On 4th July 2012 Gemma Nelson will be auctioning a piece of work along with Peter Blake, Patrick Hughes, Chris Levine and Alex Hudson at the Saatchi Gallery supported by Nigel Hurst, CEO, The Groucho Club and Bernie Katz.  Saatchi Gallery are hoping to raise £8 million for Spectrum, helping people with autistic spectrum disorders.

http://www.spectrumart.co.uk/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

Gemma Nelson is currently exhibiting work at ARTSPACE LONDON with the Al Madad Foundation to raise money for the children at Ghirass Cultural Center in Bethlehem.

Recounting Palestine’s Stories; An Intervention
15th- 23rd June, 2012
ArtSpace London

Al Madad Foundation is pleased to announce a group exhibition of work by seven London- based emerging artists alongside drawings by children living in Bethlehem. This dual show will focus of story-telling and the sharing of dialogue across cultures and generations.
From a series of photographs taken in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, 11 prints have been selected to be reworked by our chosen artists who have intervened with the existing images by conceptualising their own narrative through a range of different media. The end result is a stunning array of eclectic canvases which overlay the original monochrome images of daily life under military occupation with contemporary interpretations.  Worked in materials from oil paint and silk screen to textiles and ink, each piece presents a unique narrative, an interweaving of stories from the West Bank to London.

15 July / 13 August 2011
Private View: Friday 15 July 18:30 – 20:30

VEGAS Gallery is delighted to present Hello Carousel, the first London solo show of young British artist Gemma Nelson.

Since graduating the Slade School Of Fine Art in 2007, Nelson has received high acclaim. She was flagged as one of the most promising graduates of her year when featuring in the 2008 Bloomberg New Contemporaries Exhibition and since then has gone to be shortlisted for Saatchi Gallery’s Four New Sensations and nominated as a finalist for the Nationwide Mercury Art Prize.

Working in Indian inks and employing a range of mixed media such as sequins, Nelson dares to cross the taboo boundaries between craft and fine art, using thread and hair as paint to stitch into work and weaving cellular shapes into a complex tapestry. The canvases of vivid colour and patterns incorporate hidden imagery to create intricate layers of organic mythological creatures and landscapes in response to various themes such as female sexuality, fairytales and notions of webbing and nets.

Hello Carousel, sees Nelson further explore these techniques to create a fairground of works with crumbling roller coasters, abandoned helter skelters and carousels.

The signature extrovert patterns sprawl organically across clean white backdrops holding an almost child like sense of play and naivety, but within these colourful fragments is a definite undercurrent of psychedelic discord. The distorted structures rise, the cells of colour bubbling and multiplying, only to keel over and collapse. Nelson using her distinctive method makes the works feel kinetic, growing and receding across the gallery walls.

VEGAS
274 Poyser Street
E2 9RF London
UK
www.vegasgallery.co.uk
+44 (0) 203 581 5404
+44 (0) 772 675 0762

Gemma Nelson Interview

http://whereartyou.co.uk/gemma-nelson-interview/

by Helen Wilson on Mar 12, 2011 •

Driven by a myriad of influences, from Raqib Shaw to Helen Chadwick and from literature to French plaits, artist Gemma Nelson creates mesmerizing canvases of hyperactive patterns and vivid colour. These works have won her much praise and attention over the past few years, and seen her exhibit in shows at the likes of the Departure Gallery and Laure Genillard Gallery (in a collaboration with Matt Franks), be shortlisted for Saatchi Gallery’s Four New Sensations, selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries and nominated as a finalist for the Nationwide Mercury Art Prize.

We catch up with the artist, a week before her latest work will be unveiled at Vegas Gallery as part of their inaugural show at their newly built space on Poyser Street.

Can you tell us a bit about the work you will be showing at Roulette?

The title of my piece in the exhibition is Blanc And The Neighbours Of Zero, a painting based loosely on the theme and mythology of the roulette wheel. It is a palimpsest; consisting of many layers of Indian ink and enamel, obsessively painted and sewn into with gold threads and sequins.

I was intrigued by the cryptographic nature of the Roulette, its mysterious history involving the occult and the systematic codes and mathematical probabilities. In 1843 François and Louis Blanc introduced the single 0 style wheel, competing with other casinos offering the traditional wheel with single and double zero house pockets. Louis Blanc was said to have made a bargain with the devil in order to obtain the secrets of the wheel based on the phenomenon that all the numbers on the roulette wheel (1-36) add up to the ‘number of the beast’, 666.

My work is made up of tiny fragments of colour and pattern, although not mathematically formulaic, there are sequences and processes that intrinsically make up the painting. There is also hidden imagery within the painting, the patterns forming buds of information, organic mythological creatures and landscapes and always an element of glamour.

On your website you refer to your paintings as tapestries that you weave like cells. They seem to toe the boundaries between traditional craft and contemporary art. Which would you say your work was more rooted in, art or craft?

Often the word ‘craft’ within the contemporary art world is talked about in a derogatory way; a taboo almost conserved to be dished out to hobbyists and amateurs along with the word ‘decoration’. I remember once at art school Luc Tuymans hosting a guest seminar and suggesting a student’s work was this, much to the horror and dismay of the rest of the painting department!

This question also catechizes what ‘ fine art’ is, an issue many, many people have difficulty labeling and one that is very subjective. I do however think there has been a shift in recent times to the attitude of ‘craft’; art can incorporate elements of it and not have to stand exclusive from it. Art can be conceptual and also incorporate elements of craft, it is not just reserved for the realm of the ‘outsider artist’.

I do see my works as tapestries, not probably in a conventional sense as much a metaphorical one. The marks I make in my work do weave and look like pattern, and I do often sew into my work but I treat the thread as though it was paint. There isn’t a hierarchy in my mark making. I like to think that my paintings despite being seductively decorative can also be conceptual.

You mentioned in an interview that you connect with principles of conceptualist Helen Chadwick, have these informed your art work in any way?

Chadwick’s work involves beauty and repulsion, and questions how we view them. Chadwick’s piece, Loop My Loop combining a pig’s intestine and a lock of golden hair plated together was probably the most important piece of art for me in my development as an artist. I saw it when I was 16 and it changed everything, it was probably the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I had grown up around hair, my Mum is a hair stylist and I was a guinea pig for backwards French plaits, and rather extravagantly embarrassing hairstyles for school. Hair was also scattered around our garden bedding plants in order to ‘choke slugs’ and sellotaped into valentine’s day card’s as a ‘guess who’. Hair is hugely symbolic in many religions and mythology; it is prized and is seductive, yet once cut off it disgusts people.

My early works were massively influenced by beauty and repulsion, weaving hair and human teeth into my works. I mixed paint with decayed fruit letting brightly coloured spores grow over my paintings, letting them collapse and deteriorate, almost like they were conducting their own time based performance. My current work sometimes involves hair or tightly constructed cells. It is like looking at virus’ under a microscope, very colourful yet sickly. Clusters of little circles, decorative yet obsessive.

Are there any other artists inspire or influence you?

I am like a sponge, I am influenced by many things but some things make me bubble more than other things. I read a lot so many of my influences come from literature and strange folklore. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story that massively influences me. The protagonist locked in a room with insalubrious and sickly yellow wallpaper and began to see creatures and worlds in the walls through the patterning. As a child I would make friends with the creatures in the patterns in my curtains and wallpaper, I would see faces in abstract objects. I try to incorporate this into my own work through my painting.

I can completely relate to Yayoi Kusama’s work and the obsessive nature of Raqib Shaw’s paintings.

Some of the psychedelic patterns in your work are reminiscent of the sixties, and many of the themes your works explore – female sexuality, feminism – were a lot more prominent back then. Would you have preferred to have lived and worked in the sixties?

No. Although some themes in my work were more prominent then, it was also a political and social struggle for equality that activated it. Although these themes are still very poignant today, women are still battling for equality, I quite like the notion of hindsight and how much has been achieved since then. The early c20th was a hard time for women, especially in the art world, it was difficult to be taken seriously. Although I love the aesthetic of the sixties, the furniture in particular, people attribute my work to it because of my use of pattern which was very fashionable then.

My paintings refer to the patterning and psychedelia, but they aren’t directly influenced. I am more influenced by the texts written, especially by Mary Daly in Gyn/ecology about the origin of the word ‘Glamour’, a spell ‘witches’ would use to make men into eunuchs.

What do you hope people take away from your work – an idea, a feeling or just an appreciation on an aesthetic level?

If people engage anything from my work, whether it be an aesthetic appreciation or a deeper conceptual level I am happy. The paintings are so loaded anyway as there is such a long history of mark making, using Indian inks, sewing, people are going to project their own subjective opinions on the piece. I plant ideas in the paintings that allow people to try to interpret their own meaning in the painting as well as my own.

Roulette, is on at Vegas Gallery from 10 March – 17 April 2011.

Visit Gemma Nelson’s website for more information about the artist and her works.

Gemma Nelson will be showing work at VEGAS’ new gallery space, 274 Poyser St, Bethnal Green, London, at it’s launch on the 10th March 2011. The exhibition will include all VEGAS’ represented artists and the theme will be ‘Roulette’.

VEGAS is delighted to present ‘Roulette’. A group show which marks four years since the gallery’s conception and, in bringing together recent works from all represented artists, is an opening celebration of the gallery’s newly built independent space at 274 Poyser Street E2 9RF

In a quest to find a ‘perpetual motion machine’ the Roulette wheel was first created in crude form by Blaise Pascal in the 17th century. A game of anomalies and co-incidences, all the numbers on the wheel adding up to number 6 forced the myth that Pascal had made a pact will the devil to obtain the secret of the wheel. Over the last 200 years mathematicians and physicists have dedicated vast amounts of time and money fruitlessly trying to work out the patterns and probabilities of the wheel and modified over time the version of the wheel we know to day is an vast amalgamation of European influences built up over the years to create the game of chance we know as roulette.

VEGAS Gallery invites you to join us in our game.
The private view will be held on Thursday 10 March 6-9 pm and is kindly sponsored by The Embassy of Norway, The Embassy of Switzerland, Essence Luxury Transport, Vitamin Water and Cakelicious Limited.

Artists:
Alex Hudson
Aram Tanis
Bettina Carl
Bouke de Vries
Bracha L. Ettinger
Gemma Nelson
Geraldine Gliubislavich
Heringa/ Van Kalsbeek
Morten Viskum
Pascal Rousson

Guestlist only, please RSVP to hello@vegasgallery.co.uk

For more information please contact:

–
Suzanne Schurgers – Director
VEGAS

274 Poyser Street, Bethnal Green, London
www.vegasgallery.co.uk
t: 02030225850

Invitation

PRIVATE VIEW –Drinks Reception

February 17^th 6.00 – 9.00pm

‘Drawn Together’

Putting the Staff in the Picture

February 17^th – February 23^rd 2011

Venue: Jeannie Avent Gallery

14 North Cross Road

East Dulwich, SE22 9EU

Gallery Open Sat. & Sun 9am-5pm

Exhibition info

A unique opportunity to see the exciting work produced by the many award winning artists associated with Dulwich Picture Gallery. These Artists work closely with the Dulwich Picture Gallery and its outstanding collection of old master paintings.

As Dulwich Picture Gallery celebrates its 200^th year, this is an exclusive chance to see and buy contemporary art that reflects an exceptional partnership between old and new!

Featuring the work of the following artists;

Eileen Cooper RA    Gemma Nelson  Humphrey Ocean RA

Sara Lee   Will Gould  Stewart Ganley

Philippa Abrahams   Liz Butler   Lizzie Watson

Gwen Ramsay   Sally Cutler    Pyriantha Weerasooyia

Gareth Cadwallader    Erica Parrett   Rod Baxter

Zoe Simon   Hannah Carding   Fulvio Rubesa

Joanna Veevers    Oliver Campbell   Drew Sinclair

Louisa Chambers   Daisy Richardson    Karl F. Swinyard-Alston

Peter Astwood    Shakila Sulemanji   Erin O’ Connor

Ruth Dupre    Ben Senior   Felicity Montaigu

Ben O’Connor   Michelle Douek   Alice Peillon

Sara Sulemanji    Sherry Doyal    Güler Ates

Olivia Urquhart   Luke Jones   Rebecca Allen

Ellie Manwell   Jasmine Parker    Grace Hailstone

For More info visit; http://www.facebook.com/?sk=events#!/event.php?eid=186066321425502

EMAIL g.ramsay@dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.

Sponsored by;

Digby Trout Restaurants     The Southbank Art Co

VEGAS will be hosting Gemma Nelson’s first solo show in London.

For more information please contact Suzanne Schurgers:

Vegas Gallery
45 Vyner Street
E2 9DQ
London
+44 (0)2030225850
hello@vegasgallery.co.uk

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To buy advance tickets for this event please visit

http://www.ldnfeministnetwork.ik.com/calendar/6161361507.ikml

Shane Bradford
Bettina Carl
Keith Coventry
Bracha Ettinger
Joris Ghekiere
Geraldine Gliubislavich
Karin Hanssen
Eemyun Kang
Heringa/Van Kalsbeek
Alex Hudson
Gemma Nelson
Angie Reed
Jemima Stehli
Simon Willems
Jeanine Woollard

VEGAS is pleased to announce a range of interesting events taking place at and during Art Amsterdam. VEGAS Gallery, London, showing at stand 095 will present works by both established international artists and strong emerging talent at Art Amsterdam.

Although still a young gallery, VEGAS has grown rapidly and has gained an increasing reputation for a strong programme, to the point that it is already working with a number of internationally established artists. The stand presentation will include works by the distinguished British artists Keith Coventry and Jemima Stehli. Both artists emerged onto the international art scene during the first wave of ‘Brit Art’ during the 1990’s.

Coventry, who is represented by Haunch of Venison,London, is one of most highly regarded British artists of his generation, known primarily for his works that manipulate the legacy of Modernism to engage with British urban social conditions. Included in the seminal ‘Sensation’ show at the Royal Academy in 1997, recent solo institutional exhibitions include Camden Arts Centre, London and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. His work is held in important public collections internationally including Tate, London; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Jemima Stehli, previously represented by Lisson Gallery, London, gained acclaim for her provocative (post)feminist oeuvre in which photography and documented performance dominate. Her solo institutional credits include Palais Thurm and Taxis, Bregenz; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver and Chisenhale Gallery, London.

Bracha L. Ettinger, the distinguished French/Israeli artist represented by Vegas, known for her paintings and installation-like works on paper that initiated the now orthodox approaches to interrogating museal display and the archive, first rose to international prominence when she was living and working in Paris in the 1990’s. Ettinger’s work is included in some of the most important collections in the world, such as Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Israel Museum, Jerusalem and Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, to name but a few. Her substantial solo institutional credits include The Drawing Center, NewYork; BOZAR, Brussels; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Museum Of Modern Art, Oxford, Le Nouveau Musée, Villeurbanne and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. She has a solo exhibition opening at the Tàpies Fondation, Barcelona in late Spring 2010.

VEGAS’ reputation as a gallery that spots and supports strong emerging painting talent will be evident in the presentation in the form of two young painters represented by the gallery. The French/Swiss painter Geraldine Gliubislavich won a Jerwood Prize for Painting and also had a critically acclaimed solo show at the gallery space of De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam in 2009. Similarly, the young British painter Alex Hudson was included in the 2008 Bloomberg New Contemporaries and was selected for the Whitechapel Gallery’s prestigious studio programme in 2009. His first solo exhibition at Vegas in London runs contemporaneous to Art Amsterdam.

The younger painting talent is augmented by works by two established Belgian artists, Karin Hanssen and Joris Ghekiere. Ghekiere’s credits include De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam; Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels; Breda Museum, Breda and MuHKA, Antwerp. In addition to her current solo exhibition at Kunstverein Ahlen, curated by Philippe Van Cauteren, Hanssen’s institutional credits include 800 Show Art Space, Shanghai; Chelsea Art Museum, NYC; Museum Wuyts -Van Campen, Lier, Museum Dr. Guislain and S.M.A.K., Ghent. Her work was included in the Sharjah Biennial 7, United Arab Emirates, curated by Ken Lum (artistic director Jack Persekian) and in the 2nd Yokohama Triennale in Japan, curated by Taro Amano (artistic director Tadashi Kawamata).

This does not mean that VEGAS will be neglecting other disciplines. On the contrary, VEGAS represents the critically acclaimed Dutch artist duo Heringa/Van Kalsbeek and will be show new and recent works elaborating their distinctive abstract approach to sculpture. Their solo at the 2007 Stedelijk Museum CS, Amsterdam was one of the cultural highlights of that year. Other solo institutional credits include Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; GEM, The Hague; Museum of Modern Art, Arnhem and Institut Néerlandais, Paris.

VEGAS will also be showing work by three other artists whose practice explores the intersections between sculpture/installation and other media.

Jemima Brown is a British artist who works in sculpture, drawing and video. At Art Amsterdam, she will present recent works from a series exploring the impact of the economic recession on the ‘art kids’ of east London’s gallery scene. Her institutional credits include Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Norway; Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin; De Bond Museum of Fine Art, Bruges; MAMA, Rotterdam; The Royal Academy London; Pompidou Centre, Paris; Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA and Fries Museum, Leeuwarden. Angie Reed is an American/Italian artist whose quirky installation and video animation works display a wonderful post-feminist conceptual humour. Her solo institutional credits include Museum Villa Stuck, Munich; Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati and Kunstbank, Berlin. Working in a related area to these two emerging artist is the young British sculptor and photographer Jeanine Woollard whose works have received critical praise at E-Raum, Cologne; Turner Contemporary, Margate; Villa Giulia – CRAA, Verbani; Kyung Hee University Museum, Seoul and for a range of gallery shows. Perhaps unusually for a young British artist – she was also included in the 2008 Bloomberg New Contemporaries- foreign interest in her work is very notable.

During Art Amsterdam, VEGAS will undertake an exciting project in celebration of opening its new site-specific ‘Peep Show’ project space in Amsterdam. A performance -which will take place in and around the fair- is a special collaboration between VVEGASProjects and the Rotterdam-based performance group Bliss, producing a new performance in reaction to the context of an art fair. The project space itself will open with a solo project by Swiss artist Pascal Rousson.

Dates and opening hours Art Amsterdam :
Wednesday May 26 18-22 hrs (VIP Preview 15:00-1800)
Thursday May 27 11-19 hrs
Friday May 28 11-21 hrs
Saturday May 29 11-19 hrs
Sunday May 30 11-19 hrs