Hannah Palmer Solo Show

16th – 21st May 10-6pm
Location: Gallery & Project Space

Up and coming artist Hannah Palmer presents a series of hand printed photographs in her latest solo exhibition.

With a bold mixture of both colour and black and white landscapes and black and white portraits she explores the lines and shapes created in both natural landscapes and the human face. Hannah has brought together images that would not usually be displayed side by side to bring a new perspective to the delineations between landscape and portrait. Hannah still uses the original art of film photography and prints all images herself in the darkroom. Although a much more time consuming method, she believes that the results are worth it, creating not only better quality but a more personal and artistic prints. Hannah also works from a studio in Fulham where she enjoys taking portraits for a wide range of clients.

External links: www.hannahpalmerphotography.co.uk

Alien Nation: The art of blending in.

15th March – 29th April 2011
Location: Gallery & Project Space

Additional events: Literary Evening, April 14th
M1GRATION: March of the Aliens, April 15th featuring PIKY and Sheffield bands The Tivoli and The Cartels

Alien Nation, a month-long exhibition including art, music and more, will take place this spring at Great Western Studios.

Inspired by George Mikes’s book How to be an Alien and curated by Soapbox Events, Alien Nation is a one-off group show by a collective of London-based artists, photographers, writers and musicians.

Alien Nation celebrates the way George Mikes brilliantly captures the extraordinary transition that many people experience when first moving to London. From the weather to the incomprehensible social niceties, there’s a lot to adjust to; in spite of these things, foreigners and other ‘aliens’ continue to flock here.

A number of high-profile artists have produced their take on George Mikes’s influential book. Their inspiration has come from a chapter, scene, sentence or single phrase within it – and their pieces reflect the individual’s take on the topic of being an ‘alien in London.’

The collection includes: painting, photography, poetry, murals, furniture and a unique collection of illustrations from the Central Illustration Agency (CIA) who have been invited to visually recreate the book.

Whether you’re an alien or not, the capital’s cultural diversity affects us all. This exhibition will be a celebration of that diversity – and the community of aliens who call London home.

External links:

Exhibition review on The Guardian
www.soapboxevents.co.uk

International Women’s Day Talk

8th March 2011
Location: Gallery & Project Space

As part of International Woman’s Day on 8th March 2011, Great Western Studios will celebrate with a talk with three woman artists using three different media. Painter, Kate Bright; video and printmaker Suky Best and photographer Bettina von Kameke will take part in an informal talk, looking at their practice and answering questions about their methods and ideas.

External links:

www.katebright.net
www.sukybest.com
www.vonkameke.com

Wormwood Scrubs: Photographs by Bettina von Kameke

15th February – 11th March 2011
Location: Gallery & Project Space

Great Western Studio’s is pleased to announce a new and exciting set of exhibitions, talks and screenings starting with Bettina von Kameke’s photographs of Wormwood Scrubs. Her work explores enclosed communities and in these her most recent photographs, she investigates a community of male prisoners in HMP Wormwood Scrubs. Observing the daily rituals of the inmates, she was keen to present the human aspects of their everyday routine, common to all human life, both outside and inside the prison, rather than portraying them in the traditional way as victims of society.

This is a collection of photographs, which looks at every day rituals with an investigating yet sensitive eye. As she says about her work: “I question and explore the interior and exterior conditions, means and forces, which make a communal life sustainable. My photographs disclose the individual aesthetics of an enclosed community, which I carefully observe through the viewfinder of the camera. The camera, either still or moving, creates a distance but at the same time allows me to enter the subjects’ space. The camera functions as an interface between myself and the world outside.”

Von Kameke’s previous work includes sailing with 31 Burmese merchant seamen from England to South Africa. She has also taken photographs of Benedictine Nuns in the Tyburn Tree Convent in London and travelled with the famous Circus Humberto through the Czech Republic. During the autumn of 2008 she was invited to an artist’s residency at Christ Church College in Oxford. Her photographic project involved the production of 101 portraits of the academics, the domestic staff, the choristers, the clerks as well as the Cathedral staff, which form the Christ Church Community.

External links: www.vonkameke.com

Open Studios

4th & 5th December 2010
Location: Whole Building

Join us for 2 days of Open Studios by resident and guest exhibitors. Meet and buy from the artists and makers, explore this unique concentration of talent spanning the creative industries…

Over the weekend:

80+ open studios
Curated exhibitions over 2 floors
Contemporary sculpture
Christmas art market
Children’s art trail
Café open both days

Great Western Studios holds its Open Studios events twice a year; once at the beginning of December and again in either May or June. These events are the only occasions when the entire building is open to the general public. They provide an opportunity for the artists, designers and craftspeople within the studios to invite their friends, colleagues and clients to see their work in the environment in which it is made. Our Open Studios events attract a wide variety of visitors; from clued-up design aware individuals to people from galleries and arts institutions.

Outside of Open Studios we are able to arrange group tours of the studios for individuals or companies that are interested in meeting the artists, craftspeople and designers within the building