financial markets and bankers make profits when normal citizens are struggling to make ends meet (as represented by the poverty-stricken travellers in the background), or he could simply be referring to the two figures in the foreground who are attacking or perhaps arresting an horrified young man.  World Tour: Paris-Mugging The point is- as with all Blake's collage-based works that we can read into it what we will; there is always a story to be uncovered, connections to be made, jokes to be spotted.  Blake visits Paris and indeed France several times in his World Tour series, as well as his recent Paris Quartet and Paris Suite, so the city of lights obviously holds a fascinating and inspirational quality for the arist. Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:10:42 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/paris-mugging-by-sir-peter-blake.html#72http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/05032013/nice-promenade-by-peter-blake.htmlBlake takes us for a stroll along the french riviera in Nice Promenade from his World Tour series. This piece radiates light and colour, as well as the faded charm of a by-gone era. The great, the good and the unexpected are promenading to see and be seen. Blake's world is not only for the chic and fashionable but for everyone; his magic crows includes clowns, soldiers, cricket players, knights, school boys, American Indians, Malaysian dancers, Indian princesses, musicians, Africans and philosophers to name a few.  This bustling crowd is perhaps a tongue in cheek jibe at the flock of people who descend on Nice and Cannes during the summer months, or the melee of the film festival in May. Blake draws our eye into the busy scene with three brightly coloured clowns in the foreground (hinting that the annual descent on the rivera is a circus?) and creating a triangle of red with the British army officer in the centre of the crowd. The result is incredibly atmospehric, you can almost feel the gentle mediterranean breeze....Tue, 5 Mar 2013 11:56:38 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/nice-promenade-by-peter-blake.html#71http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/28022013/paris-dancing-by-sir-peter-blake.htmlOne of the most joyous and chic of sir Peter Blake's World Tour images, Paris- Dancing features three young women dancing in the air above a gathering of dancers in a parisian square. The background seems to be taken from an antique illustrated guide to Paris and features a classically french hansard roof.    The flying ladies are reminiscent of Man Ray and have been a recurring motif in Blake's recent work (they also feature in the Venice Suite and Paris Quartet). The liberation and beauty of these figures as they float through the sky seems to embody the espirit of Paris in the belle epoque or 1920s.  The joyous and democratic spirit of dance is made manifest in the square below by a crowd of people from every different time period and ehnicity that you can imagine- inlcuding children, englishmen in boaters, a flamenco dancer, a dutch milk maid, a plague doctor and a guitar player to provide the imaginary soundtrack for this scene of revelry. Thu, 28 Feb 2013 11:02:42 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/paris-dancing-by-sir-peter-blake.html#70http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/20022013/paris-duel-giant-pig-by-sir-peter-blake.htmlWe contine on our exploration of Sir Peter Blake's World Tour series by looking at Paris, Duel Giant Pig.  This classic Blake collage composition combines nostalgia, absurdity and literary references with an irreverent sense of humour. Blake places together people, animals and setting in a surreal and unexpected combination. As with all Blake's collage-based compositions there are links and and stories, jokes and cultural refernces to be read into the connections between these elements. He asks the viewer to make these connections, to create their own story.  The use of a vintage postcard as a background for the scene and characters/animals taken from Blake's huge collection of various antique printed material- from encyclopaedias to magazines, adverts etc. has been at the centre of his work for many years.  There is something so funny, charming and  innocent about this work that makes it one of my favourites from the World Tour series, and also reminiscent of the artist himself- gentle, witty and joyful.  Wed, 20 Feb 2013 01:32:06 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/paris-duel-giant-pig-by-sir-peter-blake.html#69http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/12022013/artwork-by-peter-blake-welcomes-people-to-london.html Did you know that Sir Peter Blake had created a permanent art installation at Gatwick Airport? The London Collection is a series of twelve digital prints on canvass welcoming visitors and home-comers to London. The project has been curated by CCA Galleries and the artworks made at Coriander Studio. The twelve images feature iconic London buildings and locations from Big Ben to St. Paul’s Cathedral and Abbey Road, and capture the diversity, vibrancy and multi-cultural nature of our capital city. The works are a love song to London, celebrating its past, present and future with all the wit, humour and affection that you would expect from Brit and Londoner Sir Peter Blake. World Tour: London Regatta II Brad Faine, Managing Director of Coriander Studio, ‘One of the great things about The London Collection is its accessibility; there are elements in the works that anyone can relate to or be intrigued by, at the same time they are immediately recognisable as being British. The images are very original, they look like the work of a young man, and considering that Blake has just turned 80, that is a huge achievement.’ Sir Peter was delighted to be commissioned for the project by Gatwick Airport, ‘Gatwick Airport approached me to bring together a collection representing London. Feedback from passengers had been that UK airports can be quite grey and soulless and so they wanted something that would inspire those arriving into the city and that would help instil a sense of pride amongst British people returning home. World Tour: London Multi-Ethnic Crowd It’s a very exciting project – being able to use the expansive walls of the airport as a blank canvass – and to bring art to so many people as they travel into London.  I love the idea of a moving audience, from all different backgrounds and cultures. Some of whom will look at the images as decoration, others who will stop to ponder, reflect and maybe even build their own stories and fantasies from the work - all before going out to really explore London! I look forward to seeing and hearing the reactions of passengers. I am naturally patriotic – as I hope everyone is – and am fiercely proud of our country. I always think that no matter who you are, things could be better, things could be worse, but being British will always be something that we should be inspired by. I’ve never lived anywhere else, despite having the opportunity, and that’s because this is an amazing place to call home. My immediate thought went to a contemporary piece, focusing on celebrity faces and images. But in the end we felt that more non-specific but intriguing pieces would actually work better for such a diverse audience. So, this collection is a series of collages, all based on a London backdrop but which have a fantastical edge. People can arrive and enjoy and then make their own way to explore their own fantasy in London. World Tour: London Regatta I I was born in Dartford, which is very close to London, so in a way I’ve really always counted myself as a Londoner. I’ve regularly visited the city ever since I was a kid and can’t think of any better place to be. It has everything you could possibly wish for; it’s steeped in history yet has a contemporary vibe and boasts landmarks, culture and nightlife. It is quite simply an exciting and extraordinary city.’ World Tour: London Regatta I and II, and London Multi-Ethnic Crowd are available to buy online or over the phone. Please follow the links beneath the images above to find their product pages.  Tue, 12 Feb 2013 11:58:17 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/artwork-by-peter-blake-welcomes-people-to-london.html#68http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/08022013/kurt-schwitters-and-peter-blake.htmlAs Tate Britain opens the first major exhibition dedicated to the work of Kurt Schwitters in Britain, we explore the huge influence his work had on Peter Blake's artistic vision.  Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) was a German artist who worked across many media including collage, sculpture, painting, design and installation work. Forced to flee Germany by the Nazis in 1940 he came to Britain where he was interred for a time at the German prisoner of war camp on the Isle of Man before settling in the UK until his death in 1948. Perhaps he is most remembered for the concept of 'Merz': the combination and use for artistic purposes of all conceivable materials. Schwitters pioneered the use of everyday found objects in art, particularly his collages.  Blake's admiration for the work of Schwitters is exemplified by the series of collage-based silkscreen prints he created in his honour: Homage to Schwitters (2005). Here we see the inclusion of day-to-day objects like pebbles and bottle tops as well as commercial printed materials such as postcards, newspapers and ticket stubs. Blake also creates his homage in the way he lays out these compositons; the juxtaposition of contrasting materials in a perfectly balanced abstract.  Homage to Schwitters: The Very Best However the influence of Schwitters can be seen in many of Blake's recent print work. In A Walk Along Aldeburgh Beach Blake incorporates natural objects that he found while strolling by the sea at Aldeburgh; much as Schwitters began to do when he settled in Cumbria in 1945. Though working in a flat medium (silkscreen) Blake attempts to capture the texture and sculptural quality of these found objects, ranging from a dilapadated shoe sole to pebbles, shells and drift wood.  A Walk Along Aldeburgh Beach Blake's entire series of Found Art prints are indebted to Schwitters insistence of looking at everyday materials in a new way, of incorporating the real world into fine art. Blake's 'fag packets' and children's board game covers etc. all explore and this same original tenet that came to define pop art.  Found Art: Nazionali Kurt Schwitters in Britain is on at Tate Britain until 12th May 2013.   Fri, 8 Feb 2013 03:51:23 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/kurt-schwitters-and-peter-blake.html#67http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/06022013/valentine-art.htmlFlowers will go in the bin by the end of next week but at artwork is personal and will be part of your life for as long as you want it to. So why not express your love by finding an artwork that says everything you feel and want to say to your beloved? Nothing could be more romantic.    Peter Blake- V Is For Valentine Part of Peter Blake's 1991 Alphabet Series V is for Valentine is a delicate and whimsical exploration of love composed of an array antique valentine cards from Blake's peronal collection.      Patrick Hughes- Cloudy II Bold and jubilant Hughes' work signifies the possibility's of letting love in through your door. The heart motif is a favourite for the artist, here it is filled with a bright blue sky in contast with the grey surrounds of everyday life.      Joe Webb- Antares & Love IV Part of a series of four works that explore love and longing, Antares & Love IV represents the heavenly magic of a kiss.    Dan Baldwin- Love Inspired by the story of how Baldwin met his wife, this work is full of the warmth and innocence of a sunny afternoon with the person you love.  Sir Terry Frost- Love Tree Leading British abstract master of the last century Frost's work is full of joie de vivre and exuberance.      Donald Hamilton Fraser- Valentine Fraser made a home-made Valentine card for his wife every year of their sixty year marriage, this image is taken from her favourite one. All profits from sales will be donated to the British Heart Foundation.    Antony Micallef- I Brake Everything This poignant and heartfelt work explores the rejuvenating powers of love. All profits from sales will be donated to the British Heart Foundation.  Brad Faine- Love Hearts Master printmaker Brad Faine uses Love Heart sweets to create a unique contemporary valentine. All profits from sales will be donated to the British Heart Foundation.    Maggi Hambling- Sunrise Heart This painterly silkscreen by leading British artist Maggi Hambling creates a heart motif from sunrise hitting a dark sea, signifying the optimism and beauty of love. All profits from sales will be donated to the British Heart Foundation.    Sir Peter Blake- I Love You (white) Collaged letters from different sources spell out 'I Love You' in this one of Blake's most successful recent print editions.  Rob Ryan- All of the Words in the World Intricate, delicate and hopelessly romantic All of the Words is a favourite for Valentine's Day. All profits from sales will be donated to the British Heart Foundation.   Martin Richardson- Marilyn Love pop art? Give a cheeky edge to Valentine's Day by giving a kiss from Marilyn Monroe to your loved one. This 3D moving lenticular by Professor of Holography Martin Richardson combines high technology with an iconic movie star.  Wed, 6 Feb 2013 01:03:03 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/valentine-art.html#66http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/29012013/cca-introduces-the-work-of-martin-richardson.html CCA Galleries is delighted to introduce the work of holograph and lenticular artist Martin Richardson. Clare Clinton gets to know the artist and his work.... Marilyn   CC: Could you tell us a little about your background?- How did you become an artist in holograms and lenticulars?   MR: I made my first holograms when studying Fine Art at Middlesex Polytechnic in 1978. It was part of an ‘anti-establishment’ strategy I had devised as an impoverished art student where it seemed everything in art had already been done. Students were simply repeating what Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp had already achieved. I identified holograms as being new and fresh, a new medium worth exploring. CC: Who are the artists that you most admire? MR: I admire any artist that shakes things up. The German-born British painter Lucian Freud, Rene Magritte, Peter Blake, Damien Hirst for his piece ‘Physical Impossibility of Death In The Mind Of Something Living’, Dante Leonelli for his kinetic Sculptures, David Lynch for his movies. Each shocked during there time. CC: What inspires you? MR: The fact that technology has linked our experiences, our views and value of existence, to a global Facebook page. And yet at the same time expanding our understanding of the universe to beyond human comprehension. CC: What is your working process/technique? MR: Keep it simple. CC: How do you pick your subjects/subject matter? MR:
If you’re thinking of my holographic portraits, when I asked Sir Peter Blake to sit for one of my holograms it was because I admire his work. David Bowie was another. If you’re thinking of my other compositions, one only has to open a book on the Surrealist Rene Magritte to see where I’ve been and my interpretations of dreams. David Bowie (Experimental portrait) CC: What is your favorite work of art? MR: That’s an impossible question! It’s like asking which sibling one loves most. CC: What book would you take to a desert island? MR: ‘Letters Home: Correspondence 1950-1963’ by Sylvia Plath. CC: Do you have a daily routine to how you work? MR: Simply when ever I can. CC: Do you work on one piece at a time or several? MR: Several, never less than four. CC: Is there an over-arching theme or message to your work? MR: Yes, but I really don’t have a conscious control over it so don’t blame me if people complain. CC: Which talent would you most like to possess? MR: Intuition. CC: What do you consider to be your greatest achievement so far? MR: My children. CC: What is your favourite public exhibition space? MR: Museum of Modern Art, New York. Who thought of placing a Helicopter next to an Andy Warhol? CC: What do you think of the Arts in Britain today? MR: I think the art being made today by young artists is changing the way art is presented. One of the most exciting things is the emergence of performance art, (well done Tate Modern in developing an area for this), but the next stage will be its documentation. CC: How would you like people to view your work in the future? MR: I would like them to see my work as being a necessary stepping-stone for the technology through which they may experience art. In the future people will experience art through 3-D technology, holographic projections made with light suspended in thin air.  Tue, 29 Jan 2013 10:33:38 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-introduces-the-work-of-martin-richardson.html#65http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/12122012/christmas-the-time-of-year-for-childhood-nostalgia.htmlChildhood nostalgia is arguably the dominant thread that runs throughout the work of Peter Blake. At this time of year with little children writing their annual letters to Father Christmas and old-fashioned favourites like 'It's A Wonderful Life' and 'The Snowman' set to fill our screens, I got to thinking of how childhood memories and influences are reflected in the work of many contemporary artists, and how this can lend something innocent, sweet, and sometimes disconcerting to their work.  For Peter Blake his interest in various areas of popular culture stems from his childhood passions: going to the circus, going to the movies, watching wrestling matches, watching cartoons, reading stories and so on. He is still a member of the Shirley Temple Fan Club having joined whilst still aged in single digits. Almost any one of his works links back to a childhood theme if you choose to examine it closely enough. One of the things that make's Blake's work unique in our cynical and sceptical world is its pervasive happiness and warmth; the works by be witty or funny, but they are never dark or negative. The world he creates is full of joy and laughter.    Childhood motifs also recur in the vision of Dan Baldwin. He uses child figures, toys, cartoon animals and general childhood epehemera to create a contrast with the darker adult content and message of his work. So in the same piece we will see sleeping children floating in a composition that includes guns, razor blades or skulls. By thus undermining comforting childhood imagery he creates a feeling of danger and discomfort, exploring the contradictions of the modern world: innocence and guilt, life and death, love and hate.  I have found three pieces in the large canon of print and original work by Donald Hamilton Fraser that exlore childhood. I think Toy Hussar and Still Life Toys may have been inspired by Fraser's great passion for the ballet; as they certainly seem reminiscent of the toys in the Nutcracker. There is something in the way he depicts them that gives these little toy figures a certain grandeur and majesty combined with a touch of pathos for the toy no longer cherished ot played with. The child with a kite is a subject that the artost returned to on several occasions. It is a very unusual choice of subject for Fraser as he rarely depicts any figures that aren't dancers. This utterly charming work has more akin with his abstract landscapes than his dancer studies; its emphasis is on colour and space, its story that of the magical freedom found in the moment the kite takes to the sky.  There is certainly something childlike in the work of Patrick Hughes; the simplicity of his compositions, his recurring use of rainbow or heart motifs, the overall effect of cheeriness he produces. There is so much to be mined from childhood and put at the artist's disposal, consciously or not. I supoose it should not be surprising how often these influences crop up in the way we see the world or how we express ourselves. Wed, 12 Dec 2012 01:23:37 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/christmas-the-time-of-year-for-childhood-nostalgia.html#64http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/27112012/an-in-depth-look-at-the-latest-prints-from-barbara-rae-cbe-ra.html CCA Galleries is delighted to present two new original limited edition silkscreen prints by Barbara Rae CBE RA: Western Boundary and Yesnaby Gold. Printmaking has been integral to Rae’s artistic activity since her student days, as an independent medium rather than a means of reproduction. Rae’s work explores human impact on, and perception of, the world around us; how mankind’s presence in the landscape is defined by the marks we leave. The physical layering of texture and colour in her screenprints echoes the layering of history, mood and atmosphere that her vision depicts, creating prints of great depth and richness. The work is also concerned with how we view and react to colour and form, their impact on our emotions, memory and imagination. These two latest works depict contrasting agricultural landscapes in Ireland and Scotland, though both trace the scars of how we use the land.    Yesnaby Gold exemplifies how Rae examines the historic elements in a landscape. The work is infused with a gentle golden light contrasted against the bold geometric shapes and dark tones of the fields in the foreground. Rae uses screenprinting to explore the special marks, washes and layering which can be achieved with this medium. As Rae explains, "Yesnaby Gold comes from time spent in Orkney, images lifted from drawings of fields near gently sloping hillsides. I was attracted to the geometric patterns, dotted by newly harvested wheat, bails of straw punctuating the scene, almost as if an ancient map with signposts. Western Boundary is in contrast to Yesnaby Gold, Irish fields divided into small, irregular patches, tilled and planted for generations till famine and poverty drove away the people. Both works are concerned with historic land use."  Both works encapsulate Rae’s silkscreen technique; the surfaces are rich with soft washes of colour contrasted with bold and jagged marks and layering effects. Rae is always attracted to whatever is in the foreground, a standing stone, a rickety farm door, an abandoned plough. What lies behind the object is seen as a dividend, either incorporated in the image, or ignored. She chronicles the passage of time to present us with work that is often life-affirming. Brad Faine, Managing Director of Coriander Studio explains Rae's silkscreen print making process "Rae is an artist who really understands and exploits the process of silkscreen printing. We start with an idea or an image and put down a 'base' of colours; but then Rae takes over the process almost as though she were making a monoprint. She creates her own unique stencils by hand-painting directly onto stencil film, and spends days in the studio with us developing the colour and composition of the final work, so that her edition is an 'original' print in the purest sense of the word."    Tue, 27 Nov 2012 02:09:27 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/an-in-depth-look-at-the-latest-prints-from-barbara-rae-cbe-ra.html#63http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/17102012/cca-is-delighted-to-announce-forthcoming-publication-of-4-silkscreens-by-joe-webb.html CCA Galleries is delighted to announce that four new limited edition silkscreen editions by collage artist Joe Webb will be released in January 2013. Webb’s work has become on online sensation with tens of thousands of people sharing his images. Clare Clinton caught up with Joe and Coriander Studio where he is currently working on the prints to find out more about his work and his life as an artist. CC: Did you always want to be an artist? JW: I've always made art but it's only in the last few years I've decided do this as a living. Until recently I kept all my collages hidden away in a cardboard box. I quite liked the idea of someone finding thousands of my old collages in an attic someday. CC: What is your art background- did you have any formal training? JW: I did a fine art degree which was fun but there wasn't much training involved... I wish they taught more technical skills taught at art school. I'd rather have learnt practical techniques than a lot of ‘art speak’. I've now taught myself colour theory and painting techniques with the aid of DVD's and Google! I'm working on painted versions of my collages at the moment. Absent-Minded   CC: Who are the artists that you most admire? JW: I'm obsessed by Rene Magritte...I recently took my family on holiday to Brussels just to go to the Magritte museum. My kids weren't impressed, they wanted to go to Disneyland. I also really like the collagist artist Joseph Renau. His montages are highly charged politically and are so seamless they look like they were made in Photoshop, but are over 50 years old. CC: What inspires you? JW: Discovering an image in a book or magazine that starts an idea for a new piece. There's an element of serendipity in finding imagery that motivates me to keep looking and making art. CC: You have primarily worked in collage, what interests you about making silkscreens? JW: The majority of imagery is photographic, so silkscreen is the perfect medium to reinterpret the collages. The depth and quality of the print can be enhanced by silkscreen. We’re also montaging onto the silkscreens and cutting parts away, so it enables me to produce collages on a larger scale. Antares and Love IV CC:What is your favourite work of art? JW: Peter Blake's Band Aid album cover was the first artwork I remember as youngster. The displacement technique he uses of a starving child in Victorian house was an influence on some of my early collages. CC: What is your working process/technique? JW: I work to a rule of only using two or sometimes three images without the aid of a computer. The collages have to be hand made. I've tried using Photoshop but there are too many options to resize and re-colour the elements, which makes the collages too polished. They lose their initial charm when overworked. I want the viewer to be able to see how the collages are made. Using only a couple of juxtaposed images presents me with a challenge...it's sometimes harder to say something meaningful within these limitations but can be more powerful and direct when it’s done right. Daydream CC: Which talent would you most like to possess?  JW: To have the patience to paint hyper realism. CC: What do you consider to be your greatest achievement so far? JW: Exhibiting my piece Antares and Love II  at the Saatchi gallery.  And most recently producing a new set of silkscreen prints with CCA galleries… which is very exciting.  CC: Is there an over-arching theme or message to your work? JW: Some of my collages have political themes running through them...but in a subtle way. I want a narrative in the works but not for it to be too obvious.  Other pieces are more surreal and dreamlike. CC: Could you tell us a little about the four new pieces that you are currently working on at Coriander studio? JW: I'm really excited about producing these new silkscreens with CCA Galleries and Coriander. During the process we are staying true a collaged, handmade approach by cutting and pasting the prints as well as incorporating gold and silver leaf, mirrored papers, diamond dust and glazes. The aim is to reinvent the original works as high quality, multi layered silkscreened collages; refining and embellishing the ideas behind the pieces during the process.   The images we have selected explore ideas of loss, romance and nostalgia by removing the male protagonist from view. In the piece Mono we can only see a monocled beady eye peering uneasily at his female counterpart.  Absent Minded leaves the viewer to fill in the void with a simple cut out treatment applied to the missing figure. The day and night sky silhouettes of Daydream and Antares and Love IV touch on enigmatic and imagined realities which are revealed behind the surface."   MonoWed, 17 Oct 2012 11:48:53 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-is-delighted-to-announce-forthcoming-publication-of-4-silkscreens-by-joe-webb.html#62http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/11102012/autumn-new-releases-from-cca-galleries.htmlCCA Galleries is delighted to reveal our Autumn new releases to be launched at the MULTIPLIED contemporary editions fair at Christie's South Kensington Fri 12th-Mon 15th October. SIR PETER BLAKE 'Academy' 'Academy' is packed with all the wit and humour that we expect from Blake's collage-based compositions. Here the grand and formal surroundings of London's Royal Academy of Arts is populated with a motley crew, sourced from eclectic printed materials,  including Ian Dury, milk maids, little girls in kimonos: all cultures, eras and walks of life are here and juxtaposed in a surreal manner. Instead of 'high art' on the walls of the Academy we find a cheeky nude Victorian postcard, a very kitsch kitten, and even a panel from Blake's own 'Got a Girl' painting of 1960-61. Again Blake is defying our expectations, but always in a light-hearted and affectionate tone. 'Academy' gently mocks the 18th and 19th century paintings of the great and the good milling around the Royal Academy, Somerset House and Grosvenor Gallery interiors, where pictures are hung all the way up to the ceiling and everyone seems more interested in the latest society gossip than in looking at the artworks.   BARBARA RAE CBE RA 'Yesnaby Gold' and 'Western Boundary'      Yesnaby is on the west coast of Orkney mainland, this work exemplifies how Rae exlpores the culture of a place to make her art; the stories behind a landscape. The work is infused with a gentle golden light juxtaposed against the bold geometric shapes and dark tones of the fields in the foreground. Rae uses screenprints to explore the special marks, washes and layering that can be achieved with this medium. With a fresh and vibrant palette that underlines Rae's gift as a colourist, Western Boundary encapsulates the artist's silkscreen technique; the surface is rich with soft washes of colour contrasted with bold and jagged marks and layering effects that create a dynamic and atmospheric landscape.   DAN BALDWIN TANTRUM CONFESSION Silkscreen print with gold and silver leaf, diamond dust, pearl, stain and high-gloss glazes, embossing and glow in the dark ink.  Dan Baldwin: 'My paintings from 2011 were heading to an almost textural, ethereal, abstract place. This work and other pieces in the series were heavily layered and went to a dreamlike, poetic space with no perspective. The use of pattern and shape and a childlike scribble is possibly influenced by  my experience of parenthood. The piece is quite complex but really simple as well; it's aggressive, and really gentle and calm -as that’s how I am when I work. My work is directly affected by the music I listen to whilst I paint; like Mozart fighting Motorhead! I called it HURRICANE TANTRUM CONFESSION originally, like a whirlwind of emotion and activity, then changed it to just TANTRUM CONFESSION: an explosion of activity and calm. As a child I stole £5 to buy five pen-knifes, so I incorporated that into this work with the child's knife. I was also brought up catholic, so I’ve linked into that. It's a very thoughtful work and not obviously clear in meaning, quite complex but also really simple- more emotionally based. Interestingly I went on to make two completely abstract colour works after this, and I think you can see the beginnings of that way of thinking here in the coloured squares.'   Flirting with Death Two hand thrown earthenware pots with 3D cast clay elements and deep black glaze  After the success of Baldwin's hand-painted one-off ceramic pots the artist has evolved his concept of fine-art ceramics. The focus of his ceramic work has shifted from painting and complex surface effects on a smooth and simple pot design, to making his pots sculptural: casting three-dimensional elements (using motifs central to his work like hearts, guns, bullets and birds) and including these in the pots, with no painting involved. This simplistic and elegant approach allows Baldwin to create his pots in small editions of 10. The effect of the sculptural elements is so striking that Baldwin decided to finish the pots with a beautiful deep black glaze, creating a minimal and starkly elegant design.   BRAD FAINE Art Malarkey 2   Art Malarkey 1 and 2 were generated by a question asked of my wife by; ‘Jane what do you think about all this art malarkey’.  I thought it a great phrase that summed up the popular view of abstract art. The print is the second in this series that combines elements of the works of some of my favourite artists with an alphabet of their surnames. Each circular image contains sections from two famous pictures by abstract artists such as Albers, Bacon, Chagall etc, while the text comprises two alphabets, one from A to Z and the other from Z to A.  The underlying colour of the text is moderated by a large coloured alphabet. Hopefully the effect of the piece is to de-mystify the rarefied air of the upper echelons of the art world and have a bit of fun playing around with the modern masters.   Hollywood Roller Coaster  ‘Hollywood Roller-coaster’ is based on Snakes and Ladders the game of chance in which ascending the ladders is a reward for virtue while vice is penalised by sliding down the snakes. There are always more snakes then ladders, as it has always been held that it is easier to follow the path of vice than adopt that of virtue. In this work each of the 100 squares contains the name of a Matinee idol or Hollywood star whose surname ranges from A to Z . As with the traditional game images are placed ot the head and tail of the snakes, and at the top and bottom of the ladders.  The  position of each ‘star’ is positioned randomly and the selection of whether a person is on a ladder or a snake is determined by a famous or infamous role portrayed by them (Henry Fonda usually plays a worthy character, but in ‘Once upon a time in the West’ he even kills children), or perhaps a little unfairly by the populist view of them as portrayed by the media. The randomly selected images reflect or refer to some aspect of their movies or an element in the life of one of their characters.  Thu, 11 Oct 2012 11:22:05 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/autumn-new-releases-from-cca-galleries.html#61http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/27092012/cca-art-bus-supports-liverpool-love-charity-art-auction.htmlMany of CCA's artists are donating artworks to the 'Liverpool Love' auction to raise money for Claire House Children's Hospice in Liverpool and the National Museums of Liverpool. Seeing as Peter Blake, Bruce McLean, Brad Faine, Mike McCartney and Brendan Neiland were all so generaous as to donate work, we thought the least we could do was donate the Art Bus for the Liverpool Love London launch event to raise awareness of the project. The event was held at 45 Park Lane and the Art Bus was parked up ooutside with an exhibition on the top deck of works to be auctioned.   The top deck gallery looked fantastic hung with work by Shauna Richardson, Ben Johnson, Christian Furr and Christain Bracey as well as the CCA artists already mentioned.   We had several special guests over the course of the evening including poet Roger McGough and comedian Alexei Sayle. The auction Gala will take place at the Museum of Liverpool on 17th November, but don't worry if you can't make the event; bids can be made online at Liverpool Love. It's a fantastic project and we wish them all the best!   Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:28:12 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-art-bus-supports-liverpool-love-charity-art-auction.html#60http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/21092012/donald-hamilton-fraser-estate-cataloguing.htmlI am continuing to catalogue the content of Donald Hamilton Fraser's artistic estate, which contains in the region of 500 works on canvas, paper and prints! The process will take some time, but once everything has been catalogued and photographed we will add highlights from the estate to the website and also plan to hold an exhibition (tbc).   It has been an enormous privilege and a delight to explore this personal body of Fraser's works. Many of the canvasses had been kept in his studio and never seen publicly, there are hundreds of studies and sketches of ballet dancers and landscapes that have been filed away and are now seeing the light of day for the first time. Amongst the work from Fraser's studio are his collection of Artist Proofs from many of his silkscreen editions, some of which are very rare or had been sold out, so look out for interesting additions to his artist page in the coming months!Fri, 21 Sep 2012 12:08:46 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/donald-hamilton-fraser-estate-cataloguing.html#59http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/12092012/new-layout-for-sir-peter-blakes-artist-page.htmlCCA Galleries are delighted to offer such a comprehensive selection of editions by 'Godfather of Pop' Sir Peter Blake, having collaborated with him for many years. In order to help our customers navigate their way around Blake's work more efficiently we have re-designed his artist page on our website. This should make it it quicker for you if you are searching for a specific piece, as well as more straightforward if you are browsing his general catalogue. We have separated Blake's work into several categories: his latest works will be displayed on the landing page with Pop Art, Album Covers, Early Works, Found Art, and Silkscreens from Collage displayed as separate tabs. The landing page displays Blake's new releases and latest work. Blake's long association with the music industry has produced many album cover designs over the years, a selection of which can be found in the 'Blake Album Covers' section. The 'Archive and Early Work' section features editions from the 1970s to early 2000s inlcuding rare works and sold out editions. Although all of Blake's work can be loosely termed as pop art, the 'Blake Pop Art' section features only the bold colours, geometric shapes and popular icons that we most readily associate with Pop. We have devoted a section to Blake's ongoing series exploring found objects and printed materials: 'Blake Found Art'. This body of work celebrates ordinary objects such as cigarette packets, old badges or postcards by enlarging them up to 50 times their normal size and allowing us to view them in a new way. And finally we have all Blake's collage-based compositions in the 'Silkscreens from Collage' section. We hope you enjoy exploring the work of one of Britain's greatest liviing artists!  Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:55:44 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-layout-for-sir-peter-blakes-artist-page.html#58http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/19072012/donald-hamilton-fraser-archive-comes-to-cca-galleries.htmlThere is very exciting news here at the studio in Tilford. Today we received all the remaining work from Donald Hamilton Fraser's studio! I will be cataloguing and photographing these treasures over the coming weeks, and will keep you posted on progress. The works include oils on canvas and board, oils and sketches on paper as well as very rare prints- there are around 150 items! Some may never have been on show to the public before.   Seascape Composition Having written a book on Fraser's career (mainly focussing on his prints) I am really looking forward to exploring this archive of his work, and getting my hands on more of his paintings-which are so amazingly  tactile. Watch this space!Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:52:10 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/donald-hamilton-fraser-archive-comes-to-cca-galleries.html#57http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/29062012/the-magic-crowd-in-vintage-blake.htmlOk- I'm sure there are more than a few faces that you recognise immediately in the magic crowd in Vintage Blake, but we thought it would be nice to publish a list of who everybody is!:         Fri, 29 Jun 2012 11:27:38 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/the-magic-crowd-in-vintage-blake.html#56http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/28062012/sir-peter-blake-and-gavin-turk-in-conversation.html I just found this great conversation between Peter Blake and Gavin Turk- courtesy of our friends at the Cat Street Gallery in Hong Kong. It's from last year and took place at Peter's studio in Hammersmith. GT: So who is the Butterfly Man? PB: I did a piece called Parade and found the Butterfly Man was on the cover of this 18th century music book. He was actually a composer so his baton became a little stick for the butterflies. In Parade  he was just one of the characters and then he just developed into a separate star. GT: Is he a self-portrait? PB: No GT: So he is just a man who collects butterflies? PB: Well, they are performing butterflies. He travels with a troupe of performing butterflies. He was created in homage to Damien Hirst. I heard that Damien thought it was amusing at first. But I got the impression from someone else that now he might think that I am milking it a bit. And to be honest I think I was. So, the Butterfly Man is now dead! GT: This aesthetic of things fluttering around reminds me of the way that you see things that you like the look of, but you are not quite sure how you are going to use them. Something like the matchboxes for instance, have you been collecting matchboxes for years? PB: Sure, I collected a few initially and then at a fair I bought a book of the covers. On that same day there was a man who had a great big suitcase full of them and he said I could have the lot for 10 quid, so I bought an instant collection of a thousand matchboxes. The matchboxes series is from that. They are arranged in 10 rows of 10, so they look like a kind of weaving. GT: Are they portrait or landscape? PB: Both. The top row is portrait and the next is landscape, and so on. It creates a basket-weave effect. GT: Are they all Swedish? PB: A lot of them are, but there are also Chinese and Japanese matchboxes. It is an incredible collection from all over the world. GT: The one that I am quite keen on is the ship. It seems somewhat romantic PB: Well, I used Captain Webb originally. I made a wooden sculpture in the sixties which was a Captain Webb matchbox. He is one of the troupe of recurring characters that I use, which come and go. I remember saying at the end of Ruralism that although the pictures had changed it had become more and more romantic and fairy like, they are exactly the same characters. In my head they are the same cast, but play various parts. Duchamp (the painting series) was an important one and that is still ongoing. The next one will be when he meets Robinhood. GT: Your paintings take quite a lot of time and there are several stages that they go through, aren't there? PB: Yes, they are made over a long period of time because I don't work on them from start to finish. I put them to one side and I work on other things. Some pictures can take many years to complete but that is what is so exciting about some of the printmaking. The contrast is huge. I can go into Coriander Studios with a pocket full of postcards and come out with a work at the end of the day. GT: Printmaking is quite interesting as a stepping stone between finding something that captures your imagination and then taking that through into something you can make into an image. PB: I think what the Found Art series is really about is the technology. We took some pictures and we scanned them and I was amazed at the accuracy of the scan. Because the camera is nearly touching the object it is actually able to see more than the human eye. This is something quite different to most kinds of printmaking which use something like an etching block. When you take it bigger you lose definition whereas, with these, you can see more. It is almost like you see a universe full of stuff. As you look closer, more is going to appear. That is why I have continued with digital printmaking, because the more it is blown up the more you can see. GT: I have that with my apple cores. I paint them, then photograph them and blow them up so they are life sized and you can see all the brush strokes, which is strange because when you see them with the naked eye, they look perfect. PB: Yes, you and I often do things that are similar, like taking an object and then changing its scale. GT: I was thinking about the notion of you making these souvenirs with the postcards and the idea of visions of another place. How do you go about creating these? Do you think about tourism with regards to your work? PB: Well I suppose I have travelled quite a bit with work but I wouldn't say I am a traveller. I don't go on holidays for example. The Marcel Duchamps World Tour was about me saying 'thank you' for him saying that 'whatever an artist says is art, is art', or whatever that saying is. So I sent him on a world tour. It was a kind of fantasy world tour, and maybe, in a way, my characters are all on the world tour that I didn't do. I am not saying that in a frustrated way, but in a way they are my alter egos going off and meeting strange people and having strange things happen to them. GT: And in a way your work is starting to travel in a real sense. You have a world tour at the moment with works showing all over the world. I think an important element of your collecting is your desire to gather things that attract you, not because they are the most valuable things of their period. Actually the opposite as they are the most disposable things. They are lucky to have survived. One of the great things about these objects is that they exist at all and haven't been destroyed. I think some of your things become treasure partly because you choose them to be so. PB: They are treasures by selection. The suitcase of matchboxes, for example- someone had collected them from bars and railway stations, so in a way they are the product of someone else's world tour. GT: It is new for you to be making big prints. PB: Very new. I have always been against gigantism if there is such a thing. And now we are making prints big, just for the sake of making them big. PB: I am anti the fascism of gigantism. I am anti the Richard Serrs way of making something important simply because it is heavy. I am not against size. I think size is interesting but I am against making a small block out of iron so that it becomes important just because it is difficult to install. GT: By taking something which you want to attribute value to, I think you also want to make something that has resonance and power. PB: What I have done previously is take something like Brancusi’s Endless Column and by making it GT: In a way making prints big tests the boundaries and tests your own ability very small you can make it far more endless because it has far more units. Brancusi’s Endless Column only had a bout 18units and they were bigger than a man, whereas my endless column was much smaller so we were able to make far more units. It is about size and sometimes it relates. Rob Carter was telling me about your work- The Match? GT: The Nail (a large public installation in London by Turk, recently unveiled) PB: Yes, and that is interesting because you have taken something that is usually small, and made it large. Whereas I take something large and make it smaller. At the moment I am working on a painting if St. Martin that is going to go into St, Paul’s Cathedral. It is the first work that they have commissioned in a very long time which is rather extraordinary. St. Paul’s has a parallel modern scheme going on where they commission modern art. We have been working in it for over two years. GT: You have been investigating figurative works and images from life for some time now. PB: I did a series called A Thousand Life Drawings. I kept everything and didn’t reject any drawings, so I eventually had a thousand. I started it about 20 years ago and it went in until about three years ago. GT: It seems, with your studio in particular, that it is all about things which in some way might become useful. They have that possibility. PB: It is like a big toy box or a big dressing-up box. If I am someplace I will pick up whatever I find and then I won’t add to it in anyway. The selection is in picking it up and therefore the rejection. Some of the stuff just sits around for a long time and some of it will develop into a series of sculptures. In the long term a lot if the things that are around my studio and will become part of pictures. Another thing is the sense that time is running out. I am going to be 80 next year. I have ignored it for 20 years. I have had my artificial retirement 15 years ago, and I entered into my late period consciously. GT: I think your artificial retirement was a renaissance for you. That is when I first met you and you said that since you had retired everything was much easier. In a way you stopped being so worried about context. PB: It was a big psychological change. Since then I have worked easily and had the opportunity to curate a lot of these shows as well which has been good.Thu, 28 Jun 2012 01:51:07 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/sir-peter-blake-and-gavin-turk-in-conversation.html#55http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/26062012/vintage-blake.htmlIn the week of Sir Peter Blake's 80th Birthday, CCA Galleries are delighted to launch VINTAGE BLAKE: a new limited edition silkscreen edition based on Blake's magic crowd composition that he used for the Sgt. Pepper's album cover for The Beatles in 1967. This image received a huge amount of press earlier in the year (I will include links to selected articles below) when it was announced. Blake has created the new piece as the centre-point of the 2012 Vintage Festival, curated by Wayne Hemingway, which will celebrate his big birthday with music, fashion, design and art. The full title of the piece is 'Vintage Blake. Peter Blake's 80th: Family, Friends & Icons' which really tells you everything you need to know. The crowd is made up of Blake's family and friends as well as people who have inspired and influenced him over the course of his sixty year career. Vintage Blake is now available to pre-order online at a launch price of £1932 (PB's year of birth!) , with delivery expected towards the end of July. related articles: Daily Mail BBC Guardian TelegraphTue, 26 Jun 2012 04:22:19 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/vintage-blake.html#53http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/16052012/tom-phillips-celebrates-turning-75-with-two-new-exhibitions.htmlBritish Contemporary artist Tom Phillips turns 75 this summer, he is celebrating in style with two major exhibitions of his works: a print show at GX Gallery in Camberwell and solo show of original work at Flowers Gallery East- The Remains of the Day. Raphael Revisited GX Gallery is local to Phillips' home and studio and this month he collaborates with them to show a comprehensive selection of his printed works: Tom Phillips is an internationally renowned artist who has throughout his long career lived and worked in Camberwell and Peckham. This exhibition, which marks his 75th birthday, features a wide survey of prints and originals including works that relate to his locality, such as the large autobiographical South London Dreaming, which annotates significant points of place and time, and 20 Sites n Years, an annual photographic documentation of twenty seemingly ordinary locations in a half mile radius of his studio: a work that has accumulated each year since 1973. Tom Phillips was born in 1937. After studies at Oxford he trained at Camberwell School of Art where he was taught by Frank Auerbach, He then spent several years teaching in art schools while following his interest in new music. He created experimental scores which were performed by the pianist John Tilbury. Among his students was Brian Eno whom he introduced to some ideas that helped develop ambient and generative music. Eno’s album covers include, for Another Green World, a variation of Raphael Revisited. Also on display are pages from A Humument, whose 5th edition (Thames & Hudson) appears on 24th May 2012. A Humument began in 1966 when Phillips, on a Saturday morning walk with RB Kitaj, found a secondhand novel for threepence in a junk shop on Peckham Rye and resolved to work on it for the rest of his life. As well as being continuously in print it has featured in various guises, including a commentary to his own translation and illustration of Dante’s Inferno, an opera Irma, a suite of prints The Quest for Irma, and in 2010 as the first artist-designed App for the iPhone and iPad. GX Gallery offers an opportunity to see prints based on his major exhibition, We Are The People at the National Portrait Gallery in 2007. They are part of his long term artistic engagement with postcards apparent in numerous other works in this show from Oh Miss South Africa, to Sixteen Appearances of the Union Jack, One Bus Two Londons and The Quest for Irma. Other works particular to the area show Phillips as a draughtsman. In the series Periwinkle Diaries, flowers picked from neighbouring Peckham gardens are drawn from life on seven days each Spring. Of this work, begun in 2006, Phillips says ‘The classic periwinkle flower is an amazing construction. Designed like a ship’s propellor: it is full of energy. With its help I try every year to explore Plato’s cunning Theory of Forms.’ In Peckham: The First Dish, an etching from 1989 Phillips illustrates the first satellite dish visible from his studio window with a minute diary chronicling daily events during the progress of the work. As well as lithographs, etchings and silkscreens a selection of sculptures is presented, including refractive Wittgenstein and Mallarmé cubes, Lucy Ironworks assembled from fragments of iron found in an old factory, and the ready-made inspired C. LOOPSEEND fabricated by Embassy Signs of Peckham. The Quest for Irma I   Flowers Gallery presents an exhibition of Phillips' Original work: The remains of the Day I have never tried to have a style but tended rather to pursue some interconnected and relished themes and strategies. Most of these were initiated in the sixties and seventies and are still very much in play- Tom Phillips This exhibition marks the 75th birthday of leading artist Tom Phillips and features a substantial group of recent pastels which continue a cycle of large works on paper dating from his early shows at Angela Flowers Gallery in 1970 and ’71. They encompass a wide field of reference in science, literature and music, as well as exploring the world of dreams in his favourite medium. Phillips is one of art’s compulsive recyclers of materials (hair, postcards, mud etc.), texts and images. The Remains of the Day is the name given to a growing group of improvisations made from the scrapings of paper palettes. They relate to the series started in 1969 called Terminal Greys, which form a border to the new paintings. The title phrase used by Ishiguro as the name of his novel was first coined by Sigmund Freud to describe the primal matter recycled in the dream life.A Humument, described by Stephen Fry as Simply astounding… and addictive, and by David Lodge as Utterly original, delightful and idiosyncratic, is probably the artist’s best known work, started in 1966 and continuously in print since 1975 when he finished the first version. Since then he has gradually replaced this initial reworking of a Victorian novel page by page. The Fifth edition contains over eighty newly replaced pages and is published by Thames & Hudson to coincide with this exhibition.A Humument also has an exciting existence as an App for iPad and iPhone displaying this appropriately luminous artwork in an accessible and diverting way, incorporating as it does an oracle of life and love. A new re-edited and restyled website of Tom Phillips CBE RA provides a guide to the artist’s work and career and includes his own blog www.tomphillips.co.uk a current entry from the blog relates to pastels in this exhibition… I seem to be in the middle of a group of a dozen or so pastels. Pastels again, yes. Somehow I find myself in tune with paper and charcoal and chalk and pastel and especially with the rubbing out of same, working backwards, erasing away, letting the paper do the white work… more like finding a sculpture inside a messy bit of wood; subtracting, getting rid of, carving back As well as Beckett’s Try again, fail again, fail better, which Tom Phillips has helped make notorious, another motto guides his attitude to work (present in the show in a calligraphic treatment). It comes from Henry James…We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have: the rest is the madness of art   After Henry James    Wed, 16 May 2012 05:27:43 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/tom-phillips-celebrates-turning-75-with-two-new-exhibitions.html#52http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/12042012/2012-not-only-is-it-the-jubilee-and-the-olympics-sir-peter-blake-is-turning-80.html Godfather of British Pop Art Sir Peter Blake celebrates his 80th birthday in 2012; the year will be peppered with projects and events to celebrate the occasion. His work crosses all generational divides, and inspires great respect from younger artists such as Damien Hirst, Gavin Turk and Tracey Emin. Knighted in 2002, and with his work represented in major collections throughout the world, Sir Peter Blake truly is a grandee of British Art.  Despite becoming an octogenarian Blake is working as hard as ever, with many exciting activities and celebrations coming up in the year ahead. Blake will be releasing exciting new print editions over the course of the year, with the first being unveiled next week at the London Original Print Fair (Stand 29), where he will also be giving a special lecture on the evening of the 19th. New print editions for April include Faith Hope and Charity, Matchboxes II, and three new American Trilogy pieces (black and silver gloss, black and silver diamond dust, cream and gold diamond dust).      American Trilogy (black and silver gloss)                                      Faith Hope and Charity   Matchboxes II The year has already kicked off to a busy start with Blake designing a new look for the Brit Awards statuettes. He is also the first patron of the John Moores Painting Prize 2012 (having won the junior section with his painting Self Portrait with Badges in 1961). And is also continuing work on his oil painting of St Martin that has been commissioned for the Knights Bachelor Chapel in St. Paul’s Cathedral (the first new artwork commissioned at St Paul’s since William Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World). You may have  noticed in the press that Blake has revisited Sgt. Pepper as part of the 80th celebrations taking place at Wayne Hemingway's Vintage Festival (13-15th July). This new work is called 'Peter Blake's 80th Family, Friends and Icons' and was created digitally at Coriander Studio, it will be on display at Vintage Festival this summer. Watch out for more announcements over the coming months....there's plenty more exciting projects to come!     Peter Blake's 80th Family, Friends and Icons   Blake is laid back and self-deprecating on the subject of his 80th, ‘I started to be an artist at the age of 14, so it’s been 56 years as a student and then artist, so it’s become a long career. And it’s had its high points, and it’s had its bad points. I think most of my ambitions have been achieved. Most of the things I’ve wanted to do strangely I’ve done.’  Thu, 12 Apr 2012 04:30:11 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/2012-not-only-is-it-the-jubilee-and-the-olympics-sir-peter-blake-is-turning-80.html#51http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/03042012/sir-peter-blake-behind-the-scenes-at-coriander-studios.htmlTue, 3 Apr 2012 11:42:24 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/sir-peter-blake-behind-the-scenes-at-coriander-studios.html#50http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/15032012/cca-art-bus-returns-to-her-home-town-liverpool.html The CCA Art Bus returns home to Liverpool Friday 23 March will see the return of the Art Bus to Liverpool, where she started life as a city bus  over 20 years ago. The Art bus is heading to Liverpool to mark the final weeks of Mike McCartney’s exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool and will feature an exhibition of his iconic images of Liverpool in the top deck gallery. Closing on 15 April, Mike McCartney’s Liverpool has seen a successful run at the city’s new Museum since it opened in July last year. Mike has collaborated closely with CCA Galleries to publish and frame the 30 photographs on display, six of which he is donating to the Museum’s collection. Billy Fury on the Mersey Janet Dugdale, Director of the Museum of Liverpool said: “We are delighted that Mike has chosen to donate these six prints to the Museum and by the same token, to the people of Liverpool. “We were very lucky he agreed to be the first artist to display his work in the Skylight Gallery, which represents his views of the city and its people. Our shop will be selling a range of postcards and posters from now on, so that people can take a little bit of Mike’s Liverpool home with them, even after the exhibition’s closed.” CCA are also launching a limited edition box-set of some of Mike’s work, on the same day that the bus visits Liverpool. Mike McCartney said: “To have the Art Bus come up to Liverpool to tie in with my exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool is fantastic. The ethos of the bus links really well with what I’ve tried to portray in my photography, in steering away from dry subjects and looking at aspects of the city that stir emotion, memories and a bit of fun. “I started the exhibition working closely with CCA and I’m delighted to be working with them again as it draws to a close at the Museum of Liverpool.” After the Art Bus has been to the Museum of Liverpool, Mike and friends will climb aboard for a ‘magical mystery tour’, which will see them ending up at the Walker Art Gallery. Clare Clinton from CCA Galleries said: “Our trip to Liverpool is special in so many ways. It represents a homecoming for the Art Bus, which started life the city years ago and not only marks our partnership with Mike McCartney but also our links with the Walker Art Gallery where we will end our day. “The Walker displayed Sir Peter Blake’s An Alphabet just last year and is also host to the John Moores Painting Prize of which Sir Peter is patron. Having the Art Bus visit Liverpool is fantastic for all these reasons and also part of our drive to spread the message that art is accessible for all.” As well as being a mobile piece of art itself, the Art Bus is also an educational tool and an exciting platform from which to introduce school children to the world of visual arts. National Museums Liverpool has invited school groups to come and enjoy the bus when it visits the Museum of Liverpool.  Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:51:59 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-art-bus-returns-to-her-home-town-liverpool.html#49http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/22022012/further-works-by-john-piper-now-added-to-cca-website.htmlCCA are delighted to add a selection of further works by the great British artist John Piper to our website. In most cases we have only one of each print, so the works will not be available to purchase online- but give us a ring (01252 797201) and we can advise you on availability. However, at least now you can see all the Piper works that we currently stock!               Kelham Hall Works now added: Clytha Castle, Terrace with Morning Glories, Terrace with Red Pots, Wightwick Manor, Holdenby, Kelham Hall, Seaton, Shadwell Park, The Seasons: Autumn, The Grotto Halswell, Terrace with Red Pots, Blenheim Gates, Dylwyn Church, St Helen Hall, Willington Dovecote, Easton Portland, Near Newcastle Emlyn, Penybont Ford, Moreton Corbet, St Nicholas Alcester, Waddesdon, St Kew Cornwall, St Annes Limehouse, Rudbaxton, Leckhampstead, Llan-y-Blodwell, Gaddesby, Lewknor, Oxfordshire.   Terrace with Morning Glories                                                              Shadwell Park All works are signed limited editions documented in the Levinson catlogue raisonne.Wed, 22 Feb 2012 03:42:58 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/further-works-by-john-piper-now-added-to-cca-website.html#48http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/26012012/hand-painted-vases-by-dan-baldwin.htmlCCA are delighted to present two original and unique hand-thrown and hand-painted ceramic vases by British contemporary artist Dan Baldwin. Untitled Baldwin started working on ceramic about six years ago and views this work as an extension of his painting practice. Each pot is worked on by hand combining paint and stencil work and featuring many of the key motifs in Baldwin\'s art. He is fascinated by the contrast between the feminine and sensuous shape of the vases and the dark subject matter that populates them. Each vase is unique and in Untitled and Victims of Catholicism we can see the diversity of Baldwin\'s vision. Unitled is one of the largest pots that Baldwin has worked on, standing some 64 cm tall and elegant in its slender form. Baldwin uses a monochrome colour scheme, the simplicity of colour and surface texture contrasting with the complexity of the design. In contrast Victims of Catholicism is rounder and more robust in form, these characteristics echoing in the exuberance of the palette and boisterous composition. Baldwin does not shy away from addressing hard questions in his work, or from dealing with controversial subject matter. His work is too, is always personal, reflecting his life experiences and thoughts.Victims of Catholicism explores the ideas of innocence and evil (recurring themes in Baldwin\'s oeuvre), as well as Baldwin\'s thoughts on the death of his grandparents at the hands of the Nazis.   Victims of Catholicism These works of art are beautiful and tactile objects, and in their fragility take on a greater immediacy. The complexity of design is a feast for the eyes; there are so many compositional elements to absorb and each connected in some way to the others- telling a story, firing the viewers\' imagination and intellect. The texture created by Baldwin is also fascinating; the contrasts between the shine of (real) gold paint, stencilled elements, photography, glazes, brush strokes, impastoed paint drips all combined in a riot of colour. Baldwin recently donated one of his vases Icons to a Great Ormond Street Hospital charity auction, where it sold for an impressive £12,000!  Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:22:07 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/hand-painted-vases-by-dan-baldwin.html#47http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/25012012/new-releases-from-cca-galleries-this-january.htmlCCA are delighted to present a series of new releases for the new year- silkscreen and digital prints as well as originals. Sir Peter Blake completes his Homage to Rauschenberg Series with the release of Homage to Rauschenberg I, III and V.     He also continues his on-going \'Found Art\' series with three new pieces, Found Art: Buttons, Found Art: Beatles and Found Art: Alphabet     Not Our Type Darling (coming to the website soon!), Monsters of the Universe, Homage to Barnett Newman and Tired of London- Tired of Life- 4 new works from master printmaker Brad Faine:       Dan Baldwin has made a silkscreen edition of his painting Love, as well as another hand-painted pot Victims of Catholicism (coming to the website soon!).   Storm Thorgerson revisits his iconic Pink Floyd album covers in PF40 Best Of And last but not least we are delighted to have two original pieces by British contemporary pop artist Dave White, Sure Shot and Forgotten Tomorrows (coming to the website soon!). Sure ShotWed, 25 Jan 2012 01:34:24 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-releases-from-cca-galleries-this-january.html#46http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/12122011/sir-peter-blake-designs-the-brit-award-for-2012.htmlContinuing his long integration with the world of music and popular culture Sir Peter Blake has designed the Brit Award Statuette for 2012. The choice of artist for this prestigious project couldn\'t be more appropriate; a quintessentially British pop artist re-designing an iconic symbol of British music. Blake is following in the footsteps of last year\'s chosen designer, Dame Vivienne Westwood. Soon after the Brit awards began in 1977, the small golden statue became one of the British pop industry\'s most sought after awards. Blak\'es design is typical of his work and perfectly captures the embullience, fun and Britishness of the awards. The statuette is patriotically coloured red, white and blue, echoing the union flag which appears on the base of the trophy. The word Brit runs vertically along the award and on the bottom Blake has featured pop art symbols that have become synonymous with his work (and which also feature heavily on the CCA Art Bus!),   Brit organisers are delighted with the design, \'We feel hugely honoured that Sir Peter Blake accepted the challenge of designing the trophy this year- the result is imcredible. Having created possibly the world\'s most iconic album cover art with The Beatles, Sir Peter\'s work is synonymous with the best of British music\'. Of course Blake has worked with many bands over the years, creating album cover artwork for Oasis, Ian Dury and the Bloockheads, Band Aid, the Beach Boys and Paul Weller to name a few.Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:40:46 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/sir-peter-blake-designs-the-brit-award-for-2012.html#45http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/29112011/sir-peter-blake-named-in-top-10-of-britains-most-influential-artists.htmlInteresting article in the independent last week about a survey of 1000 British painters and sculptors across the coubtry, asking them to name the British artists who have most influenced them. Sir Peter Blake features in the top 10, once again demonstrating that he is an artist\'s artist. David Hockney topped the list with Turner coming in second. 20th century masters featured heavily; with Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Stanley Spencer also featuring in the top 10. Of contemporary artists Blake, Banky and Grayson Perry have been singles out by their peers as inspirational. Jack Vettriano (find limited edition prints by him here) also features in the list; it\'s great to see a self-taught artist who has been looked down on by the art establishment.Interestingly the Young British Artists (Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Marc Quinn et al) failed to feature on the list. The poll was undertaken by a thousand artists between 20 and 65, including recent art school graduates and established artists. It is a pretty balanced list spanning artists over four centuries. Though I am sure that in five or ten years time the results of the poll might be completely different, it is interesting to see which artists other artists really admire. Top 10 most influential British artists, according to a poll pf 1000 British painters and sculptors: 1. David Hockney 2. JMW Turner 3. Grayson Perry 4. Francis Bacon 5. Jack Vettriano 6. Lucian Freud 7. Thomas Gainsborough 8. Sir Peter Blake 9. Banksy 10. Stanley SpencerTue, 29 Nov 2011 04:06:01 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/sir-peter-blake-named-in-top-10-of-britains-most-influential-artists.html#44http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/11102011/neiland-at-70-exhibition-at-redfern-gallery.htmlTo mark his 70th birthday Brendan Neiland has a new solo show opening this week at the Redfern Gallery- featuring his latest paintings and prints. Neiland at 70 11th. October until November 10th, 2011 The Redfern Gallery, 20 Cork Street, London, W1S 3HL Telephone | 020 7734 1732 / 0578 Fax | 020 7494 2908   I was Brendan’s tutor at the Royal College of Art in the 1960’s, and i’ve followed his career with interest since then. The last four years have seen many changes, and it has been a period of introspection and total full time commitment to his painting, the first time he’s been able to do this for some years. In this exhibition ‘Night and Day’ Brendan has pursued his lifetime exploration of the city, but the work has taken on a new, more abstract direction. In the ‘Nocturnes’, a series of paintings at night, the excitement of the night city as a pleasure ground, together with feelings of slight foreboding, are brought into focus through the forms and vibrant colours. Based on reality, the work becomes mystical and abstract. The ‘Nocturnes’ have influenced the ‘Day ’ series in subtle ways. This is very exciting new work. Sir Peter Blake, October 2008 Brendan Neiland has been a great friend and supporter of The University of Sheffield for several years. In 2002 the University commissioned Brendan to paint the University Library and this striking painting now hangs there. The title of the painting is the University’s motto - Rerum Cognoscere Causas– and means “To Discover the Causes of Things” (from Virgil’s Georgics II, #490). Through art we are constantly discovering new things about ourselves and the world we live in. The University thanks Brendan for all his support and is delighted to be sponsoring this exhibition catalogue. Professor Keith Burnett, FRS Vice-Chancellor, Sheffield UniversityTue, 11 Oct 2011 09:49:41 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/neiland-at-70-exhibition-at-redfern-gallery.html#43http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/30092011/exciting-news-peter-blake-to-sign-new-homage-to-damien-hirst-canvasses-at-art-london-private-view.htmlPopfather Sir Peter Blake is unveiling canvas versions of his The Buttelfly Man: Homage to Damien Hirst at Art London on Wednesday night. The new canvases- 5 in the series- will be produced in a tiny edition of 10. We do not have images of the new works as yet...but watch this space as we will be adding them to the website. Sir Peter will be attending the private view at Art London next Wednesday evening, and will be adding his signature to the new canvasses on our stand (34). The new works reflect a growing interest from the artist in \'super-sizing\' things; he made large canvas versions of his Vichy Trio silkscreens last year (the Homage canvasses will be on a similar scale), and his Found Art works are based around massively enlarging objects that Blake finds of interest. I have to say, that with the immense amount of detail that is packed into the collage compositions, it will be a real pleasure to see them blown up. To see the canvases in the flesh, come and see us at stand 34 next week at Art London (further details on our news page)Fri, 30 Sep 2011 03:44:40 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/exciting-news-peter-blake-to-sign-new-homage-to-damien-hirst-canvasses-at-art-london-private-view.html#42http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/28092011/cca-are-delighted-to-present-new-original-work-by-dan-baldwin.htmlCCA are thrilled to present new original work by Dan Baldwin at Art London next week. We caught up with Dan to find our more about them.... CC: Dan, fans of your prints may not be aware of your work with vases, could you tell us how this came about, and what appeals to you about this medium? Dan Baldwin: The vases started about 6 years ago by accident. I was doodling on a cheap pot from the pound shop that I\'d bought- I\'d been buying dog sculptures from pound land, hand-painting them and selling them in Selfridges. Then I had a lightning bolt moment in the studio where I thought of creating a range of vases with my spontaneous doodles on them. Over the years I\'ve developed them to become an extension of my painting practice and they have proven to be  a very successful part of my output. The contrast between a beautiful feminine pot and darker subject matter interests me, and I think it is why they are successful; they are unique, unusual and beautiful. CC: Could you tell us a little about the particular vase that will be on display at Art London? DB: This is the largest vase I have made to date (I must clarify I am not a pot-maker, I work with a potter) 60/70cm high. It has to be made in sections on the wheel- very difficult! For the next series we are moulding in clay to create 3-D raised elements protuding from the sides. (an earlier example of a vase by Dan Baldwin- not the vase to be shown at Art London) CC: Thunder Coming is one of your new paintings, why did you choose to make this piece on wood rather than canvas like your other two new works? DB: I hadn\'t painted for a month or so, and I just had the urge to make a piece just for me, just to paint. So I cut some wood as it was all I had, and just lay down colours and shape and it become Thunder Coming . CC: Thunder Coming is a very powerful and ominous title, could you pick up on the main themes you explore in this work? DB: Each painting takes on its own feeling; this had a real static tension about it, like an electricity buzz and it made me think of thunder, and animals hiding, also a radioactive feel to it- a storm brewing up. It explores the chaotic harmony between science, nature and man. The title could also have a double meaning; that\'s something I love playing with- when you see the crucifix with flames...the storm is brewing.... Thunder Coming   CC: Love. This painting has a completely contrasting atmosphere from Thunder Coming, it gives off a sense of joy and relaxation on a sunny afternoon. Is there a storty behind this, does the ice lolly hold some significance? DB: Yes- massive significance. I worked in a video shop for five years or so in Hove whilst I was still on the road to being a full-time artist. It was a great shop; specialised in arthouse cinema and always played good music, and was generally a bit of a hang-out. Annie (my girlfriend) was a regular customer of the shop, I remember serving her for years. One day she stopped coming in. Two years later I was walking along, back from Milan, just off to the train, and I saw Annie coming towards me. I did a double-take and so did she, we had this moment in the street. Months later, one summers day, she walked up to me with an ice lolly, holding it in her hand and said \'you look like you need this\'. It was the first time she ever spoke to me and she almost didn\'t go through with it out of a nervous fear, but she felt she had to make contact. Another six months went by, I was single, so was she, I asked her out for dinner and our date lasted 36 hours. That was five years ago and now we have an 11 month-old baby. The piece Love was originally going to be called Peach, as that is Annie\'s favourite colour. Then it became Peach Video Girl, and as the painting grew I changed it to just Love. There is a lot of symbolism in the work: the poppy, the orchid, the swallow, the little girl, the little boy, a bird feeding its young, and the skeletal hand/figure searching for its love even in the afterlife. It was the beginning of this series I want to make called Spectrum; more about colour, harmony, beauty. I also like the melting ice lolly as a metaphor, there\'s something striking about it, dropped by a child or discarded- left to melt.... Love   CC: Spirit. Does the title refer to the human spirit- the gift of imagination and determination? Or does it refer to a spiritualism in the religious sense? How important is faith as a theme in your work? DB: I think it is all of the above. It took on this feel of another world- a higher place- up in the clouds-  a place not of this earth. It went throuh weeks of layering until I was happy with it. I didn\'t want to call it \'Heaven\' or \'Purgatory\', but wanted it to be outer-worldly. I have faith in my life, not a religious faith, but a positive thinking; I\'ve always had the feeling that I\'ll be ok- an inner faith, or a voice- but don\'t think of that as God, its my inner voice that\'s what I listen to. Some paintings are like a battle to get right. This one was; I had to keep painting over things, cleaning up, re-working. You go through the fight sometimes to make it come good, like you\'re pulling it and pushing it, and you like this part but not that etc, you work through that until it is solid and balanced and it all unites together. Even if the message isn\'t clear it\'s the evocation of feeling that is important. In this piece there is nature, death of nature, religion, anthropology, evolution, conflict. There\'s a child-like element to it too, a bit of snakes and ladders, of fairy tale, floaty....that\'s why Spirit worked well as a title. CC: Thanks Dan! SpiritWed, 28 Sep 2011 04:49:34 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-are-delighted-to-present-new-original-work-by-dan-baldwin.html#41http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/16092011/coming-soon-to-cca-website-raphael-revisited-by-tom-phillips.htmlWe are giving you a teaser of the new silkscreen edition by Tom Phillips CBE RA that will be available to purchase online from next week: Raphael Revisited. Raphael Revisited- signed limited edition silkscreen print by British contemporary artist Tom Phillips.   Raphael Revisited Silkscreen version of Tom Phillips\' 1972 oil on canvas \'After Raphael\', inspired by Phillips\' fascination with the Golden Section. The Golden Section is a divine and ideal proportional relationship, a geometrical term that has fascinated architects, artists and mathematicians from the Renaissance onwards, it has been seen as a mystical harmony that pervades all nature. Phillips writes, \'As in the paradox of the poet freed by rhyme, the ratist can be liberated by a system of great rigidity.\' When we think of the renaissance fascination with this theory works such as Leonardo da Vinci\'s \'Vitruvian Man\' or the buildings of Palladio spring to mind. Phillips\' preoccupation with mystical proportions \'crops up whenever my work causes me to look back to an Italy or a Greece of the past for inspiration\'. Raphael Revisitied is a transcription of a Votive picture, Umbrian School c. 1490-1500 that Phillips became fanilair with at the Walker Art Gallery whilst judging the John Moores Prize in 1971, and which has been attributed to the young Raphael. Phillips has reworked this image according to the Golden Section. This is a process that Phillips has experimented with throughout his career, \'It was in the seventies however (this obsession seems to return at regular intervals) that I made my most concentrated effort to construct a picture according to the dictates of such a network of co-ordinates\'. Having decided to make a work based on the little votive picture Phillips examined the work and found a lack of geometrical basis in the original, \'This very absence of order decided me to abandon the copy and work on a picture in which an imposed system would conflict with the compositional arrangement of the original\'.Phillips also changed the format of the work from landscape to portrait. Votive Picture, Umbrian School, c.1490-1500 Phillips created a version of the picture in the form of a diptych with one canvas showing all the constructional elements and the other the finished painting. He also made a larger single version After Raphael that combines both elements on one surface where the network of lines which guided every nuance and interval of its configuration can still be clearly discerned. It is from this version that Raphael Revisited is reproduced. An excerpt from After Raphael features on the cover of Brian Eno\'s \'Another Green World\' album 1975.Fri, 16 Sep 2011 03:38:25 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/coming-soon-to-cca-website-raphael-revisited-by-tom-phillips.html#40http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/12092011/getting-to-know-charlotte-cornish.html Abstract artist Charlotte Cornish talks to us about her work, inspiration, and  life as an artist: Describe your ethos as an artist/How would you describe your work? CC: I see myself predominantly as a painter and printmaker. Printmaking has always been an important part of my practice and has greatly informed the approach I have to making my paintings. I build my paintings up in layers of applied paint - dripped and poured - in much the same way that I make the stencils for my prints. I very much think in terms of layers. Colour is central to my work and I am continually fascinated and intrigued by the qualities of colour and the power of colour combinations.    Striking a Balance I What Inspires you? CC: I am greatly inspired by places I have travelled to or visited, and all of my work is drawn from personal experience. Did you always want to be an artist? CC: I grew up surrounded by art - both my parents were art teachers who also made their own work and weekends were often spent in museums and art galleries. I think it must have been in my blood! What is an average day in the life of Charlotte Cornish? CC: First thing, my dog gets a good walk, then into the studio - I usually paint for at least four hours every day. This seems to be the minimum amount of time for me to settle in to the work and feel like I\'ve made good progress. If all is going well, I spend longer there, especially if I have deadlines for exhibitions or commissions. The rest of the day is often spent at the computer doing admin - replying to emails, sending images of work to galleries or prospective customers etc.   Kindred IV   Who is your favourite artist/ artwork? CC: Over the years I have been influenced and have admired many artists work. I was very shocked and saddened to hear of the recent death of John Hoyland. I have had great respect for his work and have closely followed his practice as an artist ever since meeting him at The Slade School of Art many years ago. I will really miss the opportunity of continuing to experience his work. What do you think of the Arts in Britain today? CC: The Arts in Britain today are incredibly diverse and this is, in many ways, very exciting, allowing for many possibilities and forms of expression. Personally, I continue to be drawn to the medium of painting and printmaking, and so most of the exhibitions I visit tend to be of painters or printmakers work. Portal II What is your favourite exhibition space? CC: I love the Tate Modern! I was lucky enough to go the opening of it and this made a lasting impression on me - such a great space. What do you consider to be your greatest achievement? CC: Probably making a living from my work - it\'s a roller coaster but I\'ve survived so far! Which talent would you most like to possess? CC: It would be pretty amazing to be able to look in to the future... although, I guess I would want to only see good things! One book to take to a desert island... CC: Ooh - just one - that\'s hard...I may have to think about that one for a bit longer... How would you like people to view your work in the future? CC: I hope my work captures, or hints at, something universal about what it feels like to be alive and I so would like to think that this would continue to communicate to people in the future. Name a current exhibition that you would like to see/would recommend CC: Hoping to get to the Royal Academy and see Albert Irvin\'s print exhibition and also Frank Bowling\'s works on paper exhibition.      Mon, 12 Sep 2011 02:30:57 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/getting-to-know-charlotte-cornish.html#39http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/30082011/getting-to-know-patrick-hughes.htmlNext in our \'Getting to Know...\' series the quirky and wonderful artist Patrick Hughes. As well as having some now very rare prints by Patrick dating from the 80S, CCA have been delighted to publish new silkscreen editions with him in recent years. Patrick currently has a retrospective of his work \'50 Years in Show Business\' at Flowers Gallery, London.           CC: Describe your ethos as an artist/How would you describe your work?         PH: My work is oxymoronic, bitter/sweet, serious/funny, simple/complicated, reasonable/daft.         CC: What Inspires you?         PH: I am inspired by artists and writers of a similar persuasion: Magritte, Klee, Duchamp, Kakfka, Lewis Caroll, Samuel Butler.         CC: Did you always want to be an artist?         PH: No I wanted to be a writer, but I thought NF Simpson\'s play One Way Pendulum was so perfect that I thought I should be a                  paradoxer in art where there was not so much competition.        CC: What is an average day in the life of Patrick Hughes?        PH: I get up at 6.30, my assistants come at 8 when I make them tea or coffee, lunch is 12.20 to 1.10, the studio colses at 4.40 Monday             to  Friday. In the evening TV or theatre or reading with my wife Di. Running around the park, playing table tennis five times a week.       CC: Who is your favourite artist/ artwork|?       PH: Paul Klee is my favourite artist because I never knew what he was going to do next. March of the Viaducts is one of his best. Colour Process (1984)  CC: What do you think of the Arts in Britain today? PH: I never think about the Arts in Britain today, I am only interested in what I am interested in. I read the paper cover to cover every day, and watch the TV news. I am not British, I have got a Citizen of the World passport, and I am as interested in British art as I am in Croatian art or Malaysian art: nationalism is the biggest mistake of the nineteenth century, or any century. CC: What is your favourite exhibition space? PH: The space inside your head. CC: What do you consider to be your greatest achievement? PH: To have always done what I wanted to do, without studying at an art school. To have become learned by reading books silently. CC: Which talent would you most like to possess? PH: To run like the wind. CC: One book to take to a desert island... PH: A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh CC: How would you like people to view your work in the future? PH: Profound, witty, imaginative, unique. CC: Name a current exhibition that you would like to see/would recommend PH: Magritte in Liverpool, Hughes in Cork Street and Shoreditch (Flowers Gallery).     Paper Roses (1985)Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:37:58 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/getting-to-know-patrick-hughes.html#38http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/25082011/getting-to-know-barbara-rae.html Continiung our series of interviews with Britain\'s leading artists, Clare Clinton talks to Barbara Rae: CC: Describe your ethos as an artist/How would you describe your work? BR: My work practice is in two parts: the first is creative research including historical and geographical information, the second is studio based adaptation and development of information. Research can be a specific area of landscape, an industrial location, an interior or an object that fascinates such as a piece of Navajo weaving or a carved Pictish standing stone. The studio based work is intuitive and creative, based on written and observed knowledge but largely left behind at this stage. Pueblo CC: What Inspires you? BR: History, geography and the way things have been shaped by man: landscape, cities and objects. CC: Did you always want to be an artist? BR: I dabbled with the idea of being a PE teacher or doing geography at university. Deeo down I knew that I would be going to Art College. CC: What is an average day in the life of Barbara Rae? BR: There is no average day really. When I am on location somewhere whether it is in Arizona, Spain, Ireland etc. I like to get out as soon as possible to drive around to see things and explore. I prefer to work outside in the winter months when the light is low (no blue skies or tourists). Sometimes I have to get up really early or wait until before dusk to get the best light. In my studio in Ireland or Edinburgh, I get to the studio as early as possible and get started before the phone starts to ring. There are always pleasant distractions however, such as lunch or drinks with friends!   Red Sky CC: Who is your favourite artist/ artwork|? BR: I enjoy folk art a lot for its naive honesty and unconscious humour. I collect these things when I can. Artists that I admire include Tapies, Rauschenberg, Warhol, Miro (no surprise that they are printmakers!). I also admire Goya and Velasquez. CC: What do you think of the Arts in Britain today? BR: The huge increase in art galleries has made art accessible to many more people, as has the growth in popularity of prints in all their forms. The quality is really variable and there is some excruciatingly bad work lurking in small galleries in tucked away remote places ready to ambush the unwary art lover. The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is a good place to see a cross section of quality work. The artists\' societies in Scotland show a wide variety of serious work as do the private galleries. CC: What is your favourite exhibition space? BR: Royal Academy, London or Guggenheim. Bilbao . The Ace Gallery in LA is pretty amazing. CC: What do you consider to be your greatest achievement? BR: Teaching at Glasgow School of Art in the wonderfil Charles Rennie MacIntosh building for 21 years then leaving and having my own wonderful studio space.   Quarry Edge CC: Which talent would you most like to possess? BR: The ability to learn languages. CC: One book to take to a desert island... BR: Must be the best survival manual around! Or a seed catalogue would keep me amused for many hours.  CC: How would you like people to view your work in the future? BR: I hope that they will enjoy it and understand that I am not a \'landscape\' artist. CC: Name a current exhibition that you would like to see/would recommend BR: Norman McBeath and Robert Crawford exhibition, Body Bags/Simonides- Edinburgh College of Art 4 Aug until 9 Sept. Also David Mach- Fruitmarket Gallery    Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:12:36 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/getting-to-know-barbara-rae.html#37http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/04082011/sir-peter-blake-designs-for-fred-perry.htmlIconic British style enthusiasts will be delighted to here that Sir Peter Blake has teamed up with Fred Perry to redesign mod favourite Fred Perry polo shirt. It\'s a particularly fitting team-up- not least because Sir Peter painted himself wearing a Fred Perry under his denim workman\'s jacket in his 1961 work Self-Portrait with Badges. There are three different styles of shirt being released (red, white and blue- naturally), each of the three is limited to 1000 pieces and comes in a presentation box featuring Union Jack patches and screen-printed iconography, with the artist\'s signature on hem and neck.Using an original 1960s colour palette the three shirts feature rainbow and Union Jack patches alongside screen printed icons such as stars, hearts and targets.                                           Priced at £125. Visit fredperry.com to buy Fred Perry have interviewed Sir Peter: - What was your inspiration behind the pieces? PB: Pop.... - Do you wear Fred Perry yourself otherwise? PB: No, sadly I am too fat! - What is it with the brand that you like? PB: The symbol is the ethos of MOD... - You work with pop art and Fred Perry is subcultural label to a degree, do you have common aesthetic grounds? PB: As a prototype MOD in the last 1950s, early 1960s, I wore Fred Perry shirts and painted a similar shirt in my Self-Portrait with Badges. - There are Union Jacks and other British symbols on the tops, does the collection pay national homage? PB: I see the Union Jack in the traditional way of it being a patriotic image... - Have you seen and liked any of the other Fred Perry Blank Canvas collaborations? PB: Yes- I Love them! - How would you define the relationship between art and fashion? PB: Fashion can be art and art can be fashionable... - What\'s next for you? PB: I am making some jewellery at the moment!   Thu, 4 Aug 2011 11:01:41 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/sir-peter-blake-designs-for-fred-perry.html#36http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/03082011/john-hoyland-1934-2011.htmlWe at CCA were very sad to learn of the death of John Hoyland. I had been lucky enough to meet him on several occasions and remember a spirited and witty man full of verve. He was a convivial and irreverent neighbour at the dinner table; always ready with a forthright opinion and a funny story. I remember a few years ago at Art London John and his wife Beverley came and had a drink on board the Art Bus and ended up sitting with me for the best part of an hour, just laughing and chewing the fat.   I was also privileged enough to visit him at his home and studio in London, where he had lived and worked since the 60s, and which was full of intriguing objects from all his travels. The living space opened up directly into his studio space, in which canvases were stacked against the walls and the floors were completely covered with splatters of paint. The visit was in order to pick up an original canvas that John was donating for our British Heart Foundation Mending Broken Hearts Art Appeal. He also created an original silkscreen print for the campaign \'Soulless Stars Cascade\'- generous with his time and effort for a great cause. We are lucky at CCA to have published three silkscreen editions with John: Life and Love and Warrior Universe, as well as Soulless Stars Cascade. The titles of his works were very important to John, and I always felt that they revealed the poet in him; such beautiful meaningful and romantic titles that conveyed the full richness of the passion, exuberance and emotional depth of his work. The Directors and staff at CCA offer our condolences to his family and friends.Wed, 3 Aug 2011 09:22:30 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/john-hoyland-1934-2011.html#35http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/13072011/cca-artists-exhibiting-in-the-royal-academy-summer-exhibition.htmlBritish summer time means Ascot, Henley, Wimbledon, the Proms and of course the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. This huge and unique display is one of the highights of the art calendar, with tousands of works on show and application to exhibit works open to all. CCA are very proud that among our stable of artists many are Royal Academicians and several are included in this years show: Brad Faine, Barbara Rae, Tom Phillips and Brendan Neiland and Maurice Cockrill.  Barbara Rae RA has four pieces included in the Summer Exhibition: Fish Pool, Ballinskelligs, Lacken Cross and Ceanthru Thaidhg. Maurice Cockrill RA is currently the Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools, which entitles him to the rare privilege of having a studio inside Burlington House itself. This year, his piece in aid of the British Heart Foundation Clare\'s Inspiration is included in the show. This piece is particularly special to me, as Maurice was sweet enough to name it in my honour (!). Brendan Neiland is displaying one of his latest silkscreen print Big Apple, the result of a recent trip to New York. Brad Faine\'s Down The Tube has also been selected. And finally Tom Phillips\' Raphael Revisited makes its debut at the RA. This is a beautiful new silkscreen interpretation of Raphael\'s rooms in the Vatican. Watch this space, we should have an image and further details on the website soon. The Summer Exhibition is on until 15th August.    Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:54:51 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-artists-exhibiting-in-the-royal-academy-summer-exhibition.html#34http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/18052011/clare-clinton-catches-up-with-brendan-neiland-as-he-prepares-for-his-70th-birthday-and-looks-back-at-hi-sprintmaking-career.htmlIn the leafy streets near Wandsworth Common on a sunny afternoon I sat with Brendan Neiland in his garden talking about the solo show he is currently preparing for October. To conicide with his 70th birthday Neiland is showing new canvasses and silkscreen prints at the Redfern Gallery. Like many of our leading contemporary artists Neiland is primarily known as a painter, but he has been printmaking since the early 70s and this has been an integral part of his career. The new exhibition will feature his latest publications with CCA Galleries: Manhattan, Big Apple and Calypso (made for our British Heart Foundation Mending Broken Hearts portfolio Breath of Life). Neiland met Brad Faine (master printmaker at Coriander Studio) in 1974 when Coriander had just been established. This partnership has prospered ever since, with Neiland and Faine collaborating to create original silkscreen prints at the studio for nearly 40 years. Neiland explained to me how important the element of trust was between artist and print studio, and between artist and publisher. Painting is a solitary pursuit, and part of the joy of printmaking is that the artist gets to collaborate in order to create his print. The artist takes advice from the master printmaker and his team as to how to best achieve the effects he wants in his print, thus the original idea may evolve or change- but in many respects the quality and appearance of the final product is dependent on the skill of the printmakers, so the artist has to feel total confidence in them. Neiland typically takes 5-6 weeks to create one original silkscreen print. They are always original works of art; he is not interested in making reproductions of his paintings, but in creating completely new works, embracing the working methods and  challenges of printmaking. Neiland does the prepatory work (before going to the print studio) alone in his studio- it can take several weeks to plan the composition of the print and then break this down into seritraces (the different \'screens\'/masks through which paint will be applied- the layers building up to create the finished images). Each colour in the finished work requires a screen/seritrace to be created, Neiland prints typically feature around 30 colours, he prefers  to work by hand (rather than digitally) at every stage of the printmaking process, and feels that it is very important for protect these skills for the future. The challenges that he relishes are limiting the amount of colours he can use and creating the richest surface that he can. When creating the seritraces he starts with the base colour, building up to the general colours, and then the exciting intricate details towards the end. When working on a print he can work on nothing else, the intricaces of the design consume him completely. Neiland only takes his work to the print studio when he think there is nothing further he can do at home.   His latest prints are a result of years of experience and experimentation in printmaking and of collaboration with Brad Faine, years of gradually building up knowledge. Their large format, bright colours, complex compositions and sheer wall power are testament to the confidence that Neiland now has when it comes to printmaking. The surface of Manhattan and Big Apple is painterly. rich, detailed, tactile. They are the result of Neiland\'s recent trip to New York, he strolled around for days on end soaking up the atmosphere and energy, opening up new visions and ideas. They are a good expression of his art at the moment; confident, vibrant, they seem to represent a new lease of life. Neiland says that they express for him what New York is all about: flux and change, wit and humour.   Prints have enabled Neiland work to reach a larger global audience, his prints have been shown in every continent, he also  like the idea of more people being able to own his work because of the relative affordability of prints. In this success the relationship between artist publisher is crucial. Neiland explains that the publisher has to find the artist\'s idea as exciting as he does himself, and they have to have the confidence to invest in that vision, \'It\'s amazing to have people with the confidence to invest in living artists- taking that leap of faith. It is a vital support network to have and a validation of your vision as an artist\'.Wed, 18 May 2011 08:58:29 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/clare-clinton-catches-up-with-brendan-neiland-as-he-prepares-for-his-70th-birthday-and-looks-back-at-hi-sprintmaking-career.html#33http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/12052011/getting-to-know-maggi-hambling.htmlBorn in Suffolk in 1945, Maggi Hambling is a distinguished painter and sculptor whose work can be seen in the British Museum, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Tate Collection, The Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon and many other public collections in the UK and abroad. She was the first artist in residence at the National Gallery in 1980-81. Her portraits of George Melly and Max Wall are among those of her works in the National Portrait Gallery. Maggi Hambling is a figurative painter, sculptor and printmaker whose strong identification with her subject is expressed in bold handling and colour. In 1998 her statue to commemorate Oscar Wilde- A Converstion with Oscar Wilde was unveiled facing Charing Cross Station. In 2003 Scallop: her sculpure to celebrate Benjamin Britten, was unveiled on Aldeburgh beach in Suffolk. Clare Clinton had a cup of tea with Maggi and bombarded her with the big questions...   CC: Describe your ethos as as artist/How would you describe your work? MH: Life dictates what I paint or sculpt. The subject chooses me, rather than me the subject. I leave describing my work to others.   CC: What Inspires you? MH: The North Sea. Occasionally shocking newspaper images. People I want to paint because I find them moving.   CC: Did you always want to be an artist? MH: Art began for me when I was surprised by coming top in an art exam at school aged 14. I had done nothing until on seeing the clock announce 3.20pm, knowing that by 3.30pm I had to produce a painting, I did one.   CC: What is an aeverage day in the life of Maggi Hambling? MH: When in Suffolk I rise at 5am in the summer, 6am in the winter, drive to the sea and draw in my sketchbook. When in London I take the dogs to the park and observe the Thames. In either case I work back in the studio with the first cigarette for a couple of hours before breakfast.   CC: Who are your top 6 artists? MH: Rembrandt, late Titian, Van Gogh, Rothko, Jackson Pollock and living now- Cy Twombly.   CC: What do you think of the Arts in Britain today? MH: Alive and full of variety. Exciting.   CC: What is you favourite exhibition space? MH: Tate Modern   CC: What do you consider to be your greatest achievement? MH: Dogged persistence. Ongoing.   CC: Which talent would you most like to possess? MH: Tapdancing. With both feet.   CC: What is your favourite daily task? MH: A large malt whiskey or two as the sun goes down.   CC: You least favourite? MH: Finding a regretable absence of whiskey.   CC: One book to take to a desert island... MH: The one I chose to take with me on the programme ie. the complete set of Just William books by Richmore Crompton.   CC: City or country? MH: Suffolk beats London on every count. As I was born there the ground under my feet, the sky above me and the air that I breathe all feel right. The sunrise and the sea are better than anywhere else.   Sunrise Heart   CC: How would you like people to view your work in the future? MH: Let\'s hope there\'s still some of it around, and that those who don\'t appreciate it now will realise their previous lack of perception.   CC: Name a current exhibition that you would like to see/would recommend MH: I must see Miro at Tate Modern, and I have faith that other people will be inspired by it too.  Thu, 12 May 2011 10:15:32 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/getting-to-know-maggi-hambling.html#32http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/10052011/getting-to-know-dan-baldwin.html Clare Clinton chats to CCA\'s newest publishing recruit the supercool Dan Baldwin and finds out what makes him tick.... CC: How would you describe your work? DB: I\'d describe my work as allegorical- suggestive- organic- sometimes they have perspective, sometimes not- they are never planned. They could be subtle and suggestive, delicate and playful, or dreamlike. It all depends on the mood; almost like a composer of music layering, sampling, building up until the balance is just right.   CC: What inspires you? DB: To be a better artist, to progress forward, to be significant and recognised, success, exciting collaborations, freedom, security, to grow and fulfil ambitions...   CC: What is an average day in the life of Dan Baldwin? DB: It depends what\'s on...the house we bought is from 1815, it has a nice feel to it, security is important to me and being at home- where I work as well. So I\'m not always in the studio, but I\'m surrounded by it all- pottering...I may be in the office working on the website or doing admin, or a vase, or doing research. If I\'m painting I\'ll get in the studio about 11/12 and work until 7 in a really intense burst, usually with music on loud. Then I may go back after dinner from 8 til 10. I bring my paintings into my bedroom when they are nearly finished to really look at them...I can lie there for an hour gazing into the work and scanning across it, maybe it needs a bit more blue or black, to get that balance just right. I often start a piece one way and it ends up totally different- I made one recently that started all in gold leaf, and now there\'s no gold left!   CC: Your work often features religious imagery- is this symbolic or reflective of personal belief? Is there a spiritual element to your work?  DB: I believe in positive thinking, and I do have great faith, but I am not religious. I was brought up a Catholic but aged 14 decided to end that relationship. I started using a lot of religious elements after a relationship ended in 2006, but also after a trip to Mexico, and a general assessment of Catholicism. I was making some quite full on pieces like F*** Religion and F*** Politics...quite harsh works. But now it\'s more an attraction to objects, linking them together; like the crucifix is a beautiful object, same as a knife or a skull is, but religion is a huge cause of major conflicts worldwide- death of nature, of human life, religion, war, politics, it all links- there are links in everything I use- anatomy, vanitas, symbolism, nature, life, death etc, all carefully placed to conflict or juxtapose each other... Cyclone CC: What is your favourite work of art? DB: Either a Francis Bacon piece called 3 Painting from 1946 or his Three Studies for a Crucifixion from 1962. Or a J.M Basquiat piece Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta from 1983 or Brother\'s Sausage...but I\'ve been looking at H. Bosch\'s Garden of Earthly Delights recently, which he spent 10 years making and it\'s an amazing work, especially the panel HELL.   CC: What do you think of the Arts in Britain today? DB:I\'m not sure really, I think it\'s probably the hottest thing to be right now isn\'t it- musician/artist etc.? Maybe it\'s down to Jamie Hewlett or Banksy, Hirst etc- my nephews all want to be artists now, but my sister tells them it took 16 years before I went full time! Tate Modern is one of the most visited places in the UK and since the mid-90s \'cool Britannia\' has flown the flag for UK art and culture, from music to fashion etc. London has always had the edge with art, fashion, music etc- I put it down to the bad weather because if you lived in LA you would never get any work done! I stood outside Art Republic [one of our approved stockists in Brighton] and these 16 year olds were saying, \'I f***ing love that piece\'- and it was a Banksy or one of mine, and I thought about when I was 16 and we knew nothing about art, only the old masters- so it has to be a good thing. But people are so spoilt and jaded too, as they over saturated with visual imagery. There seems to be this divide; I was placed into an \'urban\' bracket for years, which I was not from; but I\'m grateful to the explosion in that movement as it helped me. Overall I think the Arts in the UK are pretty healthy...the National Theatre, the RSC, London Art Fair, Affordable Art Fairs etc- they are always packed out.   CC: What is your favourite exhibition space? DB: I like the Serpentine...   CC: What do you consider to be your greatest achievement? DB: Tricky one...probably getting on the property ladder, or the Bonhams sale of 2008 [in which a piece of mine] went for over £25,000, selling a print for £3200 for charity was nice- as it was still one sale for a fraction of that, students doing projects on my work is a huge thrill, and the birth of baby Dylan last year was life changing. Hope in Hell CC: Which talent would you most like to possess? DB: Hmm...I\'d love to read music as I love playing the piano.   CC: Which daily task do you like best? DB: Chopping logs/lighting the fire and pouring a vodka.   CC: Which daily task do you most dislike? DB: Getting up.   CC: One book to take to a desert island... DB: Shakespeare\'s complete works- I\'d have time then and no excuses, or a \'how to swim\' manual.   CC: City or country? DB: Country, but where I can be in the city in a few hours- like West Sussex! Not too remote...   Death at the Parade CC: How would you like people to view your work in the future? DB: I think people expect a full on anarchic assault, but the work is actually very gentle; it\'s about harmony, love, life, beauty and colour...    Tue, 10 May 2011 08:51:28 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/getting-to-know-dan-baldwin.html#31http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/28042011/an-interview-with-duggie-fields.html London-based artist and man about town Duggie Fields has long been a central and flamboyant figure in the arts scene. His exuberant, sexy and often controversial post-pop paintings have been exhibited all over the world. Duggie\'s studio is in the same Earl\'s Court flat that he has lived in since he shared it with Pink Floyd\'s Syd Barrett in the 1960s. Duggie Fields His artwork has often translated into fashion design, leading to associations with designers and critics such as Ozwald Boateng and Zandra Rhodes. Seeking to push new boundaries in contemporary art, Duggie was an early exponent of using digital media to develop his work. Clare Clinton tracked him down to ask a few questions.... Did you always want to be an artist? No, but I started painting in adolescence and always wanted to carry on with it, just never thought of it as a career. I thought of myself for years as a painter before I accepted the term artist as describing what I do. What is your favourite work of art? Always my latest- of anyone else\'s it\'s their whole lifespan of work, of which there are so many, from Bacon to Picasso, via Miro and Mondrian, and so many others. What is an average day for you? The morning is usually spent working on the computer, out to lunch at a cheap local, a walk, then the afternoon and often the evening painting or back on the computer. What is your favourite exhibition space? My studio, the original Saatchi Gallery in Boundary Road, the Serpentine Gallery for its location- rarely its content. What do you consider to be your greatest achievement? Being able daily to decide what I want to do. Why do you create art? I don\'t know anything else that I could do that would be as fulfilling that I have the ability to do. How would you like people to view your work in the future? I\'m not overly bothered, but hope they get some pleasure/stimulus from it. But I won\'t be here so it won\'t really matter to me... What advice would you give someone hoping to become an artist? Work at it. But work at the work more than anything else. Describe your relationship with London I Love London\'s mix, though I wonder sometimes currently that too much of the past is going to make way for much speculative over-development of little architectural interest. What is your opinion of the health of the Arts in Britain today? Vibrant, active, but over-hyped. Name a current exhibition that you would like to see/would recommend I want to go and see the Miro Show (currently on at Tate Modern) and I think it a must-see. Duggie is currently working on an exhibition that will run in conjunction with L&S fine art at the London Newcastle project space in Redchurch Street, Shoreditch during Frieze week in October. Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:16:32 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/an-interview-with-duggie-fields.html#30http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/19042011/the-quest-for-irma-new-limited-edition-silkscreen-print-from-tom-phillips.html The Quest for Irma - series of five new signed limited edition silkscreen prints from renowned British artist Tom Phillips.   These five images are reproduced from the iconic series of gouaches that Phillips created in 1973. The work that Phillips has produced- from art to music to poetry and prose- all links to each other; each inspiring concept being related to a previous idea that Phillips has developed. The Quest for Irma is a perfect example of this interconnectedness. Whilst visually fascinating and mysteriously beautiful as a stand-alone group of artworks, the series relates to the opera Irma composed by Phillips in 1969. The eponymous heroine represents the ideal woman of the hero (Grenville’s) quest.  Phillips’ work often merges different art forms- approaching Wagner’s ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art or synthesis of the arts), indeed the score for Irma takes the form of a large sheet with prose directions for the libretto, the mise en scène, and the sound vocabulary of the opera ie. the score exists as an autonomous artwork in its own right (and is in the Altmann Museum in Liechtenstein). In turn the inspiration for Irma was germinated from Phillips’ ongoing project A Humument. This project, which Phillips’ has continually worked on since 1966, is a transformation of W.H Mallocks Victorian potboiler A Human Document, published in 1892,   ‘I took a forgotten Victorian novel found by chance. I plundered, mined and undermined its text to make it yield ghosts of other possible stories, scenes, poems, erotic incidents and surrealist catastrophies which seemed to lurk within its wall of words. As I worked on it I replaced the text I stripped away with visual images of all kinds. It began to tell and depict, amongst other memories, dreams and reflections, the sad story of Bill Toge, one of love’s casualties’.   Phillips’ treated novel is now in its 4th edition and he continues to re-work its pages and find fresh developments in Mallock’s source material. Irma is again based around pages of A Human Document transposing the main characters Irma and Grenville to a new format, and consequentially text from the novel appears as pendants to the paintings of the Quest for Irma series. Irma’s face is never entirely seen, giving this ideal woman an element of mystery as well as mass appeal; she could be any woman, anywhere. Irma is not only chased through prose and opera; here she is trailed through the shadow- world of the postcard, from which numerous possible Irma candidates have emerged. She is frequently seen from the back or with her face in shadow, in this manner Phillips freezes time, forever delaying the moment of recognition. We are caught in the powerful moment of ‘could it be?’ with all its anticipation and possibility, which so often gives way to the ‘no’ of broken illusion when the followed turns to face the follower. The Quest for Irma is about unobtainable love, forever just out of reach, and the heightened state of the lover who thinks he sees the object of his affection in the features of strangers on the street.   Phillips’ choice of postcard imagery- found imagery- rather than self-created portraits of what Irma might look like also increases the potency of the idea that Irma could be any woman, or perhaps every woman. It embraces the element of chance, the artist has not created these possible Irma’s, he has found them. Phillips has used postcards as a source material since the late 1960s, for several years they became the equivalent visual source to Mallock’s A Human Document as a textual source,   ‘Having claimed that I would find in the pages of A Human Document  everything that I might want to say verbally, it seemed that I could by analogy decide that there was no narrative or reference or pictorial element that I could not elicit from a postcard. A special emblematic breed of people seemed to inhabit the parallel planet that cards depict, people trained in an eloquence of gesture and expressiveness of movement more telling than those of any corps de ballet. I made studies of them as diligently and reverentially as, in another age, I might have made drawings from the antique...I indulged my liking for silly scholarship by building into the title (which forms part of the picture) all the pedantic details of the postcard’s own self-description, its serial number, publisher, place of printing etc. There is often as glum poetry in such particulars...My veneration of Cezanne was embodied in pictures painted from postcards of his studio...No aspect of postcards, however trivial or minutely incidental, was overlooked in what I now see as a form of passionate distancing...which might by indirection find direction out...The postcard as cultural ikon dominated my imagination for a long period.’   Each Quest for Irma piece is in effect a treated page of Mallock’s A Human Document, just like A Humument, however these works are not in a book format and are in a uniform composition. The imagery is the primary focus, with the text placed at the bottom, acting as a kind of pedestal supporting the framed images of ideal womanhood. The text used in each piece is taken from a single page of A Human Document, the chosen words having been extracted and circled by Phillips, with the rest painted over, though partially visible. Phillips has found and used pages of A Human Document containing fragments of text that are pertinent to the scene represented in the postcard eg. in Quest for Irma I the text refers to the ‘summer sea’ and ‘the hours she devoted to watching the waves fall’, or in Quest for Irma III the text refers to ‘wind-swept the beach and the shining sea’. Beneath this each piece is has a footer of stencilled lettering listing the title, details of the postcard used and the date of the original work. These three aspects; the use of postcard imagery, the use of text from A Human Document, and Phillips’ stencilled cataloguing of each work, are key motifs throughout the artist’s career and body of work.  Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:52:11 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/the-quest-for-irma-new-limited-edition-silkscreen-print-from-tom-phillips.html#29http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/19012011/new-release-paris-suite-by-sir-peter-blake.html Blake continues on his tour of the great cities of the world, following his Venice Suite of 2009, and has now brought his unique vision to the City of Light in the Paris Suite. This beautifully presented portfolio set is comprised of twenty original silkscreen prints on paper.  Once again Blake has taken inspiration from an antique souvenir postcard set of the city, using these as the basis for each packed collage composition. Blake creates hugely complex and humorous scenarios filled by characters and objects found in his personal collection of printed materials. The series contains several classic Blake motifs such as the circus, magic crowds, dancing and butterflies, and showcases the sophistry of his compositional skills.  Blake’s careful balance and soft application of colour throughout the series, render the works reminiscent of old-fashioned aquatints; they could almost be illustrations to a story book from yesteryear- he leaves it to the viewer to create the story.  Collage has been a medium that has fascinated Blake since his first experiments at the Royal College of Art in 1955. He took inspiration from artists such as Kurt Schwitters and Max Ernst to create collages that were surreal and comic visual stories bringing together many disparate and strange elements.     Paris- 10 Man Upright This tower of humans is one of the circus feats that often recurs in Blake’s work, having recently appeared in Four Man Up (Paris Quartet). Blake’s takes childlike joy in all things ‘circus’ and we here we see this precariously balanced group performing in front of Les Invalides (the military hospital and museum where Napoleon is buried). Blake acknowledges this Parisian landmark by compiling his human tower from military personnel, but cannot resist the joke of putting a little girl at the bottom! The spire of Les Invalides is made to seem considerably shorter than the pile of figures, of whom we can only see four and a half of the advertised ten, as the tower reaches dizzying heights beyond the image edge.   Paris- Aquarium The theme of public entertainment continues with the aquarium. A top-hatted master of ceremonies presents an aquarium of giant fish to the general public in the Place de la Bastille. In the foreground a Welsh fisherman carrying a coracle  is rather optimistically hoping for a catch. Blake’s manipulation of scale and his inclusion of the diver in the tank are a comic joy.   Paris- Butterflies I Blake returns to the subject of Eiffel Tower (Paris Quartet) with this romantic image. Butterflies have an increasing presence in Blake’s current work inspired equally by his admiration for the work of Damien Hirst (as seen in his solo show ‘Homage 10 x 5’ at Waddington Galleries 2010) and the beauty of the antique butterfly illustrations he finds in his huge collection of printed material.   Paris- Butterflies II Blake’s butterflies are pressed right up against the picture plane, creating a colourful screen through which we can view a collection of diverse and random characters. Butterflies have an increasing presence in Blake’s current work inspired equally by his admiration for the work of Damien Hirst (as seen in his solo show ‘Homage 10 x 5’ at Waddington Galleries 2010) and the beauty of the antique butterfly illustrations he finds in his huge collection of printed material.   Paris- Charabanc Outing Blake peoples this composition with a typically unexpected and unusual crowd. A charabanc is an old fashioned vehicle used for sight-seeing (such a trip was the premise for the Beatles TV film ‘Magical Mystery Tour). This concept recurs in Blake’s work from his paintings of Marcel Duchamp’s World Tour to his double decker Art Bus in which he tours the UK. Paris- Chicken Act The Garnier Opera House seems to inspire avian thoughts in Blake, for his Birds (Paris Quartet) was set in the same location. Peter returns to his circus theme by having chickens and splendid cockerels re-enact the human tower of 10 Man Upright and Four Man Up . The cockerel is of course a symbol of France; perhaps Blake could be making a little tongue in cheek reference to the Gallic love of display. Again Blake plays with scale- the size of the horse revealing the chickens to be giants. Gathered around this unusual sight is a classic Blake ‘magic crowd’ made up of diverse engraved heads selected from his huge collection of printed material.   Paris- Circus I Features an engraving of Wombells Circus that Blake has had in his collection for many years, and here provides the perfect background for an open air Parisian circus spectacular. The circus takes place in front of the now demolished Palais du Trocadéro  (built for the Exposition of 1878 and now demolished).   Paris- Circus II The circus theme continues in front of the Panthéon with acrobats clambering all over the building. Blake’s fascination with the circus has been prevalent throughout his career. As a painfully shy young man he identified with the outsiders misfits and ‘freaks’ on show.  As well as a great admiration for tghe performers, Blake felt a more general interest in the circus as part of popular culture-  as escapist entertainment for ordinary people. He has always been interested in artistic styles outside the fine art traditions and admired the commercial art of the circus and fairground.   Paris- Confucius A large crowd gathers in front of the Grand Palais to admire a statue of the Chinese philosopher Confucius. Blake combines illustrations of people from all walks of life and parts of the world to form this mass of admirers. ‘Magic Crowds’ are a recurring theme in Blake’s work (most famously seen in Sgt. Pepper) and reflect not only Blake’s sense of fun and interest in the surreal possibilities of college, but his own sociability and fascination with the diversity of human experience.   Paris- Dancing Brings together an eclectic collection of illustrations and photographs of people dancing and enjoying themselves in front of the Palais Garnier. The composition is dominated by children, whose innocence and joy is a key component throughout the Paris Suite. In the background dragons, camels and spitfires complete this fantasy of fun.   Paris- Elephants Elephants are lowered into the Place Vendome on winches- perhaps to invade Paris or perhaps to take their rightful place as mans’ best friend? Blake focuses on elephants in several of the Paris Suite works and they appear in the background of many more, he gives them a human quality. Their presence fulfils two key elements of Blake’s collage work: humour and an exploration of the surreal and unexpected.   Paris- Girl A crowd gathers by the Pont Alexandre to admire les femmes parisiennes in a work that is reminiscent of World Tour: London- Multi-Ethnic Crowd.  All walks of life are gathered on the banks of the Seine, Blake has let his imagination run wild, creating a magic crowd with characters from varying ethnographical and horological backgrounds, resulting in a composition that reflects all the vibrancy and elegance of the French capital.   Paris- Lowering Elephants The languid expression on the elephants’ faces contrasts humorously with the drama of their arrival via winch.  The sight of elephants flying through the air in this manner is utterly surreal and very funny, perhaps referring to the Disney song ‘When I See an Elephant Fly’. Blake’s humanisation of elephants in the series is continued, with one of the pachyderms cradling a human infant.   Paris- Men With Their Pets In the companion piece to Paris- Women with Their Pets these men have some rather macho and exotic animal companions including a giant python, a dragon and a rhinoceros. The men are occupied training their pets, offering them to ladies, conversing with them, feeding them, fighting with them, and letting them perch on their telescopes and generally larking about.   Paris- Monkeys Like a scene from a scary ‘B’ movie- giant monkeys have taken over Notre Dame and seem to be treating it as an amusing climbing frame. The cast includes baboons, gibbons, gorillas, orang-utans, limas and some very strange looking monkeys indeed. The composition of this piece is minimalistic in comparison to many of the others, making it stand out amongst the Paris Suite.   Paris- The Day The Apes Escaped All of the collaged elements are illustrations from a book in Blake’s collection about the meeting between Dr. Livingstone (British missionary and explorer in central Africa) and HM Stanley in 1873. The various ape-outrages that are taking place are all illustrations of the adventures of Livingstone and Stanley. The cool-looking character relaxing with shot gun is most likely Livingstone himself. Even though the apes are wreaking violent havoc, Blake manages to retain the charmingly comedic idea of transposing the adventures of these two great explorers from the African jungle to the civil urbanity of Paris, as exemplified by the nannies with charges walking calmly by the pond with no concern for the antics of the apes.   Paris- The Day the Seine Froze Over Inspired by the many occasions on which the Thames used to freeze over (a regular occurrence between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries). Blake imagines the same event taking place in Paris, we see people making camp on the frozen surface of the river. The contrast between the mild blue skies and green leaves of the background and the extremity of the frozen wastes of the foreground is a joy to behold. Blake doesn’t hold back on the winter imagery; including fur-wrapped sledgers driving reindeer and dogs. This drama is tempered by a pair of ducks waddling across the ice   Paris- The Kiss Blake’s mischievous sense of humour comes to the fore here. The romantic kissing couple are flanked on the one-side by nineteenth century British Prime Minister Disraeli, and on the other by a lovelorn classical figure. Keenly observing the embrace is a dirty old man, sharing his glee with a rabble of teenage ragamuffins who are at once fascinated and disgusted. In the middleground a witch, a bacchic nymph and an eastern European dancing troupe appear on the scene to celebrate the moment- standard.   Paris- Women With Their Pets Companion piece to Paris- Men With Their Pets the ladies show that their pets are just as bizarre as the mens’. The women are decidedly more affectionate with their creatures, which include a bear, fox, giraffe, squirrel, python, camel, monkey and -of course- a mammoth. The space in front of the arc de triomphe has been converted into a pet training ground, and there seems to be no creature that the intrepid female cannot succeed in domesticating whilst looking every inch a lady. Deliciously weird- a vision of what it might look like if the Paris WI took up animal circus training.   Paris- Working Elephants Elephants have been recruited by men to help with construction, transport and other work. In front of La Madeleine the industrious pachyderms work away in partnership with their human companions. Blake’s tableaux makes us imagine a Paris where this wonderful sight is an everyday scenario, as the figures in the  Wed, 19 Jan 2011 01:44:17 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-release-paris-suite-by-sir-peter-blake.html#28http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/07122010/auction-prices-for-sir-peter-blake-rocket.htmlSir Peter Blake is once again in the headlines, this time for the amazing price achieved for his artwork \'Loelia, World\'s Most Tattooed Lady\' at Christie\'s recently. This is undoubtedly an iconic piece by the artist, but its fetching more than double its estimate (£335,000) points to an increasing interest in British 20th century works within the art market. It has often been said that British Pop artists are massively undervalued compared to their American colleagues, historically this has certainly been true for Sir Peter Blake. However, it seems that collectors are waking up to the importance of the British Pop art movement, historically there has been a huge disproportion in prices achieved by Blake in comparison with Andy Warhol for example, encouraging collectors to buy up British Pop art at an \'affordable\' price. This resurgance of interest has been gathering momentum and is gradually inflating prices. There is no doubt that the British vanguard of this transatlantic movement is as significant aesthetically and intellectually as its American counterpart, and it is therefore perfectly sensible to expect equality in market value. In short it appears that collectors are realising the investment potential of British Pop art....so snap it up now!   \'Loelia, World\'s Most Tattooed Lady\' was painted by Blake in 1955 while he was a student at the Royal College of Art. Blake\'s biographer Marco Livingstone describes the piece as \'a multi-layered proto-Pop painting which occupies a key position in the history of British Pop Art\'. The piece displays motifs and methods that would become central to Blake\'s art: his fascination with fairground, circus and folk art, his use of  distressed wooden panel (making it appear to be a \'found object\'), the inclusion of popular magazine-style illustrations and old-fashioned typography, and his empathy with outsiders. Note to keen Blake collectors: CCA are offering for sale \'Tattooed Lady\' (black hair, blue bikinI) signed limited edition silkscreen print from 1985. For more information please contact us on 01252 797201, this artwork is not displayed on the website.Tue, 7 Dec 2010 11:50:54 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/auction-prices-for-sir-peter-blake-rocket.html#27http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/30112010/homage-10-x-5-new-exhibition-of-original-artwork-by-sir-peter-blake-on-display-in-london.htmlDon\'t miss your opportunity to see stunning new original artwork by Sir Peter Blake at Waddington Galleries in London. This one-man show \'Homage 10 x 5\' is a tribute to 10 artists that have inspired and influenced Blake over the course of his career: Joseph Cornell, Sonia Delaunay, Mark Dion, Damien Hirst, Henri Matisse, Jack Pierson, Robert Rauschenberg, Kurt Schwitters, Saul Steinberg and H.C. Westermann. For each artist Blake has created 5 new pieces as a homage, absorbing key elements and motifs of their style to create 50 new artowrks. Sir Peter explains his motivations in the Waddington\'s catalogue for the exhibition, \'In 1997, just after I had completed 2 years at the National Gallery as Artist-in-residence, I reached the age of 65. This is the retirement age for a male, so I announced my retirement. It was a conceptual art statement, and didn\'t mean that I would stop working, but I would retire from the avarice, jealousy, ambition, hope and glory of the art world. Then in 2007 at the age of 75 I chose to begin my \'Late Period\', rather than have other people at a later date, decide it. I could have anticipated a gentle stroll towards the sunset, and the quiet ending of my career as an artist and that point, but quite the opposite has happened. At the moment I have never been so busy. I am half way through setting up \'The Museum of Everything 3\' which I am co-curating with James Brett, and I\'m deep into the preparation for this exhibition \'Homage 10 x 5- Blake\'s Artists\' at Waddington Galleries. For \'Homage 10 x 5\' I have selected 10 artists and produced 5 works in homage to each of them. All 10 of the artists are my heroes, amd most have influenced the work I have done. I\'ll take them in alphabetical order, and explain their inclusion: 1. Joseph Cornell, the American collagist and maker of boxes, who was fascinated by European culture, but never left the USA. I have made 5 small shallow boxes in homage to his boxes. 2. Sonia Delaunay, who was French amd the wife of the artist Robert Delaunay, produced a series of decorated book covers, so I\'ve decorated 5 book covers loosely in her style. 3. Mark Dion, another American, makes arrangements of found material. My \'Museum of Black and White\' series pays homage to his collocations of found objects. 4. Damien Hirst has used butterflies a lot in his work, and it was pointed out that \'the butterfly\' owes more than a little to his work, so I was happy to dedicate him in homage to Damien. I am an enormous admirer of Dmeine\'s work. 5. Henri Matisse, I made 5 paper collage \'spirals\', after \'The Snail\', the wonderful large collage by Matisse. 6. Jack Pierson makes wall scultpures using found letters, often from the graveyards of signage in Las Vegas. My work is from a series made a few years ago, called \'Appropriating Jack Pierson.\' 7. Robert Rauschenberg was an enormous influence on me in the mid 1950s. My \'Rauschenbergs\' are a very formalised version of his work. I made no attempt to assimilate his beautiful, almost \'Abstract Expressionistic\' use of paint. 8. Kurt Schwitters, it is impossible to make a collage withour owing a debt to Kurt Schwitters. 9.Saul Steinberg. I have attempted to translate Steinberg\'s watercolours of still-lifes into three-dimensional objects. Paintings into scultpures. 10. H.C. Westermann. A marine in the US Navy he witnessed Japaense kamikaze pilots crashing into ships, and carved a series of wooden \'Death Ship\' sculptures. My \'galleon\' sculptures pay homage to them. So, fifty works, all in homage, admiration, love and respect to these ten artist. Thank you to them all.\' The exhibition runs until 11th Dec, for more info please visit www.waddington-galleries.comTue, 30 Nov 2010 12:26:22 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/homage-10-x-5-new-exhibition-of-original-artwork-by-sir-peter-blake-on-display-in-london.html#26http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/04112010/never-bought-art-online-before-worry-no-more.htmlWorried about buying artwork online? Buying an artwork is a very personal investment. Although we do our best to display artworks in as much detail as possible online, you may still want to see them in the flesh before purchasing. Our studio in Tilford, Surrey is open Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm and by appointment on Saturdays. Visitors are always welcome and we would be delighted to show you any artworks which you may want to see. Alternatively CCA Galleries exhibits at several large art fairs throughout the course of the year: Art London (October), Multilpied (October), London Art Fair (January) and the London Original Print Fair (May). If you would like to come and see us at an art fair, please contact us on 01252 797201 and we will let you know the details of the next art fair that we are attending and send you a complimentary ticket. Authenticity We understand that buying an artwork from ccagalleries.com may be a higher value purchase than you may usually make online.  First, let us re-assure that all artworks available for purchase on our website are authentic prints, lithographs, etchings or paintings signed by the artist, and all come with a certificate of authenticity (please see example on the left). Payment We want you to feel secure about buying from us online. We employ Worldpay: a wholly owned subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland, to process all payments. Worldpay is acknowledged as the global and trusted leader in secure multicurrency internet payment handling. We take all precautions to keep the details of your order and payment secure. We only accept your purchasing information, such as credit card details, through our secure server which ensures that any data sent to us is encrypted by our browser before being sent to us. Delivery CCA Galleries delivers all website purchases over £50 within the UK for free, framed or unframed. Once we have received your order we will contact you to organise the most convenient time for delivery. We can normally deliver within 7 working days. Returns/Refunds We make every effort to ensure that your goods are delivered to you in perfect condition. If for any reason your goods are damaged upon receipt, we will make every effort to rectify the situation. We will collect the damaged artwork and replace it if possible (subject to availability). Alternatively we will offer you a full refund.  If you choose to return your artwork for any other reason, we will refund you, but you will have to pay any shipping costs incurred.Thu, 4 Nov 2010 11:18:51 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/never-bought-art-online-before-worry-no-more.html#25http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/29102010/all-of-the-words-in-the-world-by-rob-ryan-now-available-to-buy-online.html All of the Words in the World has been highly anticipated as a silkscreen release, following the huge popularity of the original papercut that Rob Ryan produced to be auctioned in aid of the BHF earlier in the year.       Well now, finally, it is here. A limited edition of 150 (like all the BHF silkscreen editions) available to purchase at its launch price now. All of the Words in the World is not part of the BHF Breath of Life portfolio, but is a part of our Mending Broken Hearts Art Appeal- and all publisher\'s profits will got to the British Heart Foundation. This is a romantic, whimsical and quirky image that perfectly encapsulates Ryan\'s sentimentality andFri, 29 Oct 2010 12:29:57 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/all-of-the-words-in-the-world-by-rob-ryan-now-available-to-buy-online.html#24http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/26102010/sir-peter-blake-at-the-museum-of-everything.htmlRush to Camden and check out Sir Peter Blake\'s private collection (from his studio) of art curios, music memorabilia, victoriana and popular culture paraphernalia. All Blake fans will be aware that his studio in Hammersmith is a treasure trove and personal museum of objects and artwork that have fascinated the artist over the years, the space is stuffed with art, found objects and ephemera that Blake has collected and catagorised. \'I began my collecting when I started in the Junior Art Department at Gravesend School of Art when I was 14. Thjere was a junkyard next to the station and on my first visit I bought a set of leather0bound Sheakespeare, a papier mache tray and a painting of the Queen Mary that heppened to be a kind of outsider art, and it all started from there.\' The Museum of Everything started last year during Frieze\'s art fair month and was focussed on exhibiting art from outside of the mainstream; works created in private by untrained individuals. This time the idea of non-traditional art is being extended to include not only Blake\'s collections but other categories and collections of self-taught creativity that share similar themes. Exhibition 3 is the largest art installation ever created by Blake One of the highlights of the exhibition is Mr Potter\'s Museum of Curiosities, which was known as one of the most popular attractions in Victorian England. The collection is made up of models of claasic victorian scenes such as cricket matches, clubs and weddings populated by stuffed animals: birds, squirrels, cats: a taxidermists delight. Other unusual inclusions in Exhibition 3 are a selection of miniature fairgrounds made by a retired farmer from Norfolk, handmade puppets by vaudeville entertainer Harry Varnum, anti war art created by circus performer and former US marine HC Westermann, and art by Cheetah:the performing chimp from the Tarzan films, who took up painting at the age of 64 and was exhibited at the National Gallery. Exhibition 3 runs from 13th October-24th December. http://www.museumofeverything.com/Tue, 26 Oct 2010 02:09:25 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/sir-peter-blake-at-the-museum-of-everything.html#23http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/20102010/new-release-scottish-contemporary-artist-barbara-rae-cbe-ra.htmlWe are delighted to present two new limited edition silkscreen releases from Scottish contemporary artist Barbara Rae: Fish Pool and Ballinskelligs      These two new artworks work well as a matching pair; both featuring the motif of a leaping salmon (highlighted with metallic ink). Rae displays her fantastic skill as a colourist, creating gradations of tone that suggest the varying flows of a river, or perhaps the different effects of light and atmosphere on the water. Rae enlivens these colour gradations with sharp geometric abstract forms, as well as a block of printed text in the bottom right corner; addiong another layer of interest and texture to the compositions. Available to buy now at their launch price of £985. Rae explains her love affair with printmaking below: \"From the moment that I became a first year student at the age of 17, at Edinburgh College of Art, I sought out the printmaking department deep in the basement and became entranced with the whole magical process of creating multiple images. The alchemy of the laborious processes added to the attraction. At that time I learned about stone lithography and screen printing using the highly toxic cellulose inks. I continued to divide my time between painting and printmaking throughout my College career. I was an enthusiastic but messy printer so many prints were torn up or \"reconstructed\" to form collage images integrated into paintings. I continued to make prints after I left College in the just established Peacock Print Studio in Aberdeen. On moving south to teach in Glasgow School of Art, I worked in the print department of the Ar t School and at Glasgow Print Studio. The most important development in both my printmaking and painting career was when I was invited to work in Santa Fe. New Mexico, for a few months. There the intensity and clarity of the light changed the way that I used colour in my paintings as well as changing from oil paint, which I disliked, to highly pigmented American acrylics.  I enjoy the excitement of working with different master printers and learn so much from their varied ways of producing such amazing and magical results from a piece of etched metal or from a silk screen. Unlike the solitary act of painting in the studio, printmaking can be gregarious and the printmakers on the whole are very generous in sharing their ideas, personal techniques and secrets.For all of that and what it has meant to the development of my work, I thank them.\"  Wed, 20 Oct 2010 02:48:38 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-release-scottish-contemporary-artist-barbara-rae-cbe-ra.html#22http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/18102010/new-silkscreen-releases-from-patrick-hughes.htmlCCA Galleries are delighted to announce Patrick Hughes return to publishing with CCA Galleries. Following the massive success of the beautiful original silkscreen print Cloudy that Hughes created for inclusion in the Breath of Life Portfolio in aid of the British Heart Foundation, Hughes has created two beautifiul new silkscreen editions: Cloudy II  and Hearty. Both artworks are from limited editions of 130, and are original silkscreen prints with glazes signed by the artist and made at Coriander studio.           Both display Hughes\' ever-optimistic outlook and the child-like joy he takes in hearts, rainbows and clouds, and are classic examples of his immediately recognisable style. In both compositions  Hughes juxtaposes an austere grey interior and rainbow-wrapped, sky-filled hearts; simplistic images that have great wall power and emotional resonance. Mon, 18 Oct 2010 02:14:22 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/new-silkscreen-releases-from-patrick-hughes.html#21http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/16092010/a-quick-guide-to-printmaking-terminology.htmlI thought a brief glossary of printmaking terms might be helpful to our website users who, like me, like art but may not be printmaking experts! Artists\'s Proof/AP You maya see the letters AP on the bottom left of a print where you would normally expect the edition number to be. It means that the piece has been printed especially for the artist and excluded from the numbering of an edition, but is exactly like the ditioned prints in every other way.   Blindstamp/Chop The embossed, inked or stamped symbol used by printers, publishers and print studios, usually in the margin of the paper as a mark of identification.   Catalogue Raisonné A scholoarly catalogue which should include all the known works by an artist at the time of publication. Essential information by which works are identified is included.   Colophon/Justification A note, usually at the end of a book or portfolio of prints, giving all or some of the following information: name of work, author, printer, place of printing, date, size of edition.   Edition The total number of impressions pulled of a single image or set of images from the same matrix. To this number the artist usually authorises the addition of a small number of artists\'s, studio\'s,  publisher\'s and other proofs.   Embossing A process used to create a raised surface or raised element, but printed withput ink.   Engraving An intaglio process in which a plate is marked or incised directly with a burin or other metal-marking tool. No acid is used in this process since the design is dog out by hand. An engraved line can range from very deep and wide, to lighter and thinner and is often characterised by a pointed end signaling the exit of the \'v\' shaped burion from the metal.   Etching An intaglio process in which a plate is treated with an acid-resistant ground. The artist then draws through the ground with various tools to expose the metal. The plate is then immersed in an acid bath where the acid chemically dissolves the exposed lines. The metal plate is therefore etched by the acid rather than by a tool directly in the metal.   Hors- Commerce/HC You may see the letters HC in the bottom left of a print where you would normally expect to see the edition number. Hors-commerce means \'outside of the commercial edition\', these proofs, not originally intended for sale, are excluded from the numbering of an edition, but are otherwise exactly like the editioned prints in every other respect.   Intaglio All matrices which have either been cut into or etched into. The resulting dug out lines are printed. Intaglio processes include etching, aquatint, engraving and mezzotint.   Lithography A planographic (printing from a flat surface) form of printing where a drawing is made directly on a stone or other smooth matrix with greasy materials such as lithographic crayon. The surface is then dampened with water, which is repelled by the greasy areas. The surface is then rolled with greasy printing ink which adheres only to the greasy areas and is itself repelled by the areas which have water. The drawn image is then printed.   Master Printmaker A highly skilled priner who works very closely with the artist to produce the edition. In our case Brad Faine at Coriander Studio.   Matrix The base from which a print is made.   Monotype A unique image printed from an unworked, smooth metal or glass surface painted in ink by the artist.   Monoprint A print which is uniquely altered by monotype colouring, unique inking, hand painting or choices in paper colour.   Publisher The person or company who subsidises and often initiates the making of a print edition or portfolio and who also distributes the prints.   Silkscreen/Screenprint A printing process using stencils to block out areas which rae then printed through silk, other fabric or metal mesh. CCA Galleries\' and Coriander Studio\'s specialist area.   Studio Proof/Printer\'s Proofs/SP You may see the letters SP or PP in the botton left of a print where you woulf normally expect to see the edition number. SP stands for Studio Proof: an impression printed especially for the printer/print studio and excluded from the numbering of an edition, but exactly like the editioned prints in every way.   Let me know if there are any other terms you would like clarification on!Thu, 16 Sep 2010 03:32:45 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/a-quick-guide-to-printmaking-terminology.html#20http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/01092010/bhf-and-cca-galleries-collaborating-at-art-london.htmlWith the recent news that the British Heart Foundation will be taking a stand alongside CCA at Art London in October this year. I thought it would be pertinent to write some pieces about the stories behind the beautiful images in the Breath of Life portfolio that they will be displaying. Just to inform any new visitors, CCA are helping the BHF to raise funds for their Mending Broken Hearts Apeal through an ongoing art project. In April we unveiled the Breath of Life portfolio of 15 original limited edition silkscreen prints by a unqiue group of leading British artists based on the theme of mending broken hearts. All profits from the sale of these pieces will go to the BHF. Each artwork in the portfolio (the artworks can be purchased individually or as a set) has a special story behind it. I thought I would start with Duggie Fields\' Madonna and Heart, one of the boldest and most daring images in the portfolio. I have to say that Duggie has been the most wonderful artist to work with; he agreed to be involved with the project with alacrity and has always gone out of his way to be supportive of the BHF\'s brilliant work, as well as being constantly charming and fun. I did not realise until well into the project that Duggie had very personal reasons for wanting to help, reasons which he is happy to share in order to raise awareness, \' I was very happy to be given the opportunity to contribute to the Mending Broken Hearts Art Appeal. My Father died of heart disease in the late 1960s so I am very aware of the devastating effect of it on peoples\' lives. To make a contribution towards lessening it\'s impact on others was irrestistable, and it was also a great group of artists to be included with.\' It is always nerve-wracking going to meet an artist for the first time, especially when they are as cool as Duggie and double-especially when you are going to ask them to do a project for charity (most major artists receive dozens of these sorts of requests every week!). I manages to find Duggie\'s flat in a llovely red brick mansion block in Earl\'s Square. He has lived here since the mid 1960s when he was flatmates with Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd (did I mention he is pretty cool?). Stepping into the flat is like stepping into another world: Duggie World, and it is infintely more colourful, eccentric and surprising than the grey London streets outside. The flat is Duggie\'s studio as well as his home, and every room has been lovingly transfomed over the years to reflect his artistic vision; walls are painted and hung with his pieces, bright and beautiful mannequins are dotted about the place,  even some of the furniture has been created by Duggie. As we sit and have a cup of tea he tells me how even now- 40 years on- Pink Floyd fans still randomly turn up at his door hoping to see the place where Syd lived and strummed. What was Syd\'s room is now Duggie\'s main studio space. Although he does a lot of digital artwork on his computer in the sitting room, he still retains a large place in his heart- and a large amount of time- for his works on canvas. Duggie likes to work on a large scale and his paintings can take up to 6 months to complete.     Madonna and Heart is in Duggie\'s flamboyant signature hard-edged post-pop art style, which he describes as \'MAXIMAList\'. I think the piece is particularly powerful because of the contrast between the contemporary and severe linear style with the traditional and sentimental subject matter. As is often the case with Duggie\'s work the choice of imagery could be considered controversial (his images of both Princess Diana and Michael Jackson have caused a stir in the past); removing the infant Jesus from this Catholic iconography and replacing him with an anatomical heart (perhaps suggesting that the body should be treated as a temple, or that health has replaced god in popular culture?). The bright palatte and dramatic lines of the piece give it a lot of impact on the wall, and it\'s certainly one of my top picks from the portfolio. Duggie also created a one-off digital print on canvas of Madonna and Heart which stands nearly 2 meters tall, and will be on display at a central London location in 2011- watch this space for more news.Wed, 1 Sep 2010 04:38:37 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/bhf-and-cca-galleries-collaborating-at-art-london.html#19http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/12082010/cca-art-bus-is-transformed-into-the-mick-jones-rock-and-roll-public-library-at-vintage-goodwood.htmlCCA Galleries are delighted to be taking part in the inaugural Vintage Goodwood. A festival celebrating 5 decades of Britiish music, design, film, fashion and art. To find out more or purchase tickets for the event please visit www.vintageatgoodwood.com Not only are we exhibiting artwork by Sir Peter Blake in the Art Cafe and the VIP Lounge on the high street (Sir Peter will be attending the festival), the CCA Art Bus is being transformed into Mick Jones\'s \'The Rock and Roll Public Library\' for the weekend.The below text courtesy of Chris Salewicz. The Library is drawn from Mick Jones\'s (ex-The Clash) legendarily vast archive. In this vision of lfe the, the creator of the iconic sleeve of The Beatles\' Sgt. Pepper meets the creator of The Clash, on a bus, the event transmorgifying into Mick Jones\'s magical mystery tour: We\'re all going on a summer holiday! Yet the deeper more pertinent truth of The Rock and Roll Public Library is that it is concerned with the invisible force that manifests visible effects in life, and the inner truth of an individual which also has an invisible influence, good or bad. In this case, the manifestation is entirely positive: and the weather\'s good... This boutique version of the Library on display at Vintage Goodwood pays tribute to the legendary Faces, performing in their reformed line-up at the event. The Faces were an immense influence on Mick Jones, who saw them on mumerous occasions: a series of classic images of the group is a feature of the vintage Goodwood version of the Library. Otherwise, comics are a central theme of The Rock and Roll Public Library at Vintage Goodwood: among others, an entire section is devoted to a display of Commando Comics, whilst Valiant Comics of the early 1970s are also featured, a selection of the paperback books will also be exhibited. Meanwhile, such staples as the poster for the final Hank Williams concert remain; and there is a continued strong Zulu presence. This 3 day exhibition serves as a trailer for Clash founder Mick Jones\'s long-cherished Rock and Roll Public Library which now has had four extended exhibitions, twice at the Chelsea Space Gallery, at the Norwich Gallery and, most memorably, under the westway on London\'s Portobello Road. The Rock and Roll Public Library, a testament to popular culture, springs directly from the enormous personal archive of Mick Jones, a collection that began well before he formed The Clash in 1976, to eventual colossal international success. As such, it forms an invaluable guide to the edifying influences that informed The Clash and Jones. Located in a lock-up in North Acton, where it has resided for the past eighteen years, this collection represents a collision of cultural influences, of which Jones\'s formal art school training is but one. The Acton property is a veritable Aladdin\'s Cave of oour age. But it also stands as testament to the manner in which pop music came to its first full fruition at the same time as Pop Art. And as to how Mick Jones, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of popular culture, is a pop artist, in both senses of the word, living-as the rest of The Clash did- \'in the gap between art and life\', to employ Robert Rauschenberg\'s celebrated phrase. Envisaged as a permanent reference library for use by both the local and international community, it comprises, believes Jones, \'a personal cultural and social history of our times, and through that it extends beyonf the local to the global.\' Popular culture is now established as part of the curriculum of many universities: it is intended that the Library will be an invaluable and essential aid to academic research and personal inquisitiveness. Among many other strands, Mick Jones\'s collection  contains almost 10,000 books, on a multiplicity of culturally-related subjects- music, film, art, drugs, crime, sport, and war. It also includes most significant editions of music and film-related publications of the last forty years. These range from 1960s teen magazines like Fab 208 to obscure punk era fanzines, taking in all the noteworthy music publications of our time. Much of the early parts of the collection was created from material sent to him by his Mother, who lives in Michigan in the USA, \'She\'d send me all the early copies of Creem Magazine, which was published in Detroit, \' he recalls \'And she\'d send me Rock Scene, that New York magazine edited by Lisa Robinson, in which the photographer Bob Gruen\'s pictures first appeared en masse.\' In the Acton lock-up there is a similarly enormous array of films, around 5000 of them, mostly on VHS video. Related artefacts embrace a complete collection of Clash stage-wear and posters. Comparable material from other significant musical acts is also included. Constrictions of space at Vintage Goodwood inevitably have led to a condensed version of The Rock and Roll Public Library, yet one that captures the very essence of the experience.Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:20:54 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-art-bus-is-transformed-into-the-mick-jones-rock-and-roll-public-library-at-vintage-goodwood.html#18http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/21072010/landscape-art.htmlCCA Galleries has a massive selection of landscape art, which can be rather overwhelming when you are searching for that one perfect picture. In order to help out a little more, I have broken the collection down into basic categories and recoommended a few artists from each to have a look at. Landscape art is a great tradition in Britain from the genius of Turner and Constable to the abstract musings of the St. Ives School and every style and interpretation in between...   Traditional Comtemporary art does not have to mean cutting edge and impossible to understand. We have many artists who still work in the tradition started by Poussin and Claude, if you like academic landscapes you might like work by the below artists: Graham Evernden, Stephen Whittle, Richard Wardle, Paul Bisson, Barbara Munns, John McNulty, Oliviero Masi, Jeremy King, Kathleen Caddick, Kenneth Leech, Alison Kennedy, Norman Stevens, Mark Spain, Ilana Richardson, Gerald Hughes, George Guest, Gilbert Browne, Don Bessant, Michael Carlo.   Impressionistic If you prefer the soft-edges and focus on light and colour imbued in the works of artists such as Monet and Dufy, try the artists below: Michael Schreiber, Bob Sanders, Peter Eastham, Richard Tuff, Donald Wilkinson, Ian Ribbons, Joy Brand, Claude Fauchere, Francis Mean, Ley Kenyon, Marie Para, Michael Oelman, Gilbert Martin, Malkolm Woodward, Andre Bicat, Thomas Kruger, France Hilon, Glyn Thomas, Victor Spahn, Amanda Hoskin.   Stylised If you like your landscapes quirky, imaginative and unusual, the artists who work in a very stylised manner may be for you. Each of the below artists is immediateloy recognisable by their unique style: Patrick Procktor, Stavros Kotsireas, James Willebrant, Lis Wright, Barbara Newcomb, Andrew Murrey, Lorna Massie, Vincent Haddesley, Phil Greenwood, Renee Halpern, Francois Ledan, Simon Palmer, Alison Goodwin, Melanie Epps.   Abstract   For those Modernists amongst you we have a fine selection of abstract landscapes, from the purity of Terry Frost to the merging colour of Barbara Rae. Take a look at: Bruce McLean, Donald Hamilton Fraser, Adina Tanai, Ann-Marie LeQuesne, Jan King, Mike Sibthorp, Arthur Secunda, Tully Crook, Tuvia Beeri, Philip Lyons, Emma Dunbar.   Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:52:12 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/landscape-art.html#17http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/14072010/the-venice-suite.htmlThe Venice Suite has been one of Peter Blake\'s most popular editions of recent times. Most of these jewel-like small prints are now no longer available individually. However, you can purchase all 20 stunning signed limited edition prints as a boxed portfolio set. Buying the Venice Suite also represents a considerable saving in comparison with buying the pieces individually.   Order your Venice Suite online soon in order to avoid disappointment! ‘Venice has been an inspiring place for me since my first visit in 1957 on a scholarship. I spend my life collecting images, newspaper cuttings and vintage postcards, which find their way into my work, and Venice has proven to be a treasure-trove of material. I returned to the city in 2007 and found some beautiful embroideries and illustrations which will become part of future works’ Sir Peter Blake   The future works to which Blake refers have arrived. CCA Galleries are delighted to offer for sale this beautiful portfolio that comprises of 20 screen prints, signed and numbered by the artist. The screen prints are available individually or as a portfolio presented in a museum quality binding box. Edition size of 75, +8 Artist Proof portfolios, +3 H/C portfolios. Screen-printed on 400 Gsm Somerset tub sized paper.   The Venice Suite was inspired by Blake’s trip to Venice for the Biennale of 2007. Each piece in the portfolio is a geml of his trademark collage style. Blake combines traditional images of the city on the lagoon with visual excerpts from vintage childrens’ books, photographs, postcards, as well as details from works of the old masters. This visual witticism is teamed with a palette of turquoise, gold and the grey of the stones of Venice to create a surreal fairytale vision of the city. Blake juxtaposes the baroque grandeur of the architectural icons of Venice with giant penguins, wartime bombers, Edwardian rowers and icebergs to name a few. The end result is a portfolio of works that are playful, imaginative, beautiful, immensely varied and representative of Sir Peter Blake’s unique vision.      Wed, 14 Jul 2010 05:53:22 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/the-venice-suite.html#16http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/13072010/mick-jones-of-the-clash-hops-aboard-the-art-bus.htmlLast week saw the CCA Art Bus roll into Battesea Park for a spcial meeting between Peter Blake and punk legend Mick Jones... Former Clash star Mick Jones hopped on to a different type of tour bus – as he loaded his rock and roll archive on to a double-decker. The guitarist, who has a huge collection of memorabilia dating back to his punk days, is taking his stash out on the road in a bus designed by another music legend, artist Sir Peter Blake. Tue, 13 Jul 2010 03:16:00 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/mick-jones-of-the-clash-hops-aboard-the-art-bus.html#15http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/12072010/sandra-blow-scion-of-the-st-ives-set-and-first-woman-to-blaze-the-trail-of-abstract-art.html    When looking at an artwork by Sandra Blow the viewer will experience an emotional reaction.  Her work can be meditative, sensual, uplifting. For many of us it will feel strange to have such a reaction to a picture that contains no figurative subject matter. We doubt our own reactions; assuming that abstract art must be difficult to relate to, or that it is simplistic twaddle with no meaning. In fact Blow’s work is full of meaning. She is an artists’ artist, an academic artist, but this does not mean that her work is pretentious or too intellectual for us mere mortals to understand. It is actually because the work is wholly abstract that it becomes universal: every individual reacts to it in their own way, can take a feeling or a meaning from it that applies to them, can see whatever they like in it; it is at once highly personal and universally applicable. Abstract art can communicate before it is understood. She is viewed as an academic painter because she focused herself primarily within the self-contained problems of ‘pure’ painting: balance and proportion, tensions, scale. Her work demands to be viewed in terms of its formal qualities rather than in terms of biographical revelation or social comment.Abstraction meant for Blow a source of vitality, risk and surprise that is a close as you can get to the artist’s own sense of being alive, ‘For me, as well as the natural interactions of colour and line, there is a biological factor in a painting in which all the parts contribute to the functional whole, as our bodies do. When it ‘lives’ in that way it is finished. In addition, there is a God-sent gift, a balance of magic.’ Her silkscreen prints often include collaged elements, which are a reference to her use of discarded materials in her original paintings. Blow would use cheap everyday materials such as sawdust, sack-cloth, ripped canvas, sand, ash and plaster to add textures and dynamism to her work. She was influenced in this technique by Alberto Burri (whom she met in 1947 and with whom she travelled around Italy) who may have started using such materials when he was in P.O.W camp and therefore unable to have access to ‘normal’ art materials. The use of such materials lends Blow’s work an expressive informality, and shows her belief in the importance of a tactile as well as a visual emphasis to the picture surface. She was 22 when she met Burri, ten years her senior, as they travelled and painted he introduced her to the subject of abstraction, debating with her the relationship of forms and spaces in Renaissance paintings, which clearly had resonances in the world of abstract art. Her style moved from sombre earthy tonal works in the 50s/60s to the more spontaneous minimal geometric and colourful works of the 80s onwards. She held together the visual energy of her compositions with points and accents of sharper colour, ‘Like achieving a perfect note in music, you hammer away at it, and when you finally get it, it seems so simple’. The Matisse-inspired decorative manner of her middle and late periods was a seamless collaboration between the constructed and the freely painted. What one must keep in mind when looking at her work is that they are not, as they might appear, the inspiration of a moment, but the result of painstaking experimentation. Blow temporarily stapled pieces of coloured paper or other material to canvas, woodboard or paper, and altered positions, shapes and colours until the final overall composition of a picture suggested itself Blow never wanted to work to a specific theme or become engaged in a series of works that were related to each other; she approached every canvas as a totally new challenge, a new idea, a new experience. She maintained that events in her personal life often affected the appearance of her painting, not, of course, in an illustrational way, but in the tensions and clashes of the jostling marks on the canvas. But she believed also that abstract art did not simply reach its own natural audience, but gained some of its validity by feeding back into the broader visual life of the nation as fashion and architecture and design.  Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:54:19 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/sandra-blow-scion-of-the-st-ives-set-and-first-woman-to-blaze-the-trail-of-abstract-art.html#14http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/08072010/breath-of-life.html However, this is no ordinary portfolio; it is part of the Mending Broken Hearts Art Appeal: an ongoing effort to raise awareness and funds for the British Heart Foundation (BHF) through the use of contemporary art. These images will become icons used by the BHF to promote their activities across the country, harnessing the unique power of art to grab our attention and to move us. The group of artists taking part in this project is a cross-section of all that’s best about British contemporary art: Sir Peter Blake, Maurice Cockrill RA, Brad Faine, Duggie Fields, the late Donald Hamilton Fraser RA, Gerard Hemsworth, Maggi Hambling CBE, John Hoyland RA, Patrick Hughes, Bruce McLean, Antony Micallef, Brendan Neiland, Tom Phillips CBE RA, Barbara Rae CBE RA, and Storm Thorgerson. Breath of Life is unique in bringing together this particular set of artists for the first time. That they have all taken inspiration from the same theme gives a very rare opportunity to compare their concepts, making the portfolio very collectable. Each of the artists was asked to create an original artwork based on the theme ‘mending broken hearts’: a universal theme with endless possibilities that sums up the work of the BHF. As you can see by glancing at the following few pages, each artist’s interpretation is completely unique and the images as a group are as diverse as they are beautiful. This diversity is essential to what the BHF is trying to achieve: to put contemporary art into the mainstream public view and to use its power to make people think. Everybody will see different things in a work of art and have a different emotional response to it; this is the beauty of the Mending Broken Hearts Art Appeal. Of these 15 images there will be one or two for everyone that particularly appeal to us or relate to an experience we have been through. In the end, Breath of Life is about the redemptive power of love, about triumph over adversity, about hope and science combining to conquer heart disease. This positive message encapsulates what the BHF are trying to achieve; to find a way to repair damaged hearts and save millions of lives. All publishers’ profits from sales of the Breath of Life portfolio will be donated to the BHF. This money will be used to help fund a programme of medical research into regenerative medicine. The BHF’s long term goal is to enable the heart to repair itself once it has been damaged; having a heart attack would therefore become no more serious than breaking an arm. The development of regenerative techniques will help to save millions of lives. Nadja Hale of the BHF explains the importance of the Mending Broken Hearts Art Appeal, ‘The proceeds of the Art Project will go to the Mending Broken Hearts Appeal. This is the British Heart Foundation’s biggest fundraising appeal ever, which is being launched to celebrate the charity’s 50th anniversary in 2011. The BHF has decided to mark 50 years of saving lives through cutting edge research by raising £50million to fund a specific programme of regenerative medicine that will include stem cell research. Unfortunately, the heart is unable to repair itself so for example, when a heart attack occurs and a portion of the heart dies, this damage is currently irreversible and leads to debilitating symptoms and premature death. This appeal could change all that. The BHF has been overwhelmed by the response of the artists who have contributed to this project, lending their limited time and considerable talents to produce incredible works of art for the Appeal. Beyond simple fundraising, this project has presented the work of the BHF to an entirely new audience through the medium of art.  It has been inspirational to see how the artists have translated the ‘Mending Broken Hearts’ concept in such diverse and beautiful ways.’ For the artists that have contributed to Breath of Life helping the BHF to achieve this amazing goal was at the heart of their work. As Brendan Neiland says, ‘Using contemporary art to raise awareness of the BHF is a brilliant idea. It is an absolute step forward. What we have in Britain is the foremost artistic talent in the world, for the BHF to use this creative talent as well as standard advertising methods allows a completely different approach. Artists use their creative freedom to respond to their own idea of ‘mending broken hearts’ and therefore bring endless possibilities to the table. I have been incredibly impressed by the breadth of vision and interpretation.’ For many of the artists involved with the project, the work of the BHF has personal significance. I asked Duggie Fields why he had taken part,  ‘ I was very happy to be given the opportunity. My Father died of heart disease in the late 1960s, so I am very aware of the devastating effect of it on peoples’ lives. To make a contribution towards lessening its impact on others was irresistible, and it was also a great group of artists to be included with.’ Duggie’s statement of the private impact of heart disease on his own life reinforces the fact that all of us have been affected by it in some way, whether directly or indirectly. That is why helping the BHF is so important. Breath of Life ranges from the child-like innocence and joy of Patrick Hughes’ Cloudy, to the dark melancholic emotional power of Antony Micallef’s I Brake Everything, to the witty word play of Tom Phillips’ Take Art for the Heart and the abstract exuberance of John Hoyland’s Soulless Stars Cascade. Each image has a story behind it and each has personal resonance for the artist. One of the loveliest stories is that behind Donald Hamilton Fraser’s Valentine. Fraser sadly passed away in September last year, but had been keen to take part in the Mending Broken Hearts Art Appeal. Honouring his wishes, his widow Judith gave CCA Galleries access to a Valentines card that Fraser had made for her, feeling that the image would be particularly appropriate. Every year Fraser made his wife a Valentines card, which Judy would then keep in a collection that spanned their sixty-year marriage. Valentine is one of those precious testaments of his love that perfectly captures the power of art to mend the heart. One of the youngest artists to contribute to Breath of Life is Antony Micallef whose image I Brake Everything has caused a huge buzz from excited collectors. Micallef, whose work has been exhibited all over the world, including the Royal Academy and National Portrait Gallery combines exquisite draughtsmanship with raw emotion in this study of the power of love. Mending Broken Hearts by Sir Peter Blake will be the lead image in the BHF’s appeal, and over the coming year will become instantly recognisable nationwide. Blake (a patron of the Mending Broken Hearts Appeal) has created classic pop art composition that is reminiscent of his iconic works I Love You and Q is for Quarters. His bold colours and geometric forms create a sophisticated balance of form. Storm Thorgerson has adapted his iconic album cover artwork for Dark Side of the Moon to create Teardrop, a softer and more emotional rendering of this classic image. The theme of healing is brilliantly taken up by Bruce McLean in Healing Garden, a vibrant collaged piece with the bold compositional elements that we have come to expect from McLean. Both Gerard Hemsworth and Duggie Fields use cartoon-like linear images that subvert viewers’ expectations in Brief Encounter and Madonna and Heart. Alternatively, works such as Clare’s Inspiration by Maurice Cockrill and Sunrise Heart by Maggi Hambling are much more transparent in the joy and optimism they convey, both artists choose to base their composition around a heart-shape, suffusing the paper with colour and movement. Brendan Neiland and Barbara Rae have taken inspiration from the urban environment; in Calypso Neiland uses the neon lights of Las Vegas to create a ‘sign’ reminding us to take care of our hearts. Barbara Rae has based Repare! Por Favor on the graffiti and street posters of Madrid, using text to reinforce her message. Finally Brad Faine uses visual and textual wit to encapsulate mending broken hearts. He juxtaposes the popular sweets Love Heart-s with their phrases such as ‘kiss me’ etc, with a grid of text made up of scientific words relating to heart health. The Mending Broken Hearts Art Appeal encompasses much more than just the Breath of Life portfolio. In order to disseminate the artworks as far and wide as possible and raise the maximum amount of money for the BHF, CCA Galleries has planned a three-tier approach to the appeal. A group of original paintings and works on paper was auctioned earlier in the year, with a second auction planned for a further group of original paintings to be held at a later date. As well as Breath of Life there will be a second portfolio of original limited edition silkscreen prints: Joy of Life that will be launched in February 2011. Artists that will contribute to Joy of Life include Gary Hume, Adrian Berg, Gavin Turk, Simon Periton, Michael Craig-Martin, Rob Ryan and Jonathan Yeo- with more names to be revealed over the coming months. Finally, the BHF will use the images in a range of merchandising to be sold in their shops across the country next year. Breath of Life can be seen in exhibition from June at Innocent Fine Art, Bristol, Railings Gallery, Marylebone and Brook Gallery, Buddleigh Salterton, and at various galleries across the UK in coming months, please ring CCA Galleries for further details. Breath of Life purchased from www.ccagalleries.com. Artworks can be purchased individually or as a museum quality boxed-set. For further information please contact CCA Galleries on 01252 797201.          Thu, 8 Jul 2010 05:26:35 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/breath-of-life.html#13http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/04062010/cca-galleries-online-buy-limited-edition-prints-from-40-pounds.htmlAs well as selling artwork by Britain\'s most famous artists, CCA also has an archive of prints by lesser-known artists that are available to buy online for as little as £40.... CCA has published hundreds of artists over the years and it can be confusing to try and find artwork that is in the right price-bracket for you. Some of our most popular and successful artists have work available for sale at ccagalleries.com at prices that range from £40-£400: Richard Tuff, Heidi Konig, Chloe Cheese, Charlotte Cornish, Sonia Rollo, Richard Spare, Anna Marrow, Phil Greenwood, Jurgen Gorg, Kathleen Caddick, Brad Faine, Ilana Richardson, Terence Millington, Annora Spence...and many more Works by these artists are all limited edition authentic original prints, signed by the artist,  that don\'t have to cost the earth. Start your art collection for less than you were expecting!Fri, 4 Jun 2010 05:37:58 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-galleries-online-buy-limited-edition-prints-from-40-pounds.html#12http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/02062010/the-story-behind-sgt-peppers-lonely-hearts-club-band.htmlPeople may not have heard of Peter Blake, but everyone recognises the album cover artwork he created for The Beatles\' Sgt. Pepper\'s Lonely Hearts Club Band. However most people do not know the story behind the image, that in fact Sgt. Pepper\'s was not a collage but a full-scale 3-d set that Blake created and then had photographed. Unlike most fine artists, Blake has always accepted commercial assignments and believes in the importance of graphic design in his work. Blake believes that these projects pushed him to expand his subject matter and develop new techniques. Of course commercial work also fitted into the essential ethos of Pop Art: that mass culture and commercial imagery could become part of fine art. Blake and his then wife (Jann Haworth) collaborated on Sgt. Pepper\'s. The commission came to Blake via his then art dealer, Robert Fraser, who was well known in the London music scene. He was paid  a flat fee of £200, which is obviously a minute amount considering the success of the album, but at least it brought his work to the attention of millions. The concept for the image came from Paul McCartney\'s request that the group be presented as if accepting some sort of civic award, and Blake decided to make the crowd surrounding the four members of the band full of famous folk. The juxtaposition of unexpected people from diiferent eras and locations is an idea which has always pleased Blake and crops up in much of his work, and here we see it in full flow. Blake actually asked each of the Beatles to make a list of the people (living or dead) that they would like to surround them on the cover. The Beatles were placed centrally, posing in colourful marching band outfits, with instruments in hand. Beside them stand life-sized wax work figures of their younger selves in their \'mop top\' incarnation. Blake and Haworth had life-sized photographic cut outs made of the personalities that would make up the crowd (seeking permission from the ones that were still living- apparently Mae West put up a bit of a fuss about being in a lonely hearts club). These include Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, Marlon Brando, W.C. Fields etc. (Can anyone out there in the blogospere name them all?). These cardboard cut outs were then arranged in a photographic studio. Haworth created the sculpture of the little girl with the Rolling Stones jumper that sits on the right-hand side, and all the foliage in the foreground is absolutely real and painstakingly arranged by Blake. The final image is from a photograph of this surreal scene taken by Michael Cooper. To get further fascinating insight into the making of Sgt. Pepper please visit the CCA YouTube channel where you can see a video of the work in progress.Wed, 2 Jun 2010 05:37:44 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/the-story-behind-sgt-peppers-lonely-hearts-club-band.html#11http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/14052010/cca-art-bus-and-the-linton-childrens-book-festival.htmlAt CCA Galleries we believe that art is about more than business; it it something that inspires and moves, and should be shared with as many people as possible. That\'s why, as well as taking the Art Bus to support exhibitions at our approved stockists, we try to visit as many schools and get involved with as many community projects as possible. Last weekend we visited the Darryl Nantais Gallery in the idyllic village of Linton near Cambridge. We certainly packed a lot into our visit; starting by spending a day at Linton Village College and the Granta School, where they has been studying Sir Peter Blake in their art lessons. The looks on kids\' faces in priceless when they see the Art Bus roll into their playground, and their enthusiasm to get on board and find out what it\'s all about is universal. The next day we went over to Linton Heights Primary School, where all the pupils were dressed up as characters from their favourite books (as part of the Childrens\' Book Festival). The Art Bus and the work of Blake were inspiration for two competitions arranged as part of the festival: poetry and art. The poems were inspired by one of Blake\'s recent artworks Birds from the Paris Quartet. One of my favourites is below: Sir Peter Blake\'s Birds Interesting painting Really super sight, loads to see. Perched up high owls sit. Everyone coming together from all over the world. Tiny birds everywhere, large ones too. Everything muddled, everything busy. Resting robins, storks standing, swans unfolded Busy birds, busy people Living in one place. Above the buildings herons hover, blackbirds flutter Kingfishers dive, peacocks with fan feathers open. Every country, person and bird involved. Blue sky up high, crowds down below Iindividuals meeeting-dancers, footballers, others watching Roaming chickens, penguins waddling Dodos walking, ostrich running Such a detailed picture. Bethany Layton aged 7Fri, 14 May 2010 12:39:16 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-art-bus-and-the-linton-childrens-book-festival.html#10http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/09042010/blake-and-bryan-ferry-to-perform-at-the-mending-broken-hearts-art-auction.htmlThose of you who are attending the BHF\'s gala dinner and auction of the Mending Broken Hearts art collection on Wed at the Dorchester are in for a real treat! Not only will the event be attended by nearly all of the artists who have contributed to the appeal so far, Alistair McGowan is the Master of Ceremonies and entertainment will be provided by classical music sensation Blake (www.blakeofficial.com) and the legendary Bryan Ferry (www.bryanferry.com).Fri, 9 Apr 2010 04:32:19 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/blake-and-bryan-ferry-to-perform-at-the-mending-broken-hearts-art-auction.html#9http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/09042010/cca-hosts-a-private-view-of-the-mending-broken-hearts-collection-for-the-british-heart-foundation.htmlIt was great to see all of you who attended the private view of the Mending Broken Hearts collection at Christie\'s, King Street on Wednesday night. The evening could not have gone better, surely there isn\'t a finer space in London to exhibit art than the magnificent ante-room at Christie\'s. It was such a pleasure to see all of the beautiful original artworks that have been created by our leading contemporary artists so beautifully hung and lit; they really came alive. The process of creating the collection has taken months; liaising with the artists, visiting their studios, picking up pictures from all over the country and curating the exhibition, and when the  moment of culmination finally arrived, and we saw the works together for the first time- it was truly magical. We would once again like to extend our thanks for the generous support of all the artists who are contributing to this ground-breaking project. Their time and effort has resulted in a collection of breath-taking quality. These images will not only be auctioned in aid of the BHF but have inspired a two-volumed portfolio of original silkscreen prints that are to be launched at the London Original Print Fair at the end of this month. However the project extends far beyond this; the BHF will use the imagery as icons of their 50th anniversary campign next year, bringing contemporary art to a huge new audience. Many of the artists attended the private view on Wednesday night, including Duggie Fields (who was sporting a very dashing tie that featured his Madonna and Heart motif), Patrick Hughes, Gerard Hemsworth, Brendan Neiland, Sir Peter Blake and Maurice Cockrill. Of course the point of the event was was to raise interest in the auction of 10 of the artworks at the Dorchester next week (14th April), and we hope that the evening will result in absentee bids from people who are unable to attend the auction next week. The collection can be seen in full at www.bhf.org.uk/art where absentee bid forms can also be downloaded.Fri, 9 Apr 2010 04:21:06 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-hosts-a-private-view-of-the-mending-broken-hearts-collection-for-the-british-heart-foundation.html#8http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/12032010/mending-broken-heart-art-auction-and-gala-dinner.htmlCalling all contemporary art lovers! A few tables are still available for the Mending Broken Hearts Art auction and gala dinner in aid of the British Heart foundation.The event takes place at the Dorchester Hotel on the evening of 14th April. As well as the auction of 10 original works of art by artists including Damien  Hirst, Sir Peter Blake, Duggie Fields, Antony Micallef, Maggi Hambling, Rob Ryan, Patrick Hughes, Brendan Neiland, Barbara Rae and Tom Phillips, we have two fabulous surprise bonus lots to be revealed on the night. A four course dinner will follow a champagne reception and private view of the artwork. The evening will be hosted by Alistair McGowan, with enteratainment from Classical Brit-award winning group Blake and Bryan Ferry. Tickets can be bought indivdually for £250, table prices start at £2,500. A website with full details of the lots is to be launched soon. For more information on this very special event please call Clare Clinton on 01252 797202 or email clare.clinton@ccagalleries.comFri, 12 Mar 2010 05:45:18 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/mending-broken-heart-art-auction-and-gala-dinner.html#7http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/09022010/cca-art-bus.htmlYou may have seen a groovy looking pop art double-decker cruising around the country in the last year, but you may not have realised that the Art Bus belongs to CCA Galleries. We work very closely with our artists are always open to ideas on how to make art more accessible. So when Sir Peter Blake\'s wife, artist Chrissy Wilson, suggested that it would be fun to have a rock n\' roll tour bus for art rather than music, we ran with it. A year or so later the CCA Art Bus was born. Sir Peter was kind enough to design the bus from the iconic pop art exterior down to the union jack cusions inside. We rescued an old Liverpool street bus (which we thought appropriate because of Peter\'s beatles connection!) and converted it into a mobile art gallery. However, the Art Bus is more than just a bit of fun; it is a fantastic way to take art to people who might not otherwise see it. Many curious citizens hop aboard the Art Bus simply because it is \'pimp my ride\' x 100, the atmosphere on board draws them into the pictures that are exhibited, and they end up having an art-experience. We exhibit all the artists that we publish on the bus, though of course it is most readily associated with Peter Blake. We take the bus to community events, art fairs, schools and colleges, and to support the galleries across the country that sell our artist\'s work. We do not sell artwork on board the Art Bus, it is used purely for an exhibitiona and educational space, for this reason people often do not make the association with CCA as a commercial gallery. Of course if you see a picture on the Art Bus that you love and would like to buy, all you have to do is contact us to purchase it. But the most important thing is making art fun; you don\'t have to be dragged around a stuffy gallery any more. For more information on the CCA Art Bus and for a schedule of its up and coming event please visit www.ccaartbus.comTue, 9 Feb 2010 11:58:13 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/cca-art-bus.html#6http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/08022010/print-snobbery.htmlLike many people I love art, going to exhibitions at the Tate, the National Gallery, visiting Paris or Florence to see the Louvre and Uffizi. I studied History of Art at university, and when I thought about art the painterly masterstrokes of Titian or Whistler sprang to my mind, bronzes by Rodin, the rose-window of Notre Dame, I did not think about prints. I later went on to work at Christie\'s and my latent and unwitting art snobbery continued unabated. I worked in a picture department and spent many a happy hour in the bowels of the building getting my hands on nineteenth century canvases, pitying the poor fools who worked in the Prints Department and never got so much as a whiff of crusty craquelure. In fact I would never have become enlightened about the value of prints by myself; I guess it\'s just not a medium that your average art-lover associates with fine art; the only printing that had ever crossed my intellectual path was Andy and his repetitive soup cans etc. It wasn\'t until I paid my first visit to Coriander Studio (a west London printmaking studio where CCA artists create their silkscreens) that the veil started to lift from my eyes. I suppose I had just assumed that prints were mainly just reproductions of paintings. I did realise that prints could be created as original artworks in their own right; but I didn\'t understand the reasons for which an artist might choose to do this, didn\'t understand the versatilty and opprtunity to experiment that printmaking offered artists. If i had thought about it at all, I suppose I would have concluded that artists that chose to express themselves through print must have chosen that medium because their skills as a painter or sculptor were second rate. Ouch! I cringe to remember. Ok, so not only are prints (whether that be silkscreen, lithographs or etchings) every bit as valid as painting, sculpure, photography or video installation as an artform, they are also the most accessible and democratic artform: flying in the face of the current trend of art for the super-rich. Artists choose to make prints for two reasons: 1) They are able to achieve effects through printmaking that they cannot achieve in any other medium, and 2) Prints enable their artistic vision to reach a greater number of people . Prints are often dismissed because people believe that the artist may have had little to do with the process of making the print; we imagine that the production process is all machine or computer-based; prints just being churned out from a glorified photocopier. The reality couldn\'t be more different. The artist is involved at every step of the printmaking process: he creates the design, chooses the colours, oversees the printing, decides on any surface augmentation and signs-off on each print at every stage. The process of creating a silkscreen print is more intricate than many realise. For every colour in a finished silkscreen (this is regularly up to 40 colours) a separate stencil must be created. So a stencil is made that masks out every area of the design except those that will be, for example,  red. This stencil is attached to a screen of stretched silk or synthetic fibre, and the red paint squeezed through onto paper below. Pushing the paint through the screen is done by hand and is repeated for every copy in the editon. The process is then repeated for every colour in the design, and gradually as the layers of coloured paint build up on the paper the final image is revealed. Once the design is complete the print is often finished by the hand apllication of glazes, diamond dust, gold leaf etc. The skill of the printmaker is that the viewer will not be able to see any difference between any copy in an edition. The irony is of course, that this is the very reason that we tend to value prints less than paintings in the first place. There are also methods such as monoprinting and monotyping that use print technology but result in a print that is unique. The other reason that people tend to dismiss prints is misunderstanding over edition sizes and authenticity. The rules are very simple: an authentic print will be signed and numbered by the artist, it will also have a certificate of authenticity. When it comes to the numbers of times an image has been reproduced the rules are simple too. Always buy a print that is from a limited edition; this ensures that once that edition of 150 (or whatever the number may be) has been completed, the original stencils (or etching plate etc,) will be dedtroyed, thereby guaranteeing that no more prints can be produced. Naturally, the smaller the edition size the more rare and desireable  the prints will be, and therefore, the more valuable (price is obviously also dependent on who the artist is). It is standard practice to create a number of prints in excess of the edition number; these may be artist proofs (APs-which are given to the artist), studio proofs (SPs) or HCs (hors commerce copies-for display only). These extra pieces do not effect the value of the edition, and you should ne be concerned about finding the letters AP, SP, or HC on your print in place of normal edition numbers.  I hope that this has shed some light on common misapprehensions about prints. Keep you eye on our blog for further advice.Mon, 8 Feb 2010 12:17:48 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/print-snobbery.html#5http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/25012010/ongoing-work-on-the-new-cca-website.htmlWe hope that you are enjoying the new-look CCA Website. Please bear in mind that work on the new site is ongoing. At the moment it may not be possible to view artwork by certain artists, this does not mean that we do not have that artwork in stock- please ring us 01252 797201 to check availability. Being one of the world\'s largest collection of silkscreens, etchings and lithographs, we have a massive archive of artwork all of which will become available to order online over the coming months. Currently we are unable to offer framing options online. Again-please ring us if you would like to have your order framed, the framing facility on the website will soon be restored. In the meantime we ask for your patience. Many Thanks  Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:53:13 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/ongoing-work-on-the-new-cca-website.html#4http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/20012010/london-art-fair-2010.htmlI am back in the office after a hectic week at the London Art Fair. Despite the weather and the financial gloom the fair was buzzing, and as always there was so much to see that it was almost impossible to absorb it all. The CCA Art bus was snowed in at the studio in Tilford at the beginning of the week, but managed to get up to town on friday. Our  stand dislpayed a mixture of originals on canvas by Donald Hamilton Fraser, Sandra blow and John Hoyland (many customers do not realise how extensive our collection of originals is, as new section for them on the website is soon to be launched). We also exhibited our stunning new silkscreen editions by Sir Peter Blake, John Hoyland and Barbara Rae. The new pieces made quite a splash; many were keen to see the eagerly awaited Paris Suite by Peter, and more than a few passers by were stopped in their tracks by the wall-power of the new Hoyland works.Meanwhile the Art Bus was parked outside cheering weart fair-goers and exciting school children with its unique brand of fun. It  certainly added a splash of colour to the forecourt of the Business Design Centre, and we must say thank you to the security staff there who looked after her so well.Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:36:40 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/london-art-fair-2010.html#3http://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/11012010/shiny-new-cca-galleries-website-launched.htmlWelcome to the new CCA Galleries website! We hope that you will enjoy our new site and find it as easy to use as it\'s predecessor. Buying art is a very personal choice and is made harder if you cannot view works in the flesh. This is why- amongst several other innovations-we have introduced a \'zoom\' feature for viewing our products. This allows you to see every detail of an artwork and truly appreciate the level of intricacy and texture that can be found in a silkscreen print. Many visitors may not be aware that CCA also stocks original paintings by many of Britain\'s top contemporary artists, to this end there is a new \'originals\' page for you to view the pieces we currently have in stock. We have also introduced a page for books and gifts, a blog and much much more. We want to fill our customers with confidence about buying art online; all of our artworks are limited edition prints signed and numbered by the artist, and made to the highest quality. Many of the silkscreen prints available on the site are published by us, and handmade at London\'s famous Coriander printing studio. All orders will be delivered within the UK free of charge. However, as always if you have any queries about the website or purchasing an artwork, do give us a ring on 01252 797201.Mon, 11 Jan 2010 07:24:52 Europe/Londonhttp://blog.ccagalleries.com/cca/shiny-new-cca-galleries-website-launched.html#2