STUNNING bike murals have been rediscovered during a revamp at the former Stroud Saddlery shop.
The artwork was originally painted for the Big Bike Company in Cainscross Road by pupils from Marling School next door.
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Bryan Billau with one of the murals painted by Marling School pupils in 1997.
The boys were invited to decorate the giant wall when Bryan Billau opened the business about 17 years ago.
"I remember looking at this big white space and thinking that just through the wall was Marling School," he said.
"Then I hit on the idea of asking pupils there to come up with some artwork. I believe it turned into an A-Level project at the time."
Now he is organised building work in preparation for a new tenant and has uncovered the striking murals.
"I'd be interested to know where the teenagers who painted them are now and if they've gone on to become artists," Mr Billau said.
He is liaising with the grammar school's staff to find the art class of 1995.
Source: www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk
National Gallery of Canada announces top three works in nation-wide art contest for teens - So You Want To Be An Artist? - Yahoo Finance
Artwork by winners and nine finalists are displayed at the Gallery until July 3.
OTTAWA, June 13, 2012 /CNW/ - The National Gallery of Canada (NGC) today announced the names of the winning artists in its second annual on-line contest, So You Want To Be An Artist? The contest is intended to enhance the enjoyment of art among young people all over Canada, while providing them with an opportunity to share their talent, ideas and opinions in a manner that helps them feel connected to the Gallery. A jury of experts met on June 4 to decide on the top three artworks among the 12 that had garnered the most on-line votes in April. The winner of the 1st prize is Paula Rayo of London, ON for her creation, The Memoirs of War (Souvenirs de guerre). Andrew An of Delta, BC has won 2nd prize for his work, Snowboarding (Planche à neige), and 3rd prize goes to Niki Watts of Hagensborg, BC for her submission, Thunder Dancer (Danseur-tonnerre).
More than 198 talented teens across the country, aged 16 to 19 years, entered the contest and submitted their creations, along with an artist statement, on line. The artwork covered an array of diverse and wide-ranging themes: identity and culture, justice and human rights, fighting prejudice, and preserving the environment. The winning entries, along with those of the finalists - which received a total of 37,948 votes during the designated period - are displayed at the National Gallery of Canada, on the Artissimo wall, until Tuesday, July 3. They can also be viewed on line at makeart.gallery.ca.
All five members of the jury - comprised of Peter Simpson, Arts-editor-at-large for The Ottawa Citizen; Claude Deschênes, cultural reporter for Télévision de Radio-Canada; interdisciplinary artist Sonny Assu; illustrator/graphic designer Jonathan Cruz; and Kim Morgan, artist and NSCAD professor - were impressed with the young artists' creativity and talent. "The impressive level of creativity and technical expertise reflected in each artwork presented a challenge for the jury of experts in choosing the three winners," explained Gary Goodacre, NGC Manager, Youth and School Programs.
The other finalists are:
Gabrielle Brochu, Entends ma prière (Hear my Prayer) - Acrylic and India ink
Lysandra Coules, Strength Shield (Écran de force) - Photography
Dominique Cyr, If Only We Knew the Truth (Si seulement nous connaissions la vérité) - Oil
Jessica Desrochers, Le droit d'aimer (The Right to Love) - Charcoal, graphite and ink
Sophie Masson, C'est moi, just me ! - Oil
Sydney McKenna, Within Her Roots (Dans ses racines) - Ink, acrylic, watercolour and graphite on wood
Erica Phillips, Totem (Mât totémique) - Digital proof on canvas
Josh Tiessen, Overshadowed (Éclipsé) - Acrylic on fibreboard
Sofia Becerra, Portrait of Humanity (Portrait d'humanité) - Acrylic on canvas
Prizes Awarded to the Winners
The winner of the first prize, which includes round-trip travel to Ottawa, will be afforded an opportunity for a behind-the-scenes visit to the NGC and given a chance to meet professionals working at the Gallery. Paula Rayo will also have her portfolio reviewed by an expert and be awarded a $500 gift certificate for art supplies. Andrew An, the 2nd-prize winner, will receive a $1,000 gift certificate for art supplies and Niki Wattas, who won 3rd prize, will be given a $500 gift certificate, also for art supplies.
The Gallery thanks its sponsors
Gift certificates for art supplies for the top three winners were generously offered by the Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa. CanvasPop graciously provided vouchers to the top 12 finalists to reproduce their artwork on canvas.
About the National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada is home to the largest collection of historical and contemporary Canadian art in the world. It also maintains Canada's premier collection of European art from the 14th to the 21st centuries, major works of American, Asian and Indigenous art, as well as an internationally renowned collection of prints, drawings and photographs. Created in 1880, the National Gallery of Canada has played a key role in Canadian culture for well over a century. Among its principal missions is increasing access to excellent works of art for all Canadians. This is done by maintaining the largest touring art exhibition program in the world. For more information, go to www.gallery.ca.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/gallerydotca
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NationalGalleryCanada
youtube: http://www.youtube.com/ngcmedia
Source: finance.yahoo.com
Chris Brown spotted 'admiring' Rihanna from across the room as exes cross paths at NYC club - New York Daily News
Chris Brown spent the first half of Monday night with his current girlfriend — and the second half with his ex.
The controversial R&B artist launched his first art show — a collaboration with pop artist Ron English called “Dum English” — at Opera Gallery in SoHo, and a herd of industry pals came out to support the budding Picasso. Along with DJ Khaled , Busta Rhymes, actress Tika Sumpter and stylist June Ambrose, Brown’s girlfriend, petite model Karrueche Tran, was also at the gallery all evening.
A source at the event says Tran stayed by the 23-year-old Brown’s side for much of that time and the two shared “multiple embraces.” At one point, Brown smiled while plying the biracial beauty with a glass of Champagne. They swayed together to music played by DJ M.O.S. and Tran hung on Brown’s every word as he told guests about his artwork, which includes a piece entitled “Hell-no Kitty” — his homage to the Hello Kitty character.
The couple didn’t stick together the entire evening, however. According to a second source, Brown showed up at Avenue nightclub in Chelsea around 1:30 a.m. with “a bunch of friends [and\] a couple of girls,” although Tran wasn’t one of them.
About 45 minutes later, Brown’s ex-girlfriend Rihanna entered the same club “with her large posse of socialites,” including comedian Aziz Ansari . The source says the singer-turned-actress, who recently appeared in the flick “Battleship,” was dressed in a pinup-style white dress, black sunglasses and Converse sneakers. The Barbadian beauty’s group took a table directly across from Brown’s entourage.
That’s when things got interesting. Our source said Brown could be seen “admiring Rihanna from his table across” the room. Her beauty apparently made him thirsty, because he “started the party with shots of Patron” tequila and Ace of Spades Champagne.
Soon after that, a second source tells us RiRi and company started dancing on top of the banquettes.
As if on cue, those in Brown’s party did the same, directly facing Rihanna’s group, in a dance-off.
Despite the “You Got Served”-style theatrics, our sources say neither Brown nor Rihanna approached each other or had any kind of face-to-face interaction.
Brown was the first to call it a night at 3:30 a.m. Rihanna left closer to 4.
The former couple have crossed paths more than once over the past couple weeks — at nightclubs SL, 40/40 and now Avenue — but when it comes to the public eye, Brown seems to be sending the message that he’s in a relationship with Tran for the time being.
A spokesperson for Brown did respond to our request for comment by deadline.
Contact Gatecrasher:
Frank DiGiacomo: fdigiacomo@nydailynews.com
Carson Griffith: cgriffith@nydailynews.com
Adam Caparell: acaparell@nydailynews.com
Follow us on Twitter: @NYDNGatecrasher
Source: www.nydailynews.com
A year later, the Vancouver riots reverberate in art - Globe and Mail
Driven by shock, revulsion and a deep sense of shame, Metro Vancouverites drifted downtown after last year’s Stanley Cup riot. They cleaned up after the louts, and they scrawled bathroom gra ffiti-sized bits of philosophy onto the plywood boards that had been installed over broken glass windows of businesses such as the Bay and Future Shop. “Humanity is an ocean,” read one of the countless messages. “If a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
A year after the riot of June 15, 2011 – sparked by a Vancouver Canucks’ Game 7 loss to the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup final – 15 of these boards are installed at the Museum of Vancouver. The exhibition, Reading the Riot Boards, adds to the canon of cultural response to riots in Vancouver, works which include theatre pieces and one of the city’s most provocative works of public art.
“Great art happens where there’s a real sense of a large question and a large feeling of mystery and a large question of ‘Who are we?’ ” says playwright and director Amiel Gladstone. “And I think the riot happening in the middle of our city by our own citizens really raises all of those questions.”
The MOV immediately recognized the importance of the so-called riot boards, seeking to acquire them for its collection within a week of the incident.
“It was kind of a no brainer,” says Hanna Cho, MOV’s curator of engagement and dialogue. “It quickly became apparent that these would be really special, and part of Vancouver’s history.”
There are earnest messages from a Grade 6 class (“There is always next year. Why riot?”); notes in other languages; a drawing of the instantly-viral kissing couple inside a big red heart.
And one riot board declaration – “Creativity is the only solution to destruction!” – rings true for a number of Vancouver-based artists.
Writer and actor Kevin Loring ( Where the Blood Mixes) saw an opportunity to explore Vancouver’s riot mentality in his commission to contribute to Pi Theatre’s Visions of Vancouver project, part of the commemoration of the city’s 125th anniversary. Loring created a short audio play (recorded live before an audience and available online) that looked at the riot from a number of perspectives, including a teenage hockey fan, a police officer, an immigrant who takes her two young sons downtown to watch the game, and a woman who joins the frenzy and steals a bunch of designer handbags.
“It was a group event, it was a mob event and I really think the only way to really [express] that is to have those four characters speaking about their own experience separately as though they’re being interviewed, but finishing each other’s lines and at some places saying the same line in unison,” Loring said from Banff this week, where he’s attending the Banff World Media Festival. “To get that sense that it’s a communal thing. It was a group thing. And we were all a part of it.”
He titled his play The Thin Veneer, and as Loring wrote it, he kept coming back to the same image: “I liken it to the Leviathan; it’s like a million-pound monster with 10,000 eyes looking at itself doing this thing. It’s that group monster that when people get together as these masses, they behave as one large monster taking over the city.”
This is not the only theatre work to emerge in the year since the riot. Gladstone was involved in the creation of the play #ThisismyVancouver just weeks after the riot with a student group at Arts Umbrella, and a staged reading of Mark Leiren-Young’s Basically Good Kids, written after the Penticton riot, which occurred during the Okanagan town’s 1991 Peach Festival.
“What was really both scary and compelling was how apropos it was,” says Gladstone, of Basically Good Kids, in light of the Vancouver riot a decade later. “It was so right on.”
But probably the most iconic riot-related artwork in the city is Stan Douglas’s magnificent Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971. The large-scale photo mural is installed at the SFU Woodward’s building in the Downtown Eastside, steps from the intersection referenced in its title.
“The photograph has produced an image of something that could easily be forgotten,” Douglas says in an interview published in the book Stan Douglas: Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971. “It consolidates hearsay into a picture that will hopefully produce more hearsay and a conversation about history – as opposed to the way that, for instance, a sculpture of a general on horseback is supposed to do, but doesn’t.”
Indeed, when it was installed in 2009, the work – one of four in Douglas’s Crowds & Riots series – re-ignited discussion of the 1971 Gastown Riots, sparked when police moved in on what by all accounts was a peaceful hippie “smoke-in” organized by the local alternative weekly, the Georgia Straight.
In a way, it’s a billboard advertising history. Abbott & Cordova was carefully constructed on a purpose-built set by an artist far-removed from the event it depicts: Douglas wasn’t there and says he doesn’t remember the riot, which occurred almost four decades before the work’s 2009 installation.
The riot boards, on the other hand – granted: artifacts, not art – were created in the immediate aftermath by a generation that thrives on – demands, really – immediacy and the ability to chime in on a conversation.
Cho sees the boards – the museum has 76 of them – as a physical manifestation for the social media generation. “This became a very literal translation of that behavioural urge to express something,” she says. “This was Vancouver’s Facebook wall, in some sense.”
Reading the Riot Boards is at the Museum of Vancouver until Sept. 23. A panel discussion ,“Is this Vancouver? Reflections on the 2011 Hockey Riot Boards” – in which Kevin Loring will participate – will take place Friday at 6:30 p.m.
Source: www.theglobeandmail.com
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