CDG Introducing

About

The inquisitive nature of the Curious Duke Gallery keeps the East London art scene fresh and vibrant. With over 40 artists on their roster, CDG celebrates all that is urban, surreal and groundbreaking/ niche. Gallery founder, Eleni Duke explains “something along the lines of new artists and keeping your collectors up to date.” Since 2011, CDG has collaborated with Hoxton Hotel, have been featured on series 8 of The Apprentice with Nathan Bowen in the Urban art Challenge, BBC Radio London with Agnetha Sjögren, with exhibitions at café's such as Look Mum No Hands, Old Street, Long White Cloud, Islington, and Timberyard, Seven Dials. With an annual appearance at art fairs including Affordable Art Fair Battersea, Bristol and Hampstead, the team have a keen eye for finding future stars.

The nine new artists to be showcased this summer revel in pushing their talents to great acclaim across the UK and internationally. The exhibiting artists are:

Andrew Millar-

East London based Millar combines layers of collage with Polaroid photography to create visions that border on the mythical and mysterious. The Polaroid’s themselves are dripping with painterly beauty, whilst Millar’s screen prints call to early experimental photography.

Bellespetite

Mixed media artist Bellespetite offers us visions of carefully drawn figures and animals that refer to baroque decadence, with layers of gold leaf and decorative birds hidden in the detail. Acknowledging the difficulty in breaking into the art world, the artist offers this advice to those starting out “take every opportunity ever given, to always have a game plan and to stay focused and don`t give up and just run with it...” A courage and spontaneity mirrored in her work.

Blandine Bardeau

Bardeau rejoices in the bright colours and natural forms that feed the weird and wonderful natural history. The juxtaposition of textures of materials creates worlds of curious wonder on paper and soft sculpture. Bardeau explains that she hopes viewers see “something intangible and something they would like to look at again and again, discovering new elements every time, seeing something different. I want my pieces to move!” And they certainly do, as they come alive and float with her latest collections The Jellies populating the page.

John Hobbs

Having returned to painting after a long break, the abstract artist labours over a canvas for weeks at a time to compose his brush strokes and balance the colours before setting the movement in resin that brings the textures and movement into focus. Hobbs aptly describes his work as “A collision of paint, sweat, passion and love on a canvas.”

Louise McNaught

Louise‘s creations feature nature, animals, and the celestial realm in glorious, blazing neon hues, where the animals are God-like, Sublime and ethereal in their luminescence. Not wishing to limit herself or her subject matter, McNaught has a mixed-media approach which usually manifests in painted-drawings on traditional and sometimes unusual supports, such as celestial maps. Her soft style suggests a delicate relationship between nature and ourselves, making a clear point about man's destruction of nature - which flutters jewel-like in the balance.

Mark McClure

Already quite well known, McClure’s signature assemblage of wood and metal meld into angular worlds of perspective. Having started his career as a graphic designer he soon found his sideline of painting and collage taking all his time, leading to him saying “I might start a Kickstarter campaign to stop time for a while. Anyone got NASA’s phone number?”, a humour and charm reflected in his colour palette and adventures into street art.

Olivia Yu

Winner of the People’s Choice Award 2014 from the Secret Art Prize that CDG heads, Yu has been keenly collected with new work being snapped up. Olivia Yu is an abstract painter who studied in Central Saint Martins college of Art and Design. Working spontaneously, Yu believes the nature of her painting materials free themselves as they move across the surface to behave how they wish. In doing so, she creates lively yet fluid forms that take on their own life in an abstract world of bright colours and dynamic texture.

Simoni Fontana

Based in Greece, Fontana is a favourite at the annual all women’s street art festival Femme Fierce. Working through a western viewpoint, Fontana harnesses iconography and manga from East Asia, that she applies innocence to with her characters wide-eyed expressions. Painting in acrylic both on the street and on canvas. Fontana’s pops of colour float us into a dreamy world of smooth paint strokes and strong figures.

Zoe Moss

Photo realistic artist Moss creates eye-catching paintings and drawings that will make you look twice. Famous characters are revamped into 2015; with the likes of Marilyn Monroe dangling and Instagram heart symbol, and Optimus Prime lumbering with a Hamley’s shopping bag. Moss gives our well know faces a comedic turn.

Visit Curious Duke Gallery this summer for new art.

Curious Duke Gallery presents Introducing…

PV Thursday 6th August

6th - 29th August

173 Whitecross Street

London EC1Y 8JT

Nearest Tube: Old Street (exit 6 - 2 min walk) Barbican (5mins)

Contact: eleni@curiousdukegallery.com for more information re: new premises/ the event/ interviews.

sinead@curiousdukegallery.com for guest list.