Spotlight on... Artbooty, Brixton

London Design Festival looms and details of interesting events are popping into my inbox.

If you've never been, the main thing to know is that, aside from the main events (the likes of Design Junction, Tent and 100% Design) it's pretty much an excuse for the design-inclined to show off and have visually stimulating parties for the best part of a week in September. What's not to love?

One such event, Artbooty, part of Brixton Art Trail as well as the London Design Festival (LDF) and hosted by local design shop, BRIXI, is on my doorstep in south London – and if you're in the capital for the festival, it promises to be worth the trip to these parts.

The event – an art sale with booze, installations and performances and food – runs for one afternoon/evening and you should take cash for beer (and, quite possibly, spontaneous art purchases). Here are some of the highlights in pictures.

Nigerian-born folk painter and architect, Abe Odedina, was a BP Portrait Award nominee in 2013 with his painting The Adoration of Frida, a self-portrait and tribute to the Mexican artist. He works in London and Salvador, Brazil.

Obedina has been inspired by "the expressive figurative paintings found in the streets in cities like Lagos, Salvador, or Port-au-Prince adorning the sides of lorries, the walls of temples, beer parlours, love motels or advertising the services of barbers, vulcanisers, healers and other specialists'.

Over the years I've been going to BRIXI to browse the always-intriguing and beautiful and frequently joyfully unusual selection of wares on sale, Obedina's paintings have often hung huge from the walls and totally sucked me in. They're pretty special. www.abeodedina.com

Also...

These humorous pieces – named (clockwise from main image) Atkins Day (a diet themed sculpture); GGrrrrrrr and I Lost My Head – are by ceramics restorer and artist, Amy Douglas. As well as offering her artworks for sale Douglas, I believe, will be touting cabaret from a golden horsebox on the night.

Douglas also does 80s themed linocuts (this one will only make sense if you know the lyrics to Wham Rap). Check her out at www.theartofsalmagundi.co.uk

There's also some of this.

Stephen Wright is so much more than a mosaic artist, as you'll know if you read this previous post on his quite astonishing home/museum, the House of Dreams. For the Artbooty, Wright will be taking the quirky creatures he creates on a road trip.

Other artists will be: recycler, Jo Gibbs (see her lacy tiles, above); Soozy Lipsey; textile artist, Brian Merry; surrealist printmaker, Lizzie Learman plus her printing press for demos; sculptor and inventor Stephen Stockbridge, who's offering confessions; Jamie Palmer (AKA Pen & Gravy, whose work, pictured below, is for sale on Etsy and is written about in this previous post).

Which artist's work do you most like? Do share your comments below.


ARTBOOTY takes place on Tuesday 22 September 2015, 4-11.30pm, Brixton East 1871, Barrington Road, Brixton, SW9 7JF. See more about what's going on in the area at www.brixtondesigntrail.com or check out the city-wide events at London Design Festival www.londondesignfestival.com. Read about the Artbooty organiser in this previous post.

Bad week? Reach for Mr Bingo

I've had better weeks, filled with less bad news. But nothing quite cheers me up like a browse through the Mr Bingo back catalogue and, quite apart from my own excuses, I currently have an official one too...

... since the illustrator known as Mr Bingo is giving a talk next week in Bristol that promises to be an entertaining event if you're in that neck of the woods. Sadly I'm not, so here's a gratuitous selection of some of his finest works.

As well as writing about lovely affordable interiors here, this blog also features design related stories to inspire – and sometimes amuse – those with aesthetic interests.

I first discovered Mr Bingo when I was a commissioning editor at the Independent Magazine a couple of years ago and a copy of his book – a collection of these illustrations – got sent into the office. It was passed around the room, its whereabouts trackable by sporadic snorts of laughter punctuating the tippity tap of keyboards.

Then last year I sent a copy of the book to a friend who'd just had a bad break-up to cheer her up. And, in line with my own experience, it helped.

In case you're unfamiliar with Mr Bingo, he's an east London-based illustrator whose special brand of Hate Mail started life one night in his studio when he drunk-tweeted: “I will send a postcard with an offensive message on to the first person who replies to this tweet".

Mr Bingo was inundated with requests. He charged £40 a pop for each brilliantly illustrated typographical abuse missive, which were inked onto old postcards. A selection of them was made into the book.

What I don't have (since I gave away the book) are the John Hinde-esque images on the front of the postcards, which really add a special flourish to the messages on the back. Worth buying just for that.

Hate Mail (Michael Joseph) is published by Penguin and costs £9.99.

 
 

And if you haven't clicked away yet, disgusted by it all, you'll probably also like the equally visual and daft Viz Book of Crap Jokes (one of my most treasured possessions), and also the 27bslash6.com blog, written by David Thorne. Graphic designers will appreciate it – especially this post. (Though personally I am fond of the one about the missing cat poster.) Thorne has also published two books featuring the best of the emails, the first of which was a New York Times bestseller.

The Mr Bingo talk takes place as part of the West of England Design Forum in Bristol at Arnolfini on 16 July, 7-9pm. £12.00 / £10.00 concs. Arnolfini.org.uk 
@mr-bingo

Have good weekends. I hope to be feeling perkier next week.

Post by Kate

Design Junction – a taster

The Design Junction preview this week was a visually exhausting (but most inspiring) three-storey adventure. The event is on all weekend, part of London Design Festival. Details at the end. Meanwhile, here's what I found out...

Among the new works launched by illustrator artists agency, Outline Editions, is work by the most excellent, often rude and very funny (unless swearing offends you): Mr Bingo. (Above, some of his non-expletive sheep.)

HAMmade, them of the lovely trampolining bunnies and lawnmowing pigs, have gone in for the statement of the season: metallics (specifically copper, which was glimmering warmly everywhere at the event). The company has deviated from its standard monochrome prints with this copper-coloured beauty.

London Underground – still celebrating their 150-year anniversary – are collaborating like they mean it: in the mix, Fired Earth have done some themed tiles...

...and a range of reproduction posters...

...and Kirkby Design have done some textiles.

Farrow & Ball have some new shades with typically unusual names. The range is inspired by the Dorset coastline.

But, specifically, just how damn good is their way of displaying them?

These bright and beautifully designed lamps – which can either be hung or stand on elegant mahogany legs – are made largely from recycled stuff by a company called Fantasized. The recycled stuff comes direct from the scrap merchants of Cebu City in the Phillippines, which has a large waste problem and overflowing landfills. The shades are discarded electric fan guards (hence the company name) and the strips are waste from a woven chair factory.

Copper and bronze also made an appearance on the brand new card range and limited edition prints from the lovely Lovely Pigeon. I was also impressed with their oh-so-this-season take on washi tape.

Otherwise known by keen gardeners as the stuff you put round your pots to keep the snails off. Genius.

I discovered Jay Watson, who makes lights out of old socks.

He also makes chandeliers out of "orphaned" old glass dessert bowls from flea markets. He has named them Just Desserts.

Another Country have started selling nice wooden numbers. Beautiful, but not especially cheap if you need more than one.

Finally, I discovered that fruit and vegetables look really good painted white.

So much more good stuff there too see – not to mention the rest of the London Design Festival. It all continues over the weekend. Design Junction runs until Sunday 22 September 2013 at The Old Sorting Office, 21-31 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1BA. Opening Hours:  Friday 20 Sept. 10am-7pm; Saturday 21 Sept. 10am-6pm; Sunday 22 Sept. 10am-4pm. For everything on at LDF 13, go to the website: Londondesignfestival.com

Post by Kate

More excellent art: Outline Editions' Stoke Newington pop-up

A quick post today as I'm not technically here – but just wanted just to let you know about phase two of the Outline Editions pop-up shop, opening tomorrow in London's Stoke Newington and stuffed full of sexy, affordable art by some of the UK's hottest illustration talent. 

Of course, you could just buy online at the Outline Editions website. Anyway, for the northeast London-bound, here's what you need to know...

Trevor Burgess exhibition

Tonight I'm going to the private view of an exhibition of paintings by Trevor Burgess. I've posted about Trevor's work here before, which I absolutely love. Especially the series that makes up this show, which takes place in London from today.

'A Place to Live' is a show made up of Trevor's depictions of urban housing; none of it is made to look beautiful and stylish, it just is what it is and – just like London – none of it matches, in style, period or value. He has painted the homes, found in estate agent adverts, onto plywood. I love his democratic approach, the attention he has lavished on the very ordinary: on the ordinary places in which most of us live. Home is home.

'A Place to Live' is on at the Dreamspace Gallery in London's Clerkenwell. It runs from today until 12 December. Find out more on the gallery's website. And if you can't make it down to see the paintings in person, you can get a good look at them all on Trevor's website, under the 'gallery' tab. Just click on 'A Place to Live'.

Two festive shopping events

If you happen to be in or visiting London or Nottingham to do your Christmas shopping, here are two events to stick on your map. 

I love Pretty Dandy, which I posted about earlier this year. And now they are having a one-off flea market type event, with items old and new as well as music and workshops going on.

And if you are as much of an Etsy nut as I am, you'll be excited to hear that the website becomes a real  live thing for the day at a nice-sounding do at Tate Britain, in London as part of the Pimlico gallery's celebration of its Pre-Raphaelite exhibition.