Sunday 16 December 2007

OUT OF CONTEXT Newsletter December 2007

If you always thought that watercolour is all about
pale, subtle shades and that Christmas is about snow
scenes…
Here comes an exhibition to make you think twice!!!!!
Delicartessen.co.uk & Pearce’s Bar
Invite you to the Preview of:
“High Summer Storm Over...”...in the search for watercolour splendor
By awarded artist Kelvin Burgoyne
Below "High Summer Storm over Devon". Watercolour, 72 x 60 cm


I know that, at this time of the year,
an exhibition called “High Summer
Storm over…” is completely out of
context.
As a Sociologist, I was once very interested in Structuralism,
Semiotics… and the way the social context conditions our
expectations and reactions.
Take a work of art out of the context of a formal museum or
gallery and some of the barriers are removed; we feel more
relaxed about discussing it, and more able to relate to the
piece. It becomes closer, something more familiar and less
imposing.
Now that we have 4 venues to exhibit works in Edinburgh
and one in Glasgow in this our first year, we can be happy
that the artists we promote have taken a step forward to be
part of our cities’ landscape. And we hope to keep on
reaching a growing audience of highly aesthetically aware
people who once thought contemporary art had nothing to
offer them.
In the coming year we plan to improve the website which
will allow it to become a dynamic link with both clients and
artists. We would like art to touch every day lives, to be an
object, not only of desire but also of inspiration,
engagement and communication.
To all of you whose faces I have seen regularly at our
previews, thank you for your support, feedback and
encouragement. To those we haven’t managed to seduce
yet, there is a last chance in 2007, and it will be a refreshing
one.
Sometimes you have to expect the unexpected…even at
Christmas.
See you next Wednesday!

Friday 2 November 2007

Article: "Collecting at a Click" (oct-nov 07)

In October 2007 Artmag published our article "Collecting at a Click" in their October - November issue




Thursday 1 November 2007

From People & Places



"Drinker Granada" by Ronnie Buchan.
Oil on canvas. 30 x 30 cm.

...was the title of an exhibition celebrated at a local Health Clinic in Edinburgh and launched on the1st of November 2007.

It included work by German artist, Sigrid Acker and Scottish artists Ronnie Buchan, Jacqui Higgs and Jane Mitchell.
The event coincided with the clinic's 3rd anniversary and included tapas and live music for a truly relaxed celebration. The exhibiton featured works of remote (and not so much so...) places as seen and captured by the contributing artists.

Hosting the exhibition in a Clinic was quite an experience and it is still a an idea in our agenda for future events.
The links between art and health are fascinating and never ending.
The Autumn-Winter 2010 newsletter published by CHAS (Children's Hospice Association Scotland) is titled "Music is the Best Medicine". It provides evidence, through a series of personal, heart-warming stories, of the amazing effects of music in children with learning disabilities. It underlines the idea that "where words fail, music speaks". And I am of the opinion that the same is to be said of the visual arts. An increasing awareness of the effects that colour, shape, texture and, in summary, all sensory experiences have in our mood could partially be the effect of our tuning with the interior design industry; but science has always been much more cautious when it comes to establishing cause-effect relationships between the stimulation of our senses and the results in our health. Despite this, the emergence of studies related to Art Therapy and the demand for these professionals seems to indicate that we somehow start to assume the association between exogenous and intrinsic processes, even if scientific evidence is still limited in scope In this sense, art, both related to our ability to enjoy it; and our ability to communicate through it; have an effect in our quality of life and general health.

This exhibition filled the clinic space with visual memories of holiday landscapes, blossoms and sunny, relaxing times. We hope that it contributed to creating a healing mood; where health is not strictly related to body and the prevention of illness but especially to happiness, enjoyment and a healthy balance between body & mind.

Below:"Buganvilles" by Sigrid Acker, 53 x 73 cm. Oil on board

Thursday 20 September 2007

Creation vs Reproduction...every time we press the printer’s button, original art suffers a little...

In our first year of life, we had an exhibition with the work of Jane Mitchell in Glasgow.
Her detailed leaves and cheerful floral motifs are, surprisingly, inspired by her stay in Chernobyl and the aftermath of the nuclear catastrophe. The main idea behind this collection of work was that of contamination and how it can hide in nature and stay unnoticed for a long time. Jane is not the only artist who has found destruction and desolation to be a source of inspiration. I was for some time, very absorbed in the work of Anton Chejov and I read in an introduction to his work that he often found his voice in the vast, deserted landscapes of the Russian steppe. A strange coincidence that extends to the precision and detail achieved by images and words, respectively, in both of them.

Study for Afterglow No.2
Gouache on paper
Image size: 12 x 17cm




Jane's work inspired this write-up.

"The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance".
Marshall McLuhan
Understanding Media, 1964

Do the latest digital and media technologies contribute to the diffusion of art, or, on the contrary, undermine its value…?
In the “global village” anticipated by sociologists as a result of the widespread use of Internet, mass media and IT technologies, the value of symbols, icons, marks and brands depends greatly on their distribution, recognition and reproduction as part of a universal language, as opposed to traditional values of exclusivity
and privacy.
Some believe that the very same technologies that allow us to photograph, copy, reproduce or distribute visual images with a gadget as simple as a camera phone, have contributed to the blurring of the boundaries between creation and reproduction.
No work is purely original and, as Dali recognised “Those who do not want to imitate anything, create nothing”. But there is still something unique about an original piece of art, despite the multiple inspirations and motivations behind its creation. There is something that can’t be easily duplicated with the click of a mouse. It is there, in the canvas or board.
We are bombarded daily with digitised images that play within the boundaries between art and technology. The current dominant aesthetic has a graphic appeal that undermines the distinction between artistic and mass produced and increases a perception of immediacy and speed that often camouflages the actual amount of effort, technique and creativity invested in the final piece. Jane Mitchell’s work is an example of this. Her paintings, whose extremely detailed, free-hand drawn leaves and branches resemble however some exotic and elegant mass-produced wall coverings produced using the latest printing technology.
This is one of the trickiest obstacles for artists who move within the contemporary aesthetics of a global, digitised world but remain loyal to the sensitivity, patience and craftsmanship of the classics.

Thursday 2 August 2007

Artmag Advert August - September 2007

Our first ever advertisement for Delicartessen, appeared at Artmag in the Aug-September 2007 issue, displaying a painting of Marilyn by Iranian artist Zohre Mirabassi.
Many more would follow...

Wednesday 2 May 2007

The Beginnings...



("Beginnings" by Edwin Slater, mixed media)

Delicartessen rose from the ashes of Imagination Art.
After several months of working in the shadows, visiting studios and building up a database of potential artists... Imagination Art launched in September 2006 to open up a door to emerging artists with something new to bring to the Edinburgh art scene.
As well as new artists, it introduced a new concept where the process is as important as the final result.
The Opening exhibition was very well received and included the works of Surrealist artist Michael Forbes.



Apart from displaying an eclectic collection of emerging talent and recently graduated art students, I.A. embraced a different idea about displaying art. We arranged a seated area with a coffee table storing magazines and books lent by the artists, so that visitors could appreciate also the processes and inspirations hidden behind the work. Books, photographs, cuttings, poems...were part of the collection of personal objects that “spoke” to the viewers.



This dog by surrealist artist Michael Forbes was intentionally looking back at viewers and trying to surprise them while adding a whimsical, relaxed note to the sobriety of the gallery space. It played with the idea of object & subject by turning the viewers into the observed subjects instead.



After an acclaimed opening exhibition and only a few months after the launch, the gallery was forced to close down due to unexpected circumstances. I then decided to take a brand-new agreement to display art in the Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel (the first 4 starred Hostel in Scotland) as a starting point to rescue some of the ideas behind Imagination Art. That is how Delicartessen.co.uk was born on a full moon 2nd of May 2007, and we celebrated our official launch and first private preview at the Conference Room of the Hostel.



These pages are a visual and textual story of Delicartessen’s first steps since that day. I hope that you will enjoy them. More over, I hope that in accordance to our motto, “let art be the meeting point”, they will turn into a space where you feel welcome to contribute, participate and share with us.

The name came about as in I.A. we did catering for the launch that we felt really contributed to the amazing atmosphere. Food is shared among friends and family, in confidence, in celebrations. The name was therefore, initially associated to our intention of providing “state of the art” food at our previews, which for practical reasons, hasn’t been the norm, although we still like to do the odd Spanish tortilla and nibbles whenever circumstances allow.
Good cuisine is an art, and Delicartessen relates to good taste too. Not to mention the hunger of our artists to break into the big world with their art. Now our main exhibiting venue, Joseph Pearce’s bar, also serves beautiful food. So the name still applies.
Enjoy!!!