The New Year news starts with a further look back at Open Studios – Sam Robinson, studio archivist extraordinaire, took the pictures below.

Not documented in quite the same way was the Great Western Studios carol sing-a-long held in December. It was quite a night - I don't suppose many other staff Christmas parties could boast being serenaded by Jonny Borrell, the bassist from the Libertines and Bronagh Gallagher from the Commitments – this isn't to say that they outshone the resident studio choral talent, which was both broad and largely unexpected.

The London Art Fair Opens later this week at the Business Design Centre in Islington. The show will include work by Rachel Schwalm on the Beaux Arts stand, Cristina Rodriguez on the Art Movement stand and David Worthington on the Crane Kalman stand.

Outside the fair will stand Howl, a new piece by Emily Young, who is represented inside the fair by the Fine Art Society.

Rachel Schwalm also has a solo show with Beaux Arts opening at the end of January in their Cork Street gallery. The show opens on January 30th and runs until February 23rd.

Darren Almond has two major solo shows opening on the same night this week. At Parasol Unit his show, Fire Under Snow, runs from January 18th through to March 30th. His show at White Cube, in Hoxton Square, is titled Moons of Iapetus Ocean, and runs from the same date until February 23rd.

A slew of reviews will no doubt follow and will appear here in the next newsletter – in the meantime, ahead of the pack, you can read about his White Cube show, courtesy of The Times, here, and a short entry from the Guardian Guide below.

A group show at Tate Britain, as part of the Art Now programme, will feature work by Katy Moran. Titled Art Now: Strange Solution the exhibition opens on February 1st and runs until April 13th.

Purdy Hicks Gallery has work by Estelle Thompson in their current group show, Tipping Point, alongside paintings by Estelle are works by Agnes Martin and Barry Thompson among others.

Giles Phelps and Chris Burridge, aka Slipmode, have been very busy boys. They have been working with Albion Brand Comnmunications on a multi-client project for 3, Skype and Hutchinson which featured on 600 still advertising sites across the country together with some animated sites as well.

They have also been working on a 20 minute documentary film about, local superstar photographer, Jürgen Teller for Specialten.

Faye Haskins has a solo show with the Untitled Gallery at the Adam Street Club which runs from February 4th until March 2nd.

Finally, Blue Curry, is in a group show (setups, situations, solutions) at Popopstudios in the Bahamas until February 10th... if you happen to be in the area.

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all work images shown remain the copyright of the respective author :: ambient site photography sam robinson