There is a Private view for the exhibition at Century on Tuesday 10th December from 6pm – 9pm which will feature the artists the event is guest list only to attend please RSVP: Freddy@centuryclub.co.uk
This Tuesday December the 10th Westall/Sorrell officially launches Century’s new arts program.
The first exhibition features the work of Two artists Fred Sorrell in the Tap Rooms and Toni Gallagher in the rest of The Club. Below is just an overview of the work and what inspired it.
Toni Gallagher
This recent work embraces the ideas and creative output that has preoccupied Toni Gallagher for many years. It is part of a cycle of creation that is inspired by The Seven Deadly Sins.
The first of her explorations was directed to Gluttony and is represented by The Old Lady That Swallowed a Fly. She took the classic children’s song and revealed and reveled in its dark ideas by integrating it into her thematic progression that underpins all her work; the exploration and revelation of mortality.
Her fierce eye in this exhibition explores her personal fears and concerns surrounding the subject of Death and her subliminal confrontation with mortality and greed.
“I used to consider x-rays dark and intimidating, but recent events have made me de-sensitized to them and what they potentially represent. For the first time in my life, I have had to face the prospect of someone close to me to dying. “
The process of losing a pet is one of our earliest experiences of Death and here she deftly references the childhood fairy story to explore feelings surrounding fear and loss, whilst fundamentally celebrating life by recognising and accepting the fragility of mortality. Many of the pieces create the backstory of this lady and her curious eating habits. Why did she swallow the fly? Who was she? And how exactly do you swallow a cow whole?
The celebration of the x-rays power to reveal the inner workings of animals and their skeletons transcend their origins to resonate in her images and design imbuing the pieces with subconscious power.
“Gallagher’s new work forms part of a thread of ideas that will eventually make up of the Seven Deadly Sins. Gluttony is the first. It’s clever, immediate, heaving with eye watering visuals like a Tudor banquet but leaving the viewer with only a swollen mind not waistline. This is gluttony for the beautiful. This is Kate Moss’s kind of gluttony. Ban Christmas gorging, get a piece of Toni Gallagher’s head gluttony instead, stick it over the empty dining table and let the in-laws feast. Like me, they’ll thank you for it.”
– Roy Bolton Sphinx fine art.
Much of Toni’s neon work has been created as a form of escapism and has developed through her experiences in Art Directing, sculpting and photography. There are 3 new pieces in this show and are exhibited here for the first time.
Toni Studied Graphic design and advertising at Brunel University in Buckinghamshire
Previously worked as a freelance Art Director of commercials for 10 years
2009 Anthony Gormley’s One and Other, Fourth Plinth
2011 and 2013 The Other Art Fair
2012 Solo show The Gluttonous Lady That Swallowed A Fly
Read FADs Q&A with Toni Gallagher HERE
Fred Sorrell
When I began this body of work two summers ago, I wanted to focus on the physical presence and abstract nature of my paintings, whilst retaining the notion they could also represent windows into another world in the way a traditional landscape or Renaissance perspectival drawing would. I see my abstract paintings as concrete images that investigate the boundary between external space and our memory of it, with that of our own internal thoughts and recollections.
Every day I observe and document the accidental surfaces found in torn posters on underground platforms, as well as the ‘readymade’ compositions in advertising hoardings, shop windows, pavements, notice boards and alcoves in which I see a banal, but at the same time almost totemic quality. By translating them into deliberate marks and compositions I aim to produce a stillness, a frozen moment in time of our shared memory of these places. The work is about the everyday, about movement and travel- as such I want it to remain immediate and visceral. I try to expose these narratives, traces of which can be seen in the found geometry or the references to real places. The paintings also reflect a sense of my own interests such as urban environment, colour theory, Eastern philosophy and Western conceptualism.
I am taking the external and filtering it, literally ‘shot’ through the prism of my imagination. For example, in ‘Euston Northbound.ii’, the fragmented patterns take on many associations, such as a lunar landscape or characters from a lucid dream. The physicality of the collage is lost through the process of painting. In ‘Skylight and Victoria Line With Red Dust’ and Central Line (Red) I depart from a single point of reference, artificially layering time from my own experience to create an object that inhabits the same space as the viewer yet also acts as a mirror in which the viewer can look either at, or into. By integrating colour coded references to underground lines with the found compositional structures I hope to allow the work to retain a strong presence without a sense of sentiment or use of esoteric language.
There is a Private view for the exhibition at Century on Tuesday 10th December from 6pm – 9pm which will feature the artists the event is guest list only to attend please RSVP: Freddy@centuryclub.co.uk
About Westall/Sorrell
Westall/Sorrell is a consultancy firm and Events Company based in Central London. We specialise in curating and organising exhibitions with emerging and established creative talent in contemporary art, fashion and design.
We provide solutions to the clients needs, matching them with a suitable product to include in their workspace or home. Enhancing the visibility of everyone we work with, our main ambition is to provide people with dynamic, high quality and well curated exhibitions to showcase their artwork or brand through our platform.
Our inside-track knowledge of the capital’s dynamic art scene allows us to bring together artists and benefactors in a unique new collaborative network as well as showcase a selection of London’s most exciting creative talent.
Founded by Creative Directors and Curators Fred Sorrell and Mark Westall, our ambition is to develop both the artists and the brands that we work with by engaging our audience with our exhibition programmes.
