The Annual General Karaoke 2 is nearly here! Saturday 24th September, 7pm.

Join us for our second Annual General Karaoke on September 24th, where we will be showcasing creative interpretations of karaoke videos submitted from both Scottish-based and international artists. Karaoke meets AGM. And what’s more, there will be prizes to be won for the best performance on the night. If you would like a taster of what is to come, you can check out last year’s submissions at www.agk.yucknyum.com

7pm, Chamber East, Chamber Building, Panmure Street, Dundee, DD1 1DU. 

Ema began spray-painting the walls of her hometown, Montpellier (Fr) in the early 90’s. Instantly hooked by graffiti, it wasn’t long before her works adorned buildings and trains throughout the South of France, Paris and Barcelona before moving across Europe and North America.

As a resident of New York for the past 10 years, Ema’s work can be seen throughout the city, both inside and outside the gallery; from exhibitions in Chelsea, to wheat-pastes in Brooklyn and large-scale murals across Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. 

For this exhibition, titled Breuckelen (the original name for Brooklyn), Ema presents a series of original works celebrating a decade of soul-searching, creative explorations and one-hell-of-a-time in the city so good, they named it twice. 

Brooklyn, we go hard.

The exhibition opens on 9^th September 7-10pm. The show will then run till the 9^th of October open 12-6pm Tuesday to Sunday.

Describe a day in the life of EMA.

This year has been busy with exhibitions, so I’ve been mainly preparing these. So everyday is quite different but it is basically a balance between answering emails, travelling, painting inside or outside.

What attracted you to graffiti?

I was attracted to graffiti as a teenager, because it was something new, uncommon, and slightly controversial.

What inspires you?

At the moment I like painting abstract, art deco-inspired backgrounds, in which I incorporate various influences including typography, 90’s hip-hop, and 70’s science fiction. But really my inspiration comes from everything and everyone, it’s an ongoing thing, a mix between things from the past and the present.

What is your favourite piece of work you have made?

 

I’m not sure I have a favorite piece of work. Sometimes I’m really proud of a piece, but after looking at it too much I don’t like it anymore. Some other pieces I don’t like them at first but I like them later. I think all of my paintings and installations share a bit of good and bad, and they belong to the time they were created.

What can we look forward to seeing in your show at Recoat?

I’ve been working on a series of new ink paintings on paper. This technique is pretty new to me and I’m really enjoying experimenting with it. Most of the pieces I will show at Recoat are about Brooklyn, where I lived for a while.

Daria Zapala

Glasgow based artist Daria Zapala was born in Poland in 1981 in the South West, which may explain her thirst for travel and exhibiting in galleries worldwide. Since graduating from Institute of Fine Arts, University of Opole in 2005 she has exhibited in galleries in UK, USA, Poland, and Italy.

 

Zapala specializes in printmaking and graphic design. Her work portrays fairytale figures, dreaming girls, characters living in a fantasy world. Sometimes seen from a different perspective appear deformed, stretched by their compositional arrangement. Zapala concentrated from the beginning on the human figure; she deconstructs it by transferring a photograph she took beforehand onto the computer and entwining further artistic elements, patterns and characteristics. This leads her work to take on a dynamic, yet sometimes-abstract character. Passing lines, bright colors and rhythmic shapes, each work obeys to a movement. Inspired by Toulouse-Lautrec, Schiele, Modigliani or Byrne and the street art, Zapala combines the painting, collage, illustration or etching.

 

Zapala has currently come back from a year long around the world travel with new inspiration for her work entitled “Codac Series” which began during her voluntary work for USS Midway Museum in San Diego, USA. “Codac Series” in its final form will create a set of prints, paintings and murals.

 

Zapala quotes Albert Einstein: “Imagination is everything. It is preview of life’s coming attractions.”

 

She describes: “I‘m interested in the human body, it is a constant feature in my art.

I use my body as the primary vehicle of my work. In a way I do it, as a piece of material and manipulating it, I think of it as going into the studio and being involved in some activity of creation. Sometimes it works out that the activity involves making something, and sometimes the activity itself is the piece.”

 See more at: http://www.behance.net/dariazapala

David Galletly

http://davidgalletly.com 

David Galletly is a freelance artist and illustrator living and working in Glasgow, Scotland. He graduated with a degree in graphic design but returned to an old love of drawing after too much time spent in front of a computer. His work often explores humour, nostalgia and loneliness through playful use of pattern and line. David has exhibited throughout the UK, Europe and the USA.

Do you have a favourite piece of art that you created?

Not really. I only see the mistakes, particularly when it comes to drawing.

 

Do you have a favourite medium to work in?

Pen & ink.

 

Who or what inspires you?

Anyone with enthusiasm. Misguided enthusiasm especially so.

 

What would be your dream art project to be involved in?

 

I’d still love to do an art show without having a panic attack.

 

What are you working on right now?

I’m about to start working on some drawings that will hopefully become part of a collaborative show / event with the musician Jonnie Common.

 

David’s print is featured in the latest exhibition at Recoat in their Team Recoat launch. You can view and buy each of the prints here- http://recoat.bigcartel.com/category/team-recoat. They are A2 and only £80 each!

TGIF! And have a lovely new artist showcase for you today from Chris Kelso. Not only can he draw but he writes poetry too! 

- FROM THE TUNNEL

 

A sickbed smell that’s sweet and suffocating

Those relics in their coffins

Waiting

Just waiting to be lowered deep into the dirt

When a pink faced relic turns to me

Clutching a fistful of duvet

Eyes bursting wide like looking planets

Her mouth releasing a faint groan

Her tongue - sandpaper behind denture

- BEWARE THE MIRRORS, she yowls

Then other relics shoot up all surprised

Strings of apparatus and feeding tubes  

Sway like beating wheat

A chorus of

- BEWARE THE MIRRORS

 

God’s in his tunnel staring down at the ward

Checking his watch fob

Moving the dial forward

With a single index

Preparing to loosen his heavy belt

Fluids shoot forth like a punctured keg

Suns fall and moons impose their lunar lights

Leaves are turning

Pinkness pales

Pockmarks like a plague in the Paediatric dept.

Wrinkles and dimples

God’s in his furnace turning kids old

Winding down

Time

More from Team Recoat!

Kirsty Whiten’s distinctive warped paintings and drawings have earned a year’s residency in Paris, numerous awards and bursaries and been exhibited as far a field as Cologne, Den Haag, Austria and Melbourne. Her monkey relics and other twisted drawings have appeared in magazines and on blogs around the world, including Juxtapoz and Empty. Her most recent series of work depicts nude feral families in intimate nesting scenes. The work will be on show at StoleSpace Gallery in London from the 1st of September 2011.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirstywhiten/sets/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kirsty-Whiten/187569244594660

Interview-

> Do you have a favourite piece of art that you created? 

I get wildly excited about what I’m making and have totally outrageous internal dilalogue about it, then I finish it and come back to earth with a thump. 

> Do you have a favourite medium to work in? 

 I like to to do little finely finished pencil drawings, and I love to work large scale in paint - to block in with acrylic and add layers of oil and varnish. It’s great to move from lots of elbow room to tight control and back again.

> Who or what inspires you? 

The people I meet and watch, trying to make sense of them.

> What are you working on right now?

A set of big paintings for an exhibition at Stolenspace; Feral Family. They are kinda rough painted woodlands cut through with day-glo and varnish colour glazes, tight little family scenes taking place, where everyone is naked and surviving, for the time being. I am just weeks away from the deadline and going a bit cross-eyed, but I am so excited about them as a set of images. I think, from the reaction from my visitors, that this might be powerful stuff…

Kirsty’s print is featured in the latest exhibition at Recoat in their Team Recoat launch. You can view and buy each of the prints here- http://recoat.bigcartel.com/category/team-recoat. They are A2 and only £80 each!

Artist Showcase: Jenny Core

see more at www.jennycore.com

 Art is a mimesis of reality; the reality being the everyday. This reality that we have become accustomed to has been appropriated. This alternate ‘reality’, which has been created, embraces humorous obscurities by acknowledging the mundane and the ludicrous. The work is an investigation that explores where the alternate reality is present and where it ceases to exist.As the study of these interpretations of the obscure commences through interdisciplinary means, what is asked of the viewer is their engagement. The spectator should approach the work with an open mind to experience this alternate world with alternate rules.

There are playful notions present amongst these ambiguities displayed through simplistic aesthetics, which mimics that of Postmodernist views. I have “become a manipulator of signs rather than a passive manipulator of the aesthetics”, (Obsborne and Sturgis, 2006).

Want to showcase your own work? Get in touch laura.tully@trisickle,co.uk

Katie Rowlands

My work maintains a distinct illustrative style, which thrives on the momentum and energy of different environments. By using my own, often random and humorous thought processes, and those of others against found images and materials, I choose to celebrate the fine line of work from the subconscious. Things that you think about but never say, words and situations which are often difficult to deal with find themselves in my sketchbooks, in a collection of collided thoughts.There is a supremacy of street art drifting through my sketchbooks, attaching illustrations to found objects. In addition to creating large paintings of groups of people, mostly heads and hands, words are twisted in and moving freely on top and underneath paintings and sketchbooks. These words are mostly thoughts of my own, lyrics from some of the music that has been stuck in my mind at the time or random quotes from my friends. 
You can check out my blog at: www.katierowlands.tumblr.com

http://www.akaelph.com/

There is no doubting the impact that Elph has had on the Scottish Street Art movement and that he would be considered one of the UK’s most loved graffiti artists. Proof of this was his selection for the C215 “Blue Book”, “Graffiti Planet 2” by Alan Ket and Tristan Manco’s “Street Sketchbook”.

Recently Elph was flown out to Melbourne for a solo show with Backwoods Gallery and exhibited in a prestigious Manchester exhibition with China Mike. He also painted at the dramatic Red Bull Stereopticon live paint that saw his painting projected across the front of the entire University of Edinburgh building earlier this year.

His work narrates many wild and weird ideas, often inspired by hours of trawling the internet looking at cartoons, comic books, animation, war and sci-fi films, or even just his neighbourhood and everyday life.

Elph creates all kinds of artwork and design, nodding to his graffiti past; his versatility, drive and style salute this culture but over the years he has developed painterly techniques that far surpass any pre-conceived ideas of what a “Graffiti artist” might produce. His artworks are multi layered, beautifully rendered, playful, funny, sometimes dark, but always appealing whether he is spray painting a wall or creating delicate illustrations in gouache.

Do you have a favourite piece of art that you created? 
I painted a wall in 1999 in a tunnel near Meadowbank stadium, for a long time that was my favourite thing I’d painted.
A very simple semi-wildstyle piece, to me at the time it was everything I wanted to achieve.
 

Do you have a favourite medium to work in?
I pretty much enjoy painting in emulsion paint with spraypaint on top on a largescale.

Who or what inspires you?
Comic books, 1980’s subway graffiti, 1950/60’s commercial illustration, the Impressionists, some pop art, fashion, music, my wife and son.

What would be your dream art project to be involved in?
Any largescale painting project with unlimired time and budget, I already paint regularly enough not to complain too much.

What are you working on right now?
I’m just finishing a titles animation project for the BBC and have been trying to learn animation, which is a little like going back to college again, the learning curve has been steep.

Elph’s print is featured in the latest exhibition at Recoat in their Team Recoat launch. You can view and buy each of the prints here- http://recoat.bigcartel.com/category/team-recoat. They are A2 and only £80 each!

http://trisickleartsblog.tumblr.com/

follow @trisickle_arts and @TrisickleMag

Project Brief #2 for Trisickle Arts Zine

Description of Project: From October onward Trisickle Magazine will now not only be available online but it will be also be free of charge. We are looking for submissions for our November edition’s art zine, which focuses on contemporary drawing practice. (see below for more info)
Contact: laura.tully@trisickle.co.uk
Image Requirements: Images emailed as jpeg at 100dpi.
Date of Completion: 25th September 2011


Description of Project

This month’s brief is Drawing Boundaries.
Graffiti artists and have traditionally marked their territory with tags as they rock the boundaries between art and vandalism. 
Narcissists reject the idea of personal boundaries, guidelines and limits that an individual creates.
Boundaries  are temporary: they can be moved and removed altogether.
Submissions can be using any medium (pen and ink, graphite, paint, paper cuts, photography, collage… etc) and can be either black and white or full colour. Any 3D work should be represented by good quality photographs. I am looking to showcase a variety of styles and approaches to the theme so get creative with this opportunity to get your artwork in an innovative publication.

About Trisickle Magazine

ETHOS

Trisickle™: A paradox of freedoms gained and the danger of life’s own progressive nature. The ‘tricycle’, your first set of wheels, good feelings, the discovery of newfound freedoms and the ‘sickle’, symbol of mortality, the gnarl some edges mutually felt by a group ‘tri’, those who constantly push and witness life’s own evolution.

Real culture lives and thrives through that of inclusion, constantly mutating and evolving in the hands of new generations.
Trisickle is an urban culture magazine with a focus on music and visual arts: it’s about fresh talent and ideas and importantly the people behind the ideas! The Visual Arts section has a focus on contemporary drawing practice and aims to showcase both new and established artists. 

Despite being a new publication (re-launched January 2011) Trisickle Magazine has already received a nomination for the 2011 Scottish Music Award for Best Printed Publication and has sponsored music events such as We Are Glasgow. The magazine is currently moving from bi-monthly print to monthly online.

Find out more: www.trisickle.co.uk

LIKE Trisickle Magazine http://www.facebook.com/trisickle

Mark Lyken

http://www.lykenlove.com/

http://www.facebook.com/MarkLyken

Mark Lyken lives & works as an Artist and Musician in Glasgow, Scotland.  A notable pioneer, he was among the first to begin writing Graffiti in the 80’s in Scotland. His paintings are influenced by cellular division, decay, bacterial spread and meteorological phenomena. His textural paintings toy with scale and time. Are we looking through a telescope at the beginning of the universe or through a microscope at minute, interacting cells?

He has work in several important London exhibitions this summer.

Do you have a favourite piece of art that you created?

Generally it’s the painting I’m working on at that moment but as soon as I’m onto the next I know I will want that current one to be point zero. Its difficult to know how perceptible the development is. I imagine you must get to a stage where you start to consider your work as a back catalogue, rather than just developmental pieces. I’m beginning to feel like that a little bit but there is still that urge to want to go back and revise. Which is a bad idea.
Just ask George Lucas.


Do you have a favourite medium to work in?

At the moment, acrylic and spraypaint…you just can’t beat a bit of the old rap juice for blocking in intense pigments. I plan to work on the environment a bit more in future, start playing with lighting and incorporate the music I make into the space in a more interactive way. as long as the paintings don’t suffer. Maybe I’ll do one of those new fangled “conceptual” shows the kids are all face-tubing about…..

Who or what inspires you?

Older dudes who are still into metal, indy cinema, my friends….
Just folk being driven and doing stuff, be it music or painting. Rather than bitching about lack of opportunities or hating other artists I like it when people make it happen for themselves; get a cracked copy of logic and make a tune, if no one will release it start a label, build a bike, paint a piece, put on a show, write a short story, photocopy a zeen, wear a dress, dance in your pants, whatever makes your little soul sing.

What would be your dream art project to be involved in?

The Rudimentary Perfection show I curated in July was just that. I basically got to choose a “dream team” of artists that I was totally into and through a combination of good luck and good will we managed to get them all to Glasgow so I could get really drunk and challenge them all to a breakdance battle.
Team Recoat as a collective is also pretty exciting, I get to hang out and make art with a bunch of folk I find super inspiring. I’m looking forward to the type of projects we will tackle as a collective.

What are you working on right now?

Same as always, a way to hard wire the internet into my cerebral cortex so I can work and mess about online at the same time.

That and a solo show but mainly the internet thing.

Mark’s print is featured in the latest exhibition at Recoat in their Team Recoat launch. You can view and buy each of the prints here- http://recoat.bigcartel.com/category/team-recoat. They are A2 and only £80 each!

Anneli Holmstrom: See more at http://www.holmstromart.co.uk

Anneli Holmstrom graduated from a postgraduate degree in painting from Edinburgh College of Art  2009 and now currently lives and works in Edinburgh. Since graduating Holmstrom has attained residencies in Chicago and Finland and has exhibited in group and solo shows both at home and internationally.

Holmstrom is currently working on an artist book entitled ‘The Book of Retreats’ which began during an artist in residency at Atelje Stundars in Finland. ‘The Retreat’ in its final form will chronicle interviews Holmstrom has made with the people on the subject of retreat alongside images drawn from these interviews.

Below are a few excerpts from ‘The Book of Retreats’:

“Retreat means that I want time to myself, but that doesn’t mean that I have to be alone. I can be able to think about the things I want to think about and of course sometimes alone, but usually with friends somewhere- a coffe shop, a cafeteria’ ‘and just talk about world issues or whatever we find interesting. Thats a retreat for me, where I don’t have to think about the boring everyday life that I live.”

-Harry Bask

“To get away from all the stress that school brings and just to get away from all the thoughts. Its when I do something physical with my body, I retreat from all the thoughts that I shouldn’t think. Bad thoughts like, ‘I’m not good enough’ because I shouldn’t think that because I am good enough”

- Maarit Boholm