Modern Fabulists – Preview

Modern Fabulists is a groundbreaking exhibition featuring America and Europe’s most extraordinary contemporary artists. For the first time we are collaborating with the new American and English art duo Coates and Scarry, which has exposed us to one of the most comprehensive collections of young, international and diverse modern artists of our time.

The artists have created new pieces around the theme of “modern fabulists – a composer of fables, a teller of tales, a liar… an artist”. The exhibition celebrates the enduring relevance of storytelling. Pagan imagery, human and animal mixed manifestations, the shocking juxtaposed with the sublime, all come together to represent what are ultimately beautiful and spiritual renderings and interpretations of folklore and tales.

The artists featured in the show are Dan Baldwin, Jacob Arden McClure, Dee Dee Cheriel, Karen Akester, Anne Faith Nicholls, Corine Perier, Lori Field, Marco Mazzoni, Pepa Prieto, David Stein, Derek Weisberg, Hayley Murphy, Kirsty Whiten, Lauren Bergman, Angela Lizon and Scott G Brooks. We preview a few in this blog with more to follow in future updates.

Renowned British artist Dan Baldwin started making art in 1990 and has since exhbited world wide, showing his painting, prints and vases. Baldwin’s allegorical paintings are about life but within them we see everything from recurring death, decay, symbolism and themes such as war, religion, politics, beauty, nature and innocence. His painting Apocalypse Wow sold for more than £25,000 in Bonhams in 2008.

Sculptor Derek Weisberg discovered his passion for ceramics at a very early age. And while the medium may be classical, the subjects are most definitely not. These are very personal pieces, and unusual in their rendering of the human form. He says of his work “ I create works of art that are emotional and psychological self-portraits. Through my work I aim to make sense of my life, my experiences, and the times I live.”

Anne Faith Nicholls was born in Victoria British Columbia with a backwards heart. Her signature aesthetic is inspired by her obsessions with Surrealism, colonial European folk art and American folk art, history, anthropology, love, fear and nature. Currently Anne lives and works in Venice, CA, which is also where she recently opened CURIO, a showroom and working studio just a few blocks from the beach. Her husband, Jacob Arden McClure also features in the show.

Jacob Arden McClure uses film, paint, sculptures, designs and installations to create his work, which is layered with iconography and narrative storytelling. His work is deeply inspired by Postmodern America- it’s ideals, icons and atrocities of everyday life. Blending and layering found imagery, he creates symbolically autobiographical works that often carry a sense of nostalgia. His pieces for Modern Fabulists are strong and modern, featuring American imagery with a violent graphic style.

Nalini ‘Deedee’ Cheriel’s influences derive from such opposites as East Indian temple imagery, punk rock, and her Pacific Northwest natural environment. Her images are indications of how we try to connect ourselves to others and how these satirical and heroic efforts are episodes of compassion and discomfort.

Kirsty Whiten is known for her distinctive warped paintings and drawings. She says what inspires her work is “There is a certain zeal in the way that humans set themselves apart from the rest of nature. To me there is just a continuation, we are animal, we have drives and instincts that always flow just under the surface of civilisation.

An international and diverse collection of artists, with extremes of styles and views are all bonded together in this extraordinary exhibition. Modern Fabulists is a celebration of the ancient and the modern, of skill and talent, of kitsch and classics, of folklore and photos, and ultimately of the undeniable unique talents of these modern day storytellers.

Modern Fabulists opens on 22 April and closes on 29 May 2011.

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