Introducing Tom Hackney - Included in 'Surface Tension' Our Upcoming Group Exhibition

Tom Hackney, New New York, 2008 Tom Hackney, Chess Painting No.7, 2011

Introducing Naomi Doran - Included in 'Surface Tension' Our Upcoming Group Exhibition

Naomi Doran, Blades, 2010 ggggggggNaomi Doran, Copper Series Form 1, 2010

'Surface Tension', 10 - 26 November 2011 at Tokarska Gallery, E17

Image © Naomi Doran. Photograph by Danillo Murru

We proud to announce our upcoming exhibition 'Surface Tension' - a group show featuring the work of four established and emerging London-based artists: Naomi Doran, Tom Hackney, Onya McCausland and Giulia Ricci. It will be on display at the Tokarska Gallery, 163 Forest Road, London E17 6HE from 10-26 November 2011.

The title reflects the fact that all of the artists engage with and explore the boundaries of the two-dimensional media which they use in one way or another; yet this is only one aspect of their works’ incredibly rich, multi-layered character – many of the pieces also reflecting how we as human beings relate to, perceive and interact with our environment. Abstract in nature, they are marked by an exciting and unconventional mix of media, ranging from oil paint to felt-tip pens and plaster, as well as industrial and natural elements such as concrete, iron and steel.

The Private View is 10 November 2011 6.00 - 9.00. Look forward to seeing you there!

Giulia Ricci: Order/Disruption Private View, 23 September 2011

What an incredible night! Ring Here Gallery was brimming with wonderful people. 'Giulia Ricci: Order/Disruption' is on until 28 October, open all week, just make an appointment by ringing 020 7735 1007!

Giulia Ricci's 'Order/Disruption' Featured in 'World Interiors' Magazine, October 2011

Giulia Ricci Solo Show - Order/Disruption - 23 September - 28 October 2011 - at the new Ring Here Gallery

Order/Disruption No. 24, Pen on Paper, 20x30cm. Image © the artist

We are very proud to announce a solo show of one of our favourite artists in the world - Giulia Ricci - at the new Ring Here Gallery in Kennington, London. The Private View is on Friday 23 September 6.30-9.30pm please RSVP here.

Following Giulia's recent inclusion in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and Dexter Dalwood’s Creekside Open Exhibition, Order/Disruption - the title of the show - will comprise drawings, installations and video work showcasing the full range of her practice and revealing her to be a true emerging talent in London’s contemporary art scene.

Giulia is fascinated by patterns and their systems, which she explores through various repetitive processes - primarily drawing on paper, using ink pens and grids. She is interested in many different principles and aspects of science and mathematics, such as chaos theory and the correspondence between macro and micro patterns existing in the universe, yet her work is also intimately bound up with her personal background, experiences and cultural reference points. These include not only the famous mosaics of her home town of Ravenna, but also the rural patchwork of fields in the countryside of Emilia-Romagna in Italy where she grew up – what she calls ‘the man-made geometry of the landscape’. This tension between natural ‘disorder’ and the eminently human need to impose structure is at the very heart of Ricci’s practice. Her main influences include the artists Alighiero Boetti, Annie Albers and Agnes Martin.

Order/Disruption comprises a body of work begun in 2009 with a specific interest in exploring disruptions occuring within ordered and symmetrical patterns. It started with her film Beads (order, disorder, symmetry) that shows Ricci's hands playing with two circular sets of tactile beads - one black and one white - in which slowly and rhythmically she creates patterns and disruptions with her finger tips. This subsequently led onto a series of drawings using ink pens and grids to experiment with the order and disorder of patterns using only triangular forms.

Having utilised different colours within her work, these pieces find her returning to black and white imagery, using the most fundamental and minimalist form of expression – negative and positive.

Whilst drawing continues to be Ricci’s primary medium she is also very interested in site-specific work and will be recreating her imagery on the gallery’s windows in a manner specifically designed to interact with the window’s grid and with the drawings on the wall. Ricci has deliberately chosen the layout of the show to be sympathetic to the space in which it is housed – a Victorian domestic house converted into a modern yet intimate ‘white cube’ gallery.

An eagerly-anticipated solo exhibition, Order / Disruption encapsulates a body of work in Ricci's practice that has been marked by great success and recognition over the past two years, with exhibitions, publications and awards both in the UK and internationally. As an exciting new development of her work begins, this show represents an opportunity to explore once more the distinctive clarity and harmony that is the signature of Ricci’s work.

An eagerly-anticipated solo exhibition, Order / Disruption encapsulates a body of work in Ricci's practice that has been marked by great success and recognition over the past two years, with exhibitions, publications and awards both in the UK and internationally. As an exciting new development of her work begins, this show represents an opportunity to explore once more the distinctive clarity and harmony that is the signature of Ricci’s work.

Giulia Ricci studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna (Italy) and at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. Short-listed for the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2010 and 2011 and for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (2011), in 2011 she was also selected by Dexter Dalwood to appear in the exhibition Creekside Open. In 2010 she was artist in residence at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, where she presented the exhibition Connecting Threads, and was also part of Folie à Deux’s first group show I have this strange kind of feeling and I just can’t place it during which she appeared on the front cover of AN Magazine. Ricci is currently a artist in residence at Middlesex University and upcoming group shows includeLondon-Berlin at Fruehsorge Contemporary Drawings in Berlin (Germany) and the project Ghost of Gone Birds (London).

Folk in the URBAN PHYSIC GARDEN

10 August 2011, 8.00-11pm
Urban Physic Garden, 100 Union Street, SE1 ONL

We are proud to present a collaboration between the Magpie's Nest (BBC Folk Club of the year 2010) and Folie à Deux. Together we bring to you folk music in the unique pop-up garden space - The Urban Physic Garden - located underneath a railway bridge in Waterloo on Wednesday 10 August 2011 8 - 11pm. Set up by the wonderful collective Wayward Plants – a group of designers, urban growers and would-be alchemists – they have transformed a neglected patch of land into a community garden, made entirely out of recycled materials and through the hard work of 100 volunteers. Playing at this special venue are folk acts Sam Lee, Dear Winesburg and Robin Grey, who will be performing here amongst exotic medicinal plants and seeds, art installations and games. There will also be sustainably sourced and seasonal food on offer by the Rambling Restaurant, served from the back of a converted ambulance.

The Magpie’s Nest and Folie à Deux share a common goal to showcase alternative and redefining folk music within magical, welcoming and intimate settings, so as to create an all encompassing and unique experience to match the music that we love. We hope you fall in love with, and enjoy, the garden and music as much as we do.h

SAM LEE

“The rising star of traditional English folksong” - The Daily Telegraph

“Ground of It’s Own’ is wonderful. The singing is sublime and exquisite! It’s gentle and despairing, trancelike and tender. Strokes of genius there I think!” - Shirley Collins

Sam Lee, folk singer, promoter and animateur is fast becoming accepted as one of the new pioneers defining the sound, sight and texture of contemporary folksong. This is most notable in his forthcoming debut album ‘Ground of It’s Own’ released later in 2011. Likewise his live band – The Gillies boys - carves homemade and mongrelised instrumentation with unconventional arrangements that challenge any preconceptions of what ‘tradition’ should sound like. Sam’s sound whilst embedded in British traditional music treads a thoroughly modern course and musical vision creating a radical yet melodic new passage for folk song for the contemporary audience.

DEAR WINESBURG

“Every fluttering violin note to every guitar string delicately plucked shows off musicianship that is heavily accomplished” - For Folks Sake

Dear Winesburg write atmospheric, joyous, dark, lyrical folk songs - picked early on by Mumford & Sons to headline their Communion night - the band's songs shimmer with beauty and intent, bound by a strength of writing that hearkens back to Greenwich Village Dylan and the roots of the folk tradition. Pairing songwriter Christopher Kreinczes with the violin of Emma Kraemer (Peggy Sue, Mariner's Children) backed on accordion, upright bass, trumpet and drums - live they are dramatic, brooding and jubilant, drawing comparisons to Johnny Flynn and Beirut, but with a voice unmistakably their own. Last year the band released their debut album ‘Dark Water’ produced by Mike Pela (Stephen Stills, Fairport Convention) and this August they release their new EP Light & Deft. You can see the beautiful EP teaser trailer, shot at the Utrophia Project Space at: www.dearwinesburg.com

ROBIN GREY

"bluesy and folky, really bloody good." - Song by Toad

"Robin Grey has a lovely fresh approach to the folk genre. A honeyed yet clear voice and his lyrics are arresting. A real treasure." - The Londonist

Inspired by the timeless work of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Ani Difranco amongst any others, he colours his songs above love and life with guitar, banjo, ukele, mandolin, piano, double bass, organ, percussion toys and any other instruments he can afford and fit into his little studio. His music hs been described as 'gently experimental nu-folk' and compared to Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Richard Thompson. He is a bit distressed by the misspelling of the word 'new' but doesn't let it distract him from the serious business of recording, performing and acquiring new and unusual instruments.

Tickets are £6.00 and be purchased here.