The fin de siècle was a time of cataclysmic change: rising industry, the age of enlightenment and women’s liberation pulled apart 18th and 19th century Victoriana. Fashion adapted quickly as designers broke away from centuries of stifling tradition with loose silhouettes and experimental designs, allowing both men and women to move freely without constriction, and…
Category Archives: PIONEERS
“My work is a kind of handbook – to deal with the ghosts of what has happened.” When Lubaina Himid won the Turner Prize in 2016 the world sat up and took notice. Not only was she the first black woman to be presented with the award, but at 63 years old she was the…
There is an increasing environmental awareness to how we live our lives – zero carbon output might initially be seen as idealistic – but a more sustainable life is achievable. Looking at where life can be improved and consumption reduced is a design imperative. It is at the forefront of discussions (as both villain and…
Craft and design are important to us today. They provide tangible and stable objects in our modern, often stressful, lives. It is possible for objects to have meaning beyond use value. I want to focus here on how we interpret designed or crafted objects. Design is everywhere is a truism we all understand. We need…
Recently in Tribeca, New York, an innovative café opened. It encourages customers to pick up their beverage and leave the shop without paying. No queuing! The consumer pays at their own convenience via text. I emphasise the café example as it focuses on networks and their relationship with trust. The Tribeca drugstore is reconnecting long…
As consumers we engage with a hybrid of art, design and craft, and its artefacts to form social bonds, and a sense of identity: I am a Nordstrom person, a Harrods; Bloomingdale’s or John Lewis… It is an engagement which helps comprehend and navigate our daily lives. Ceramics or textiles, for instance, can give us…
“I’m often thinking about how paintings position you as a viewer.” Caroline Walker’s enigmatic, quietly unnerving paintings hint at silent narratives without giving away the game. Women are her subjects, seen from afar in modern houses, nail bars, hotels or hospital beds, as we become passive voyeurs into their daily lives. Much like the 20th…
“Success, for me, is staying true to who you are and not deviating off a path.” Amy Sherald’s striking, visually arresting portraits capture the indefinable spirit of contemporary America. Since painting Michelle Obama’s portrait in 2018, the press were quick to portray her as an overnight success, but this undermines the strength, determination and years…
“I am looking for that space where you can’t have that singular, particular experience. It’s about what is undefined, unstable – and for me, that’s important politically.” Spidery lines whisper skeletal, architectural structures, coloured streaks swoop and swirl and ink blots become darkened clouds of soot and smoke: this is the electrifyingly complex landscape of…
“Painting is closest to poetry of all the arts: not being able to explain something, why does one thing sound so great next to another? You can’t put your finger on it, that’s what my work’s about.” Cecily Brown’s paintings pulsate with fleshy indulgence as thickly painted bodies writhe into and over one another, caught…
Let’s be honest, arming and equipping a small medieval army is not easy. They don’t sell broadswords at Walmart and searching “fully trained warhorse” yields no results on Amazon. Luckily, I had at least one place to start, BIKING RED. When you set out to make a short film about the rise of perhaps the…
“The silhouette says a lot with very little information, but that’s also what the stereotype does.” Brutal, shocking and filled with tragedy, Kara Walker’s re-telling of black history aims for the jugular. The artist made her name with cut out silhouettes illustrating bloody, violent acts inflicted upon America’s black population, particularly women, during the American…
“Repetition and revision is central to my working process, this idea of stacking and layering and building up densities and recoveries.” Ellen Gallagher is a minimalist at heart, arranging tight grids and decorative repeat patterns that echo the measured abstractions of Sol LeWitt or Agnes Martin. But lean in closer; woven tightly into the fabric…
“My work has affected people over the years … because it draws people’s attention to … the things in their lives. There’s a certain amount of humility that goes with that.” Rachel Whiteread’s ghostly sculptures transform empty, forgotten space into solid mass. Drawing us to unusual, forgotten places is her forte, from the dark recesses of a childhood cupboard, the dusty space under the…
“It’s important to express oneself… provided the feelings are real and are taken from your own experience.” The act of seeing is central to Berthe Morisot’s practice – both tangible, visible subjects and simmering psychological tensions beneath. With a canny, perceptive eye she captured scenes and people from 19th century Parisian life, famously painting women…
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