2012 so far....

I can't believe January is almost over already!

So far 2012 has been a good year....!  The London Calling show at OCCCA in California has had some brilliant reviews, you can read a review which features my Shoebox painting in Zeitgeist Magazine, written by Nicola Anthony here

30 London based artists shipped their work over to California for London Calling, the ambitious group exhibition at the Orange County Centre for Contemporary Art.  

I have also just exhibited some pieces at IMPRINT, at The Serpentine Gallery Centre for Possible Studies,  put together by Francesca Goodwin and The Fabelist community You can read more about Imprint in Trebuchet magazine

However for the majority of January I have been busy in the studio working away on a series of new pieces.  One large piece I am working on looks at the problem of the growing wealth divide in the UK, and in Western civilizations generally.  The transience of life is a recurrent theme in my work at the moment, therefore this piece takes its starting reference from a medieval painting by Peter Breughal: 'The Triumph of Death'.  The painting is also inspired by a wide variety of sources, Victorian poverty paintings, the Kinks lyrics, the occupy movement, pre-revolutionary figures, and Canary Wharf amongst other things.  I haven't quite worked out what the text on this one will be yet...

My work seems to be getting more and more SERIOUS these last couple of years...I guess SERIOUS times require SERIOUS paintings!!!

A studio on loan!

A very generous friend and talented artist Sonia Blair recently offered me the use of her studio, whilst she is away for christmas.


It feels like a million years since I have been able to paint properly, partly because its been a really busy 6 months filled with exhibitions, and partly because of the upheaval of moving back to London, and no longer having a place to work. (and I guess it's also because I'm trying to balance being an artist with looking after a two year old!)


But it feels like finally I am starting to get back on track!  The studio has amazing views (and is heated!) it feels like a haven and very productive workspace, I am loving being able to at last get started on some of my new ideas.

I will be in the space working away throughout January which is a very exciting start to 2012, and by February I should have some images of a brand new piece or two if all goes to plan! 


Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year,  and the biggest of thankyous to Sonia for the loan of her beautiful studio.


Love Tinsel x

London Calling at OCCCA

I am really excited about taking part in an exhibition in LA this December: ‘London Calling’ will feature the work of 30 London based artists. 

The exhibition is at ‘OCCCA’ – or The Orange County Centre for Contemporary Art.  The gallery has been presenting cutting-edge artwork since 1980, a non-profit corporation, it acts as a catalyst for self-organised initiatives with a keen focus on social engagement, intellectual and cultural exchange and endeavours to produce a forward-thinking intellectual framework.

I will be exhibiting three works, ‘Shoebox’, ‘I hope this does win the Turner Prize’ and ‘Paint Stuff'.   Funnily enough I painted Shoebox in 2008, it felt poignant then, but even more so now! I really hope that in the next few years I won't have to paint another version about people having to live in matchboxes.

'Shoebox' 

acrylic on canvas

There are 30 of us taking part in the group exhibition, we’ve all been busy fundraising to help towards costs for the show via indiegogo, and a couple of Christmas pop up shops at Debut Contemporary on Westbourne Grove and another near St Pauls.  You can see our Indiegogo profile here, we're selling lots of prints and original pieces at discounted prices to help raise funds for the group to ship their work over to LA.

The participating artists are as follows:

Abigail Box, Agnetha Sjogren, Alyona Larinova, Azadeh Fatehrad, Beth Nicholas, Carlos Burgos, Chantal Powell, Darren MacPherson, Katerina Stavrou, Katerina James, Kimi Wylde, Henry Wood, Joe Cruz, Lloyd Durling, Lyndsay Martin, Masa Suzuki, Nicola Anthony, Rachel Noble, Rosie Emerson, Robert West, Senghye Yang, Silvia Krupinska, Sylvia Morgado, Sun Ae Kim, Tinsel Edwards, Tahnee Lonsdale, Twinkle Troughton, Victoria Heald, Vikram Kushwah

London Calling opens on 21st December and runs until January 12th, The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art (OCCCA) is located in the Santa Ana Artist Village, which is home to several galleries, artist studios, restaurants, shops, and First Saturday art walks. OCCCA, 117 North Sycamore, Santa Ana, CA. 92701 USA. Visit www.occca.org

The Other Art Fair, OCCCA and pics from the Something Borrowed exhibition...

I will be exhibiting work at The Other Art Fair next week.  This Fair is unique, the 100 emerging artists participating will be representing themselves.  A brand new concept in the art world, this will give artists the opportunity to actually meet the buyers, collectors and gallerists who attend the fair.

Myself and Twinkle Troughton are sharing a stand, we will both be exhibiting a mixture of new and older original paintings and a selection of limited edition prints.  Having been selected from hundreds of applicants, we are both really excited about this opportunity!  We've never had a stand at an art fair before, and The Other Art Fair seems like its going to be an amazing one to debut at!

There are some top names involved in the selection process, including the artist Charming Baker (who's paintings I love!), director of the BALTIC Godfrey Worsdale, Dr Anthony Downey of Sotheby's, Sophie Hastings of GQ, and Graham Fink of Ogilvy and Mather.

AND (I'm very excited about this bit.....) Harry Pye and Jasper Joffe will be selling art for 99p at their shop, giving Other Art Fair visitors the opportunity to collect art for less than a pound!

http://jasperandharry.blogspot.com/

The Other Art Fair came by to interview me about my work for the website, you can view it here  Keep checking the site as I think Twinkle will have some footage up there soon too!

Anyway, we really hope you can join us and come along to the Bargehouse on Southbank for the fair next week.  Opening night is Thursday 24th November, and the Fair is open to the public Friday - Sunday.  Our stand is on the 4th floor.  You can buy tickets from the website here  or email me at tinseledwards@hotmail.co.uk

The other massively exciting thing is that I have some work in the London Calling exhibition at OCCCA, a group of 30 London based artists will be showing work at The Orange County Centre for Contemporary Art, USA this December.  

I've got lots to prepare for The Other Art Fair, so there will be more info on this to come soon!

And last but not least: Myself and Twinkle recently co-curated 'Something Borrowed', a group show featuring the work of ten artists.  We held the exhibition at the cutting edge new gallery on Vyner street, Cultivate.gallery website here

A mentalist First Thursday opening, followed by a busy weekend on Vyner street, and most importantly the brilliant artists who took part all helped to make it a huge success.  Thankyou Sean at Cultivate for all your help with the show, and thankyou to all of the participating artists:

Iain Andrews, Liz Bailey, Wanda Bernardino, J.A. Nicholls, Holly Revell, David Storey, David Troughton and Wen Wu

There's lots more pics to see on Twinkle's flickr

Scroll down for more info about Something Borrowed, or read about it on the Fox and Squirrel blog.

Thanks for reading, hope to see you at The Other Art Fair next week! x

Something Borrowed exhibition

Me and Twinkle have been busy selecting artists for our upcoming exhibition 'Something Borrowed'.

Its the second show we have curated together, opening on first Thursday in November at Cultivate Gallery on Vyner street.  We have a great line up of artists involved, and both myself and Twinkle will also be exhibiting.  I will be showcasing a brand new painting which technique-wise is quite a departure from previous work.  The artists exhibiting are as follows:

Iain Andrews, liz Bailey, Wanda Bernardino, Tinsel Edwards, J.A. Nicholls, Holly Revell, David Storey, David Troughton, Twinkle Troughton, Wen Wu

Cultivate Gallery is a new artist-led space opposite the Victory Pub on Vyner street, they have had some really good shows so far, so we are really pleased to have been given the opportunity to curate an exhibition there.

I hope you can make it along to the opening night!

You can find out more info about Cultivate gallery here

See below for the invite and press release, please contact me if you would like a PDF version of the press release.

Exhibitions in October

This weekend I am exhibiting some prints with Art Rebels at their pop up at Finders Keepers in Copenhagen.  I wish I could fly over to be at the event! Next time maybe....

In the selection of prints I sent there were several new giclee editions including:

'Risk is Good for the Soul' Edition of 50, Giclee on Somerset 300gsm

'Coat of Arms' Edition of 45, Giclee on Somerset 300gsm

                           'Collecting Fossils in 2058' Edition of 25, Giclee on Somerset 300gsm

These prints have not been uploaded to my online shop or website yet so this will be the first time they have been exhibited. I am currently redesigning my website and will be uploading lots of new prints to the online shop this month, if you are interested in purchasing anything in the meantime please email me at tinseledwards@hotmail.co.uk

On October 13th I will also be exhibiting with The Lucky Dip Collective at The Islington Contemporary Art Fair.

On October 20th I have a small piece going in a group exhibition at Cultivate, Vyner street The venue where myself and Twinkle Troughton are co-curating a show for November First Thursday, more on that to follow soon!

Thanks for reading x

The Social Networking DILEMA!

Having access to Facebook, twitter, linked in......and all of the other social networking sites available, is a massive help to anyone wanting to promote their music/business/creative venture.  As an artist it is amazing to promote an exhibition to 100s of people online for free.  Years and years ago I imagine it was much harder for artists to promote themselves, I feel lucky to have access to all of these websites as it is a really simple and easy way of spreading the word.

HOWEVER....I sometimes feel that it is TAKING OVER!!!

When I was a little girl, dreaming about growing up to be an artist, I imagined a wonderful life of painting all the time and exhibiting all over the world.  Now I am grown up, and living the life of an artist, I find that I spend so much of my time at the computer.  Between all the admin jobs, emailing, entering competitions, preparing proposals, tweeting, facebooking, blogging, mailouts and promotion, theres hardly any painting happening, How did this happen??!!!

To have a presence it seems that you need to be blogging once a week (at least I am up to date with this weeks!), posting on facebook at least every couple of days, tweeting regularly.  I haven't quite got into the world of twitter yet, every now and again I tell my 73 or so followers that I've got some work in an exhibition coming up, retweet something interesting, and then don't log on again for afew days.  I suddenly realise I forgot to tell them all about the wonderful painting exhibition I went to recently, the revelation I had about this or that....what a lovely time I had at that event the other day.  I think for it to work I probably need to be tweeting more and for it to be second nature.

Maybe in time I will get into it abit more.....Its not that I don't like social networking sites - I think twitter is a brilliant tool to use to let people know about what you are doing, and also as a way to catch up on news and updates, as with all the social networking sites.  As a strong believer in all things DIY - an ethos close to my heart and one that I continually promote in my art work, social networking fits.  It is an excellent tool for artists to use to promote themselves - giving them autonomy.  But it sometimes feels all consuming, and I'm always conscious that I'm not doing enough of it.

I'm wondering whether I might take 6 weeks off and see what happens.  I want to promote my work, but I also want to make my work! We'll see.....I will keep you posted.

I recently stumbled across some of Filipo Minelli's work:

The imagery struck a chord with me and started me thinking about this issue in a wider context.  We all spend so much time on computers, more so in our jobs than ever before.  But people seem nostalgic for craft/skills based work where you can use your hands, and we are all aware that the presence of computers and the internet reduces face to face contact with each other.  I wonder how things will stand in 2050?

Anyway!  My next blog will probably be about the show in Copenhagen that I'm putting some prints in at the end of the month...or the show that me and Twinkle Troughton are curating at the beginning of November on Vyner street.  And I must remember to facebook and tweet and tweet again!

Thankyou for reading, see you all on facebook!  x