PTID Series (Palace 'til I Die)













Im still buzzin from the atmosphere at last Saturdays FA Cup Final at Wembley. Palace were so close to winning. Gutted that we lost in the end. The Red N Blue army triumphed yet again though. What an awesome day out. The Pre Match at Covent Garden was brilliant and Wembley Way was packed with exuberant Palace Fans. I started taking a few shots of people in their Red and Blue attire.Some had really gone for it and I was left wishing I had got there earlier and made more of an effort documenting the Palace faithful. However the snaps I did get have prompted me to embark on a new series of shots entitled The PTID Series.  I'll add to it over next season were I can, either at Selhurst or on away days. Be Loud! Be Proud! Be Palace!

Karborn-John Foxx Artwork-Limited Edition



















Most John Foxx fans are already aware of this exquisite artwork for the B-Movie album. Created by Karborn it is available via the Big Cartel section @ karborn.com. On sale at £90 beautifully printed and signed, this A2 print is in a limited edition of just 20. Mine arrived a couple of weeks ago so i'm guessing there are only a few left. Get in before they are all snapped up!

Click here for Karborn Shop


Photography Oxford Festival 2014
























This week marked the opening of the first Photography Oxford Festival. Inspired by the wonderful Recontres D'arles this event shows all the spirit and clever curation of that event.

Festival director Robin Laurance and his team have pulled out all the stops to firmly plant Oxford on the Photographic Cultural Map. Spread over 26 venues the festival makes clever use of the many exhibition spaces and some surprising and wonderful locations. There are also several talks and discussions running alongside the main event as well as film screenings.  Check the website link below for more information.

My personal favorites,so far,have been Mark Laita & Yann Layma at the Old Fire Station and  Pentti Sammallahtis' masterfully printed Black and White images at St Johns College.

Awesome exhibition spaces showing great work are OVADA,Keble College and the Maths Institute, home to Mariana Cooks' powerful portraits.

I still have about 10 exhibitions to visit,high on the list are the show at Sarah Wiseman Gallery and Paddy Summerfields' poignant document of his parents last days together as they succumb to the devastating effects of Alzheimers. Staged as a projection in the garden of the house where they lived the installation is described thus. "His vision reflects the bond between his mother and father, which even Alzheimer's cannot break."

The festival runs until the 5th October 2014.

Click here PHOTOGRAPHY OXFORD FESTIVAL 2014 

Arcadia Download


https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/194100118/arcadia-1?ref=listing-0



















Ive had limited success selling prints on Etsy but have had lots of people favourite my images. So I thought it would a good time to experiment with their new downloads category. First on sale is Arcadia 1. More to follow.  
CLICK HERE TO LINK TO DOWNLOAD

ATM Street Art



New on the streets of London are these beautiful artworks by ATM. He studied at art college in Sheffield and was heavily influenced by Audibon.His work is a warning sign. The birds he paints are under threat, many of them common when he was a child are becoming rarer. A portent of the impending catastrophic effects that climate change will unleash. As a teenage twitcher his work has a particular resonance for me, having spent much of my adolescence exploring the New Forest and the wildlife of Keyhaven Marshes. I have always felt close to nature. Lovely to see his work reintroducing Avians to the concrete jungle.

ATM Feature in The Guardian
ATM on Facebook

Nick Swain-Blacksmith with attitude.

















If you go down to the woods today you're in for a big surprise! Well not the woods per se but a layby just off the A41. Not quite as poetic maybe but nearly as much fun as a teddy bears picnic.

Travelling home from a job last Saturday I turned onto the B4009. From the corner of my eye I spotted a collection of artisan objets displayed on the grass verge. Being the art obsessive I am I had to do a U turn and find out more.

Nick Swain is one of our wonderful english eccentrics. A blacksmith by trade, he lives on a narrowboat on the Grand Union Canal and fashions his decorative iron work on the bankside.

I parked up and ambled over to find out more. A large metal cross designed as a headstone sat at the centre of the display. With his black hoody up Nicks first words to me were "Are you the man for the cross" For a second I thought I'd met the Grim Reaper! "sorry?" "Are you the chap who was coming to pick up the cross" Phew.

Nick can turn his hand to anything by the looks of it. He works out of a mobile smithy in the form of a Romany caravan that he built himself from scratch,towed by a flatbed Transit that he is transforming into a motor driven Shepherds Hut. Most of the work on display were highly decorative garden objets (I couldnt resist buying one of his firebowls crafted from scrap gas cylinders he finds dumped by the wayside.) but Nick loves to produce abstract sculptural pieces too.

 Take some time out and amble along to the crossroads where Mr Swain displays his work, you'll be richer for the encounter.

Nick on Youtube


London Art Fair






I popped down to the London Art Fair 2014 yesterday. In amongst the standard fare there were a few gems. Nice to see Crane Kalman Brighton exhibiting but leading the pack my a mile was Ink'd Gallery featuring work by renegade potter Carrie Reichardt, Miss Bugs, Ryan Callahan,Carne Griffiths and Magnus Gjoen. The fair runs until Sunday 19th Jan,so get your good self down there.

LINK TO INK'D
LINK TO CRANE KALMAN 
CARRIEREICHARDT.COM

TALKING FASHION - JAN KEDVES

















I received a complementary copy of Jan Kedves new book yesterday.What a gem.

Containing interviews with many Fashionistas,including Jean -Paul Goude,Pierre Cardin,Helmut Lang,Nick Knight,Bruce Weber and Malcolm McLaren. It makes for a fascinating read.

Best of all is the Interview with the Late Willi Ninja, who I had the privilege to meet and photograph on Malcolms' Waltz Darling project. Included are my silhouettes of Willi which featured on the Deep in Vogue sleeve.

Lovely to see this, a must read if you want to know the background behind both Malcolm and Madonnas take on the underground sub culture that was Vogueing. Willi was the supreme master of this dance form!

Eduardo Paolozzi - Collage Culture















An exhibition of Eduardo Paolozzi' collages is running until 13th October at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester West Sussex,housed in the main gallery. Paolozzi has been a long term favourite of mine and inspired many of my peers when he was a visiting lecturer at Central St Martins. His collage I was a Rich Mans Plaything dating back to 1947 was considered to be the first standard bearer of Pop Art.

Running alongside, in Gallery 4 is an exhibition of Modern British Collage and its legacy.
"This exhibition will explore the role of collage in the trajectory of modern British art through collage, prints and paintings by artists in the Gallery's Collection such as John Piper, Ben Nicholson, Eileen Agar, Nigel Henderson, Richard Hamilton, Peter Blake and John Stezaker."

Not to be missed!

Link to Pallant House Gallery

Henrijs Preiss




Ive just discovered these wonderful paintings by Latvian artist Henrijs Preiss. Now based in Hackney the best description of these geometric works is from his own website.

"With their inscribed circles and radiating lines like spotlights raking deserted streets or gun shots in glass panes they owe as much to our urban environment; from murder mile in Clapton to the labyrinthine, saturated psycho-geography of Shoreditch and Whitechapel.  In the arrangement of forms there are hints of postmodern architecture's eclecticism; the raids made on history to furnish our cities with a bewildering noise of disparate styles and motifs
 
There is an upcoming exhibition of his work at Westland Place Studios running from the 1st to 30th August 2013.

Henrijs Preiss
www.westlandplacestudios.com/gallery

Mick Head - Pale Fountains Ltd edition print














Very happy with the quality of this print of Mick Head. Printed with high quality Ultrachrome inks,it's limited to an edition of 45 worldwide. The shot was taken in Liverpool (Sefton Park I think) as part of a promo shoot for the release of Something On My Mind, for Operation Twilight. Image size 315mm x 210mm centred on A3 matt heavyweight paper 230gsm. Signed verso, embossed,numbered and dated.
Available via my Etsy site http://www.etsy.com/shop/markbakerimagery