Universal Connectivity

About

                  "Universal Connectivity 

The artists have been selected not only for their influential and groundbreaking contributions, but also as exponents of the prolific artistic movements and trends that characterise contemporary art. 

Contemporary art is important due to its historical value being a product and witness of a specific time and era. It enables us to state, gain insight, and question certain socio-cultural or ideological/political developments, raising awareness, calling the world to a halt, and encouraging debate.

Many Artists have devoted their art to give representations of the their childhood with all the sparkle and intensity of the real thing. After thoroughly scanning some of their work, it is still incredibly difficult to tell whether they are photographs or not. However only a few talented artists have been able to go beyond ‘photo-realism’, to attain what ‘art’ has to offer, using their techniques as a foundation, not as an end.

1)Gemart Ortega 🇵🇭  Works on old masters 

(B.1990/ Philippines) who studied Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, professes an affinity for popular iconography. He always makes it a point to create a sense of happiness, innocence, and camaraderie in his works through child like humans. The innocence of childhood and security brought about by much-loved toys are at the center of paintings by Ortega with the former basing his work and fantastic characters from imagination. As he goes back to his younger days when anime and Japanese superheroes dominated his afternoons. Embracing weird, alien-looking creatures as the central figure also appears to be non-human underscores the escape into happy childhood fantasies and make-believe. Taking us back on the blast from the past through his works, gathers different pop culture icons of the generation while still being true to his trademark stoic expressions, Ortega proves that referencing pop culture symbols is not enough, an artist has to put his own narrative and artistry in it.

https://instagram.com/gemartortega1715?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

2)Anna Lienhardt 🇨🇭3D Mixed media & Oil on canvas 

a 34 year old Swiss multidimensional artist, she is an actress, comedian, musician, singer-songwriter and painter based in Berlin. She grew up surrounded by the stunning nature of the Swiss Alps, which has influenced her a lot in numerous aspects of her different arts. Her childhood dream was to become an actress therefore she moved to Berlin in 2014. Just after the end of her acting studies she started to play theatre on cruise ships. Back in Berlin in 2019 she created her own comedy show and performed successfully in Switzerland. During the Covid years when all shows were cancelled, she discovered that she had other creative talents such as painting and she keeps painting since. Her art is mostly inspired by everyday nature she comes across either in Berlin or Switzerland and states of emotions she goes through. It makes it her very unique compositions of outside and inner nature and she loves to combine realistic and abstract style as well as mixed media.

https://instagram.com/annalienhardt?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

3)Einar Lúðvík Ólafsson 🇮🇸  Oil on Canvas

graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from the Iceland University of the Arts in 2020. Before that he graduated with a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Iceland.

He has worked as a software developer but has always had a passion for art, having compulsively drawn since he was young. Drawing inspiration from philosophy and art history; to cartoons and internet memes.

In his work, Einar offers a critical perspective on both society and painting. By transfiguring and recontextualizing historical art movements, he focuses on the human condition in the contemporary era. Exploring the human existence in its interconnectedness, lack of context, and absurdity, he draws on the rapidly ever-so-changing society that disables human reflection and inner contemplation.

His work has been exhibited in the Reykjavík Art Museum, in Amsterdam, Denver, Los Angeles, Australia and Lebanon.

https://instagram.com/enzoludwari?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

4)Gooop Massta 🇺🇸   Woodcut spray paint and mixed media

GoopMassta, the iconic and legendary fashion-forward, positive thinking froggy character. I focus mainly on my character and portraying his exclusive lifestyle to the world. The more you experience with him the more you’ll become a part of his journey and never want to leave. I’m constantly pushing and exploring different aspects of GoopMassta and his story to continuously promote positivity through different mediums. My goal as an artist/creator is to inspire and show others that there are no limits – you can achieve anything you desire.

https://instagram.com/goopmassta?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

5) Maldha Mohamed 🇲🇻  Oil on canvas

a 24 year old, self taught contemporary artist working in oil paints located in the Maldives Islands. Her art is a visceral representation of how she views behavior and emotion, particularly in relation to her own dreams and what she observes around her. It consists of fragmented portraiture and emotion expressed by isolated human features. Her subjects are rendered in a contemporary manner, with hints of surrealism, through heavily textured surfaces. Their striking hues and a powerful play on shadows give her pieces incredible life and depth. The artist aims to convey her subjects as if they are in a battle against time, always fleeting. She wishes for the viewer to see beyond the shattered nature of her subjects and explore what is beyond the canvas, something at which the observer can only guess.

“I like the overall mystery behind the fragments. I like to think of them as unfinished conversations and expressed emotions. Something that always lingers.”

6) Panik 🇬🇧  Oil on paper

(Jack Murray), born London 1986, is a multi-disciplinary, contemporary artist whose career stemmed from the London graffiti scene of the late 90’s and early 00’s where he played an era-defining, role within.

During the mid-00’s Paniks output began to diversify with the introduction of his now prolific faces that began to appear on the streets of the capital. Alongside this he began to develop studio-based work that led to a string of exhibitions in London, Amsterdam and NYC in the years that followed. While very much a self-taught artist, Panik briefly attended London’s Central St Martins although, after struggling to adapt to the formulaic approach of art school, left in order to carve out his own lane which he’s travelled in ever since.

Panik currently resides in the Lisbon region of Portugal and creates work that, at times, playfully fuses elements of his surroundings with some of the broader global issues we face and points of reference that have been accumulated via his own personal experiences. With a process often starting with photography and film documentary before leading on to large scale mixed-media pieces, Paniks work exists as an energetic reflection of the world around him as viewed through his own eyes and is communicated through a unique, hybrid, style that exists somewhere within the realms of abstract expressionism and surrealism but is at times referred to by himself as ‘mid-century oddernism’.

https://instagram.com/baltek999?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

7) Devin Liston🇺🇸  Oil on Paper

(born 1983) is a Los Angeles multi-media artist who focuses mostly on oil painting and muralism. Liston’s career started in collective art teams including CYRCLE and DEVNGOSHA and at the end of 2014 he began working solo. His current work is centered around utilitarian objects in sports and carpentry, using these objects to create a language of exploring existence, meaning, and everyday life. He has done murals around the world and his personal work has shown in Los Angeles, Iceland, Hong Kong, New York, Australia, Seattle, Munich, Bayreuth, Atlanta, and Mississippi.

Statement: The space within the canvas is the only space that exists, so naturally everything must be shoved into it like a can of sardines. For some reason, none of the objects that I find interesting can be allowed to penetrate the confines of the world I create for them, and that seems to be my only rule. I am constantly finding fuel in utility, universally recognizable objects, sports, bugs, and imagery from my childhood. I paint intuitive and direct while keeping in mind relationships, time, existence, space, and otherworldly interventions. The language of sports has helped me to create a dialogue between myself and the universal nature of competition in everything that exists.

https://instagram.com/devin.liston?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

8) Artist Baltek🇵🇭 Oil on canvas

A talented, passionate and hardworking artist who emitates his experience.  through painting and artworks, baltek comes to you from a strong artistic background, always come up with unique original works, focused and determined to achieve his goals never gets tired of learning new things

https://instagram.com/baltek999?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

9) Woof Original  (Anonymous) 🇸🇬  Ceramic & Sculpture

Microplastics have been found everywhere - from the bottom of the ocean, to the Arctic snow, to the salt on your table.

I wanted to make a sculpture to show how microplastics have entered our food chain and our bodies and to consider how corporations forego health and the environment in pursuit of profit. 

Microplastics cereal boxes symbolise living in the world today and every day.

https://instagram.com/wooforiginal?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

10) Roamcouch 🇯🇵 Master Stencil Artist  

Ryo Ogawa, better known as RoamCouch was born in Gifu, Japan in 1976. He is a street artist and Ukiyo-e painter. He began to draw in his childhood, influenced by Japanese comics and started working as a designer at the age of 18. Afterwards, he was diagnosed with a serious illness, which made him rethink his life and career and he subsequently made up his mind to become an artist. In 2011, now dubbed “RoamCouch”, he began his transition into a full-time artist. He produces his exquisite and romantic works of art by using over fifty different layers of the hand-cut stencil and has been showcased at solo and group exhibitions both within and outside Japan. His detailed and rich stencil paintings redefined the stereotypical image of stencil art.

https://instagram.com/roamcouch?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

11) Alburoto 🇵🇭 Woodcut and Mixed Media

Aldrin Tamidles  is a visual artist from the Philippines. Known as Alburoto, his works feature a blank-faced animals rendered in his graphic style. Greatly influenced by the cartoons, his subject revolves around realities that the youth might inherit. Alburoto creates surreal images laden with popular references to project  humor and situations that relate to considerable audiences.

https://instagram.com/_alburoto_?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

12)Abotz 🇬🇧    Oil on Canvas

I am an artist, born and raised in North West London, Kilburn to be precise.
My Graffiti and Art life started when I was as young as 10 years old and you could say I became slightly obsessed with it all from a young age. I was first inspired by a close friend of mine who showed me the world of tagging. This was basically a nickname that everyone on the estate, where I lived, was given and it’s what they would use to identify their graffiti. He encouraged me to give it a go, and ultimately, I didn’t need much convincing. My intertest only grew from there as I started to notice graffiti everywhere, which only amplified my need to know more about it. Luckily for me, the area I was raised in had a legal spot to graffiti in and for eight years or so, I was regularly showcasing my work there. In my opinion, some of the pieces there are completely unmatched.

https://instagram.com/abotz_artwrld?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

13)Anna Laurini 🇬🇧  Exclusive Oil on Canvas

Anna Laurini paints bold lines and curves in a rapid style, urban but clear almost as if she painted ideograms.  The ideogram of identity, of the soul.  Few details.  Bright and brilliant colors.  

Mysterious faces like urban sphinxes.  A look through the cements, the asphalts and the traffic lights.  They look oriented towards the infinite and the inner territories, towards the soul.  And those looks recall the depths of the self, of the identities that are diluted in the cities and in the multitudes.  

Yet they look at you, quietly, silent: Anna’s faces look inside you to remind you of who you are.

https://instagram.com/annalauriniblue?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
 

​ 14)Georgina Leigh  🇬🇧  Oil & Acrylic Marvel Series
 

Georgina, by the artist name of Gigi, has always been creative and painterly, from acrylics to sewing; she’s a natural artist. Georgina attended Parsons School of Design in NYC for 4years, studying Design & Management, graduating in 2013. Since graduating Georgina has taken to Graphic Design as her career focus, however she’s always kept up with her passion of painting. Combining both Graphic Design & Painting she is able to pull together compositions in photoshop and translate them into paintings, mostly using acrylic on canvas. During the pandemic Georgina spent more time painting, and thus created a series of Marvel paintings. Georgina’s passion and love for Disney is strongly exhibited throughout all of her paintings.

Releasing her works on her Marvel series  

Instagram :gigi_art_uk

Please email to rsvp, limited spaces only 

Preview 5th December 
Rsvp@therahgallery.com