In the Brick Lane area of East London, a mischievous creative spirit reigns, expressing itself through graffiti on every wall, door, and window. Words and slogans mingle with imaginary or even realistic drawings. Here, creativity is vibrant and boundless, making the area attractive to young and old alike. The streets are crowded, and the bagel shops for which the area is famous attract passers-by, while the scattered art galleries offer visitors a place to consume sandwiches and to chat.
Amid this buzz, a group exhibition is currently being held at the Brick Lane Gallery, featuring artists who lack notoriety, but make up for it in talent and creativity. The exhibition showcases eight artists, whose works range from landscape painting to photography and portraits. Some of the works appear amateurish, but others exude strong artistic talent and distinctive style.
The show explores the different ways artists express visions that blend abstract nature, landscapes, and dreamlike fantasies. It explores the works of artist Shelley Hordiyuk, who chose to display her canvases without frames to evoke the idea of liberation from constraint. Her paintings, entitled "Drawn by the Light", depict a world of trees and branches. She chooses to depict her trees from the perspective of a person standing beneath a web of branches. She chooses a uniform color background for each painting. One has a green background, where the trees appear almost devoid of leaves, and then there is a painting with a yellow background mixed with brown patches, reflecting warmth.
She says of her paintings, "I feel a love for the impossible tree or the sky painted in unrealistic colors. I also like to exaggerate these colors and lines, to take shapes from reality and gradually transform them into abstract pictures."
On a separate wall, the paintings of English artist Bryn Haworth are distinguished by their calm, confident brushstrokes and vivid colors. They also have an air of mystery that prompted visitors to ask the artist what they meant. One of them explained, "I sense a sarcastic tone in the paintings. They appear serious and traditional, but the artist has a distinct sense of humor that provokes discussion about what he depicts."
In an introduction to his work, Haworth discusses two paintings entitled "Remoaner Lisa" and "Something Rotten." The first takes Leonardo da Vinci’s smiling Mona Lisa, removing her smile and transforming it into a sulky pout. Behind her, instead of a Tuscan landscape, he depicts the reality of Britain after its separation from the European Union (Brexit). Behind the Mona Lisa, we see the Eurostar train tunnel, its entrance closed, and the white cliffs of Dover with the word "Goodbye" written over them, a reference to a cover from the pro-Brexit newspaper The Sun.
The painting combines seriousness with bitter irony. It was first presented in Paris as part of an exhibition on the stance of British artists towards Brexit. Haworth explains that he was keen for the Mona Lisa to resemble former Prime Minister David Cameron, whom many blame for the Brexit referendum.
The political dimension extends to another painting inspired by the French artist Chardin's painting "Ray." In it, a ray fish hangs above a kitchen table, but it appears grey, as if mold has begun to invade it. The artist used the features of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to express the confusion that characterized his term in office during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The two paintings are the beginning of a parodic series the artist is working on, creating an alternative to the portraits that line the main stairway in 10 Downing Street.
From da Vinci and Chardin, the third piece is based on Renaissance artist, Sandro Botticelli, and his iconic work, "The Birth of Venus." In the original, the goddess emerges from the depths of the sea, radiant with breathtaking beauty, standing on a shell. Here, we see her as reimagined by Haworth, sitting on her shell as she watches a scene unfold near the Uffizi Museum where she resides. It’s a scene from Italian history: the trial of the extremist priest, Girolamo Savonarola. From her position above the scene, Venus witnesses the brutal end of a period of religious extremism to which Botticelli himself fell victim, to the point that he burned several of his paintings in the so-called bonfire of the vanities – a pivotal moment in the history of art.
"The Price of Bananas" is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the art market and on the sale of "Comedian" in particular. Created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, this was a real banana attached to the gallery wall by duct tape, which sold for more than $6 million at auction. Haworth’s version borrows from Andy Warhol in its depiction of four bananas against colorful backgrounds. However, he chooses to place the current price from various local markets under each banana, ending with the art market. The work attracts visitors with its ironic touch and its colorful brilliance.
In a nearby corner, Russian photographer of Turkish origin, Daniel Buyukotsun, displays a number of photographs entitled "Street Layers", a black-and-white series in which the photographer experiments with layering different scenes on top of each other without resorting to digital technology. He superimposes a shot of one London street over a view of vehicles from a different street. Buildings, pedestrians, and vehicles blend within a single frame, giving the image an experimental feel, but also representing an emotional record of the capital’s streets.
Buyukotsun notes that he deliberately created one sequence of shots, but in other images the arrangement of layers was accidental: "My aim is not to record city life as it is, but to explore how life can feel within those layers."
It's the kind of feeling the visitor to Brick Lane will instantly recognize, a combination of urban reality with flights of the imagination.
*"Art In Mind" exhibition at Brick Lane Gallery, London runs until 25 August.
