PREVIEW:Unseen Beauty, Photography by Hannah Palmer, Tues 2nd Feb '09, 6-9pm

Private View: Unseen Beauty
Photography by Hannah Palmer
PREVIEW:

Tuesday 2nd February 2010, 6-9pm

EXHIBITION

Wednesday 3rd to Sunday 21st February 2010
Open Wednesday to Sunday 12pm-5pm, with bar open until 12am

Entry Free



UNSEEN BEAUTY

After reading History at Newcastle University Hannah Palmer changed disciplines and took up photography, studying at the London College of Communications from where she graduated in June 2009. Since then she has been part of several exhibitions. Hannah enjoys using traditional film photography and darkroom methods to create her images.

Her debut solo exhibition is a collection of bold, B&W film prints that aim to capture unseen beauty in our everyday surroundings; moments that most people pass by without noticing. Hannah's landscapes use the frames of natural and human architecture to create images that aim to be instantly eye catching whilst also being full of detail and interest. Hannah would like to carry on her work as an artistic photographer whilst also expanding her work as a freelance photographer.

PREVIEW: Henry Bruce, Experimentalist or Artist? Tuesday 24th November, 6-9pm

Henry Bruce.
Experimentist or Artist?

It is not that Henry Bruce does this because he sees himself as an 'Artist' of any particular sect, but that his natural curiosity and his attempts to deconstruct and re-design everything around him, in order to find more understanding for himself, makes him so.
He has a deep animalistic affiliation with nature, recognising its grandness, its imperfect perfection; and its antidote - the machine, technology and all its elements. His materials - metal and plastic jiving against wood and bone - describe the harsh and imposing feelings these represent, playing on their similarly natural origins and birthplace. Resurrecting bones, bought to life in sculpture, he questions the balance between life & death, love & hate, organic & manmade, growth & destruction. Henry Bruce is reaching to fathom such extremes of the spectrum to gain a deeper understanding of his own mortality and fantasy. His fetish to peep inside the workings of lust and evolution, nurture and damage, culminates in this body of heartfelt work.
His daily walk between the two beasts, nature and technology, impregnating one with the other, examining the destruction of nature to make it more aesthetically pleasing, more humanly palatable, is what Bruce kicks against. Once known as "the boy of few words", and not without his own inner battles, this work pinpoints just a few of the places his argumentative imagination has lead him.

Show to run: Wednesday 24th November - Sunday 13th December '09

PREVIEW: Solo show of Sculpture by Daniel Sodhi-Miles,

A Solo show of Sculpture by Daniel Sodhi-Miles

Preview: Tuesday 3rd November '09, 6-9pm
Show lasts: Wednesday 4th November - Sunday 22nd November '09

Is a self taught carpenter and sculptor.

Daniels work is ever evolving, often beginning with simple primary forms and numbers and shifting gradually. His work is primarily concerned with love and the interconnections within his life to others. Many of the objects he creates appear calm and aesthetically pleasing, yet the processes used in their creation are often incredibly noisy, dusty and aggressive. Most of these pieces are born quite violently and very rapidly as the act of working upon them is an acute focus of intent upon the material gradually relenting to the final caress of finishing touches.
His work seems able to cross some of the supposed boundaries between art and craft as he tends to use many traditional and some may say obsolete skills and tools alongside computer aided design and manufacturing processes to create contemporary interventions and objects.

He lives and works in Cornwall.

www.danielsodhi-miles.co.uk

PREVIEW: Recent Works by Rhonda Whitehead, Tues 13th October, 7-9pm

Recent Works by Rhonda Whitehead

Exhibition : Tuesday 13th October until Sunday 1st November 2009

Rhonda Whitehead is returning to London for her solo exhibition at the Muse at 269. She last exhibitited in London at the art fair in Islington in 2007.

All works included in the exhibition are from the last ten years, She now lives and works on the Norfolk, Suffolk borders. Since leaving London she has been professionally active having 6 solo exhibitions. Two at the Grapevine Gallery, Norwich reviewed enthusiastically by the critics Christopher Smith and Mary Rudd. Two at the AWD gallery Halesworth, Suffolk and two in Cambridge. One at Clare Hall Gallery and one at Kings Arts Centre. Her painting Venice Ochre won first prize at the
Byard Open exhibition in 2006 in Cambridge. She has also taken part in various mixed shows and open studios exhibitions.

Her preoccupation with colour and structure remain constant in recent works in oil on paper and oil on canvas, drawing a link between the forces in nature and the patterns of weathering and erosion on structures and buildings. In 'Italian city buildings', colours appear flattened onto the canvas revealing what is there ---- peeling surfaces, spidery scratchy writings in the paint ---- all executed with a generous freedom.

Open daily Wednesday to Sunday 12 noon -- 6pm or by appointment
‘The Muse’ at 269 Portobello Rd LondonW11 1LR
For more information email info@themuseat269.com
www. rhondawhitehead.com

Human Nature by Susan Eyre, Tues 22nd Sept - 10th Oct '09

Susan Eyre


‘Human Nature’

Private view: Tues 22nd September '09

Show runs: Wednesday 23rd September - 10th October 2009


Susan Eyre completed a BA in Textiles at Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2007. She lives and works in London and from the Ochre Print Studio, Guildford.



In her practice Eyre is interested in the search for the sublime within the man made environment.

Working with textiles, silk-screen print, digital print and a technique of cutting and heat fusing materials she creates both two and three dimensional pieces which combine and contrast natural and synthetic fabrics to echo themes within her work.



Eyre invites the viewer to look beyond the un-romanticised reality of urban life to discover an illusory world that is inauthentic yet familiar. Reflecting on personal and shared cultural influences she engages with fantasies of secret gardens, archetypal romantic scenes and ideas of paradise to construct her landscapes. Images absorbed from advertising media, film and fiction are regurgitated into her work exposing the collective vision of a perfect natural world as illusion. Ambiguously desirable these false landscapes acknowledge an urge to create a space that is a haven of beauty and harmony. Inspired by a prevalent nostalgia for a utopian idyll amid the fragmented and synthetic experience of nature, her work explores the gap where reality falls short of aspiration.

Portobello Film Festival, Group Graffiti Show, Tues 8th Sept, 6-9pm

The Muse at 269 is very pleased to be collaborating with the Portobello Film Festival for the fifth consecutive year. This year we will be exhibiting the work of skilled and talented graffiti artists SEIZE, CODEFC, SNUG and SOLO alongside the MUTOID creations of JOE RUSH.

This show will run from 9th September to 20th September 2009 with a launch event on the evening of 8th September from 6pm to 9pm (bar open till 12pm)

PREVIEW: 'Ephemeral Shoals' by Farrah Fortnam, 18th August, 6-9pm

Ephemeral Shoals by Farrah A. Fortnam

Farrah is intrigued and inspired by the movement of nature, particularly the sea; the vivid beauty of reefs and the dancing motion of their shoaling fish.

Her recent trip to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef made a lasting impression on her. Along with seeing the life, beauty and fragility of the reef islands, came the acknowledgment that, with warming and high sea levels, this ephemeral underworld may disappear in our lifetime. She wants to capture this transient beauty, just for a moment, in her paintings. For her, it will last forever.

Farrah’s Persian ethnicity has also had influence on her work, from rich, bright colours and intricate patterns in fabrics to Islamic calligraphic art. She also have a fascination with henna art (mehndi), a natural plant based dye that is used to decorate women’s hands and feet, mainly for wedding occasions.