 ‘Mark Charles alien abducted space travelling thug, born in the back-seat of a black limousine’ Article: Christopher George Having arrived on the music scene with hooligan electro glamour band Gobsausage in the early 2000's, like a millennium meteorite causing havoc, and pioneering Hackney's Electro Punk movement during the emerging East London arts explosion. Mark Charles also launched his cult fashion label ‘Charles of London’ with his partner Susan Diamond. Their notorious mind bending fashion shows and campaign editorial imagery, exhibiting their diverse and provocative clothing range to the global fashion industry, while the Charles of London groupies were renowned for their ultra violent approach to dressing and behaving. Charles of London became the anti fashion, fashion house. Spitefully non commercial, while representing London's unique style and influencing global sub-culture trends Mark Charles releases his new album along with the White Reflectors. A throbbing collection of certified beats, subliminal punk stained frequencies, digital disorder and nu future cinematic soundscapes. Yet again Mark Charles steps aside from the norm in producing this visceral sound scape and contemporary art project. Never becoming a follower of trends, his ability to shape and influence the arts along with his collaborators has seen a multitude of creative visions that are blunt, upfront, direct and astonishingly excellent. Always aiming to surprise, and never failing to thrill or deliver, Charles yet again punches the knock out blow. “Alligator swims in a swamp down the mud, the moon doth penetrate but she ain't looking for love. Hungry as a station waiting for a train, she's a hypodermic needle, gonna ease his pain" Their new album DISOBEY was recorded on the hoof in Berlin, London and Hastings. With an audacious line up of alien invaders The White Reflectors, including Gene Serene, Valerie Renay, Sebastian Lee Philipp, VeeVee, NKdV, Richard Heslop, Susan Diamond, Takatsuna Mukai and Andrew Neate. Visual mashup by Black Triangle Films. Strictly Limited Edition Vinyl Available Exclusively on: https://punkvert.tv/mark-charles-and-the-white-reflectors Mark Charles https://punkvert.tv/mark-charles-and-the-white-reflectors https://www.facebook.com/markcharlesandthewhitereflectors https://www.instagram.com/markcharles_thewhitereflectors/
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 Arts Editor: Christopher George Smokey, smooth, sultry and stylish. Arandel's new opus, ‘InBach’ is warm velvet to the senses. out now via French label InFiné, pays a poetic, infinitely respectful and innovative homage to Bach’s sacred workings. Arandel  Arts Editor: Christopher George Working in the language of landscape and topography, American artist Brian Reinker creates colourful abstractions depicting real and imagined places with the discipline of an architect. We caught up with him at his South London studio prior to his forthcoming solo show. What is your background? I am originally from Ohio in the US Midwest and from a child was interested in art, design and architecture. I remember drawing on the walls and my mother not being very pleased about that! I studied Fine Arts and Art History at University and also did a degree in Architecture and Design. I came to London in 1986 to study at the Architectural Association and I never left! I worked as a design director on building projects all over Europe but always wanted to be able to concentrate full time on art again, which is what I am now doing from my studio in Waterloo. How would you describe your work? Talk us through your creative process, My focus is on urban environments and landscapes, using ink and pencil drawing, paint on canvas and more recently, paper and other media on aluminium panels. I am inspired by maps, buildings and personal travel experiences. I usually sketch out a work in pencil and then start by gathering materials and making. The process of the physical making of something is important to me. Who and what are your biggest influences? The support of my partner is my biggest influence, he encourages me to explore new avenues and we discuss ideas and options together. I do not think that there is a single artist, but the modernist, mid century and more architecturally or graphic artists are inspiring.  What makes you get up and create art? Having worked in the corporate world, I still have that strong urge to get up and get going. I tend to review the past few days work and then get excited about getting back to the studio and make any changes or try different options until I am satisfied. What are you currently working on? My first London solo show – Paper-Scissors-Rock, which opens at Hoxton 253 Gallery on 21 November! For the past year, I have been concentrating on working with paper, foil, vinyl and other materials mounted on aluminium panels. I tend to work in series or sets of ideas that I explore a theme with. I have been exploring building facades and most recently abstracted horizon landscapes and vertical views through air and forests. I’m looking forward to showing all these new works at the show! Brian Reinker: Paper-Scissors-Rock is at Hoxton 253, from 21-23 November. 253 Hoxton Street, London N1 5LG   Article: Christopher George SeeSpray Gallery hosts it's new, riveting and explicit exhibition this Autumn with artist Sassy Luke. Sassy Luke known for being a master of adornment of the icons that wallpaper our every day lives. Tired old images of Queen Elizabeth II and Jesus H Christ are given a right good snazzing up with wicked humour and precise skill. Comforting, but completely new and better... and blasphemous... and riddled with treason.  But this show marks her serendipitous, yet harrowing new path for Luke. Through a mixture of poverty and luck she was charged with the task of clearing out the former 'home' of an addict. What she documented and cleared out became an entire art project. A seemingly fully functional member of society when met face to face, but the tidy up operation revealed a trail of theft from the other residents of the building in order to fund a serious habit. The poignant words above the bed, usually found in some kind of family home, are a stark contrast to the layers of hazardous filth that the artist was wading through both emotionally and physically. This is not the exploitation of an unfortunate junkie, but a very first had documentation of the horrors of addiction and forces the viewer to think about our own addictions and how we perceive us to be different from other junkies. This show is guaranteed to take you on a journey through a range of emotions in a beautifully uncomfortable way. SEE SPRAY GALLERY Saturday 9th November - Thursday 5th December 2019 Private View Saturday 9th November 6pm - 8pm Article: Jas Bhachu Foreword: Delphian Gallery Delphian Gallery is delighted to present ‘Habitual Submission’, a solo show by London-based artist, Rhiannon Salisbury. Her work investigates the glossy representation of women to expose an absurd dystopian reality of the capitalist dream. Her process begins from selecting through an archive of advertisement imagery sourced through high-end beauty campaigns online and magazines. The resulting paintings show the disturbance caused by the social pressures born of the mass media machine. The images morph into a synthetic chaotic mush which seeks to simultaneously allure and repel the viewer. In decontextualizing the original image through the subjective lens of painting, Salisbury engages with an otherwise unobtainable dialogue of beauty. Inspired by serious literary and philosophical works such as The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord, and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Rhiannon decontextualises and distorts the vernacular image in such a way to render it eerily familiar, yet entirely alien. ‘Habitual Submission’ aims to disrupt and reclaim the omnipresent space these luxurious images occupy - a feminist manifesto for our current times. Rhiannon was the overall winner of our second Delphian Open Call, beating over 10,000 entries.  Rhiannon Salisbury: "I use my paintings as a tool to investigate the role of women within a patriarchal culture. Using colour, form, and composition as language, I am investigating western standards of beauty and the idealisation of female adolescence, within the field of advertising. I deliberately work with found imagery from aspirational fashion and lifestyle magazines, focusing on the modelling campaigns of the most luxurious brands. Composition’s and imagery are tweaked to distort and expose my dystopian perception of this capitalist dream. I hope that the reinterpretation of the advertisements through painting, opens up a dialogue where one can re-look at the structure of ideas and references used in each highly constructed and saturated image. Using gestures which explore the borderland between a substance that is alluring in its thick luscious texture, and grotesque in its ability to turn to chaotic mush, my paint handling and synthetic colour palette seeks to strike a balance that intends to at once allure and repel the viewer."  Private view: 26th of September 2019, 6 - 9pm
Show Run: 27th Sept – 8th Oct 2019 Address: 253 Hoxton Street, London N1 5LG Website: delphiangallery.com  Arts Editor: Christopher George Gallery presents Terry O'Neill CBE and Bran Symondson, two hugely accomplished, and ground-breaking photographers from different eras, in a collaboration of a provocative new collection aptly called 'Hollywood Re-loaded', to be unveiled at Annabel’s, London 'Hollywood Re-loaded' is a bold and brash reinvention of Terry O'Neill's portraits of Hollywood icons posing with guns. Portraits of stars like Michael Caine, Bridget Bardot and Roger Moore, each with sleek firearm in hand, are pockmarked by bullets fired by ex-Special Forces turned artist and reportage photographer, Bran Symondson, using the same gun as in each portrait. Guns and the violence they symbolize become subjects, displacing Hollywood stars and the glorified ethos they mediate as well as create. Inspired by the changing perception of guns and the reverberating conversation about gun violence around the world, 'Hollywood Re-loaded' is a timely addition to both artists’ repertoires. Classic works by Terry O’Neill get a second life unlike their first as Bran Symondson bravely inhabits the space where being a photographer and a soldier meet. Both, he rightly observes, “…are looking intensely for the moment”.  This collection dares to explore the rebound of our painful reckonings with gun violence on Hollywood. It also reaches for the positive changes, real and imagined, arising from passionate and reasoned efforts to address this menace. Bran’s artistic commitment to 'turning something of fear and loathing into something of beauty' shines through in ‘Hollywood Re-loaded’. However, it is a payoff that lies beyond a shocking confrontation with the destruction and irreverence of bullets. Terry O’Neill says about the forthcoming exhibition “What Bran has done with my photographs is astounding. He’s taken such time and consideration when creating his art – he really has transformed my photographs into something entirely his own. It’s been a thrill for me to work with a young artist such as Bran, to listen to his thoughts and process. And I can’t be more pleased with the results. 'Hollywood Re-loaded' will make its début fittingly at Annabel’s, favourite hangout of the stars and London’s VIPs, on the 30 September. It will then move to the HOFA Gallery on Maddox Street on 1 October where it be on display throughout Frieze week till the 14 of October 2019.   Review: Christopher George ALA.NI new self-written, produced & arranged album 'ACCA' due for release early 2020, with guest artist Iggy Pop and Lakeith Stanfield is set to make a storm. Written whilst on the road in spots including Paris, Mexico, Los Angeles, the UK and New York, ALA.NI created ’ACCA’ by layering up hundreds of vocal tracks, some of which imitate the sounds of instruments, building a hypnotic world that blurs the lines between vibrating vocal cords, bowed strings, and blown reeds. Written - as with ‘You & I’ - a cappella, with ‘ACCA’ ALA.NI pushes a vocals-only technique to its furthest possibilities. ‘ACCA’ is made up entirely of human voices - beatboxing serving as percussion, with ALA.NI lowering her own vocals to create the illusion of bass, whilst percussive elements were created using everything from beer bottles and tennis balls to ALA.NI’s own body and the studio walls. “It was all pretty lo-fi on my end,” says ALA.NI, who often captured songs on the fly using a laptop whilst in transit. “I didn’t record to a click, I didn’t use a tuner; I’d just press record and lay down whatever came out.” This is the follow-up to ALA.NI's applauded 2016 debut, 'You & I' - partially recorded at Damon Albarn's studios, it earned ALA.NI fans in Iggy, David Lynch, Jean-Baptiste Mondino and David Byrne. For further details on album release dates ALA.NI  Jesse Draxler, Untitled Article: Jaswant Bhachu Delphian Gallery presents its first annual summer group show featuring artists working across painting, drawing, collage, and sculpture. Divergent Motion, Delphian's summer show provides the opportunity to continue a visual conversation with previously exhibited artists by showcasing their new work alongside other exciting contemporary artists whom we have yet had the pleasure to show. In this exhibition, divergent practices are unified by a sense of unruly expression. Participating artists include Florence Hutchings, Jesse Draxler, Francisco Mendes Moreira, Cannon Dill, Benjamin Murphy, Beth Rodway, Klaus Is Koming, Jerry Kowalski, Cathy Tabbakh, Paul Weiner, Galina Munroe, Jake Grewal, Claire Johnson, Tess Williams, Mike Ballard, Nick JS Thompson, Rusudan Khizanishvili and Lou Ros. The exhibition is graciously supported by theprintspace, London’s premier fine art printers. Delphian Gallery gallery aims to showcase the most captivating and challenging work by emerging and early career artists to their audience of art lovers, artists, collectors and patrons. Show Run: 26th – 19th August 2019 Address: theprintspace, 74 Kingsland Road, London E2 8DLWebsite: delphiangallery.com
 Arts Editor: Christopher George Georgie Wheeler brings her madcap, nostalgia-laden, funky, graphic show to Hastings See Spray Gallery, with a massive hit of colour and cheekiness. Working in a range of media including acrylics, watercolour, biro and spray paint, all brought together in a part chaotic, part realistic lasagne of jolliness. Wheeler was the head of Art at Watford Grammar School for Girls, specialising in Graphics, Fine Art and Photography. Now residing on Hastings as a full time artists. she is part of the South Coast art capital. Graduating with a Fine Art Degree at Nottingham Trent University exposed Wheeler to the wonderful world of social deviants and shock art narrative.
Pick 'n' Mix brings together her Mixtape 80s series, which summarises popular culture, smash hits and an iconic 80's design style in ten oversized cassette tapes. Alongside these, are a series of 'borrowed forgotten' pieces, where she has humourosly embellished kitsch landscapes and figurative paintings from the 70's and 80's with slightly misfitting characters. Georgie Wheeler - Pic 'n' Mix - Solo Show 29th June - 30th July 153-154 Queens Road, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 1RN United Kingdom seespraygallery@gmail.com  Interview: Christopher George Dean Ross and Iggy Jay came together as UNO, with revolving singers, giving the band a wider scope to produce their music without the limitations of a permanent vocalists. Their first joint collaboration band split after the singer became involved in another project. The duo stuck to their guns and moved quickly forward. While trying to find another appropriate singer, the difficulties became apparent in finding the correct voice. At this point a new project and direction was conceived between Ross and Jay. The bands direction of synth and modern pop is strongly influenced by 1980s electro, such as Depeche Mode, and more recent groups such as Disclosure and Chain Smokers style of producing. A merge of electro, raw rock and classical instrumental are all thrown into the UNO cocktail of sound The groups accomplishment with instruments are impressive. Iggy plays drums, guitar, trombone as well as sings; “A bunch of very useless instruments” as he puts it, “mostly classical brass”. Heralding from a position as a classical conductor at an early stage of his profession, he at the same time played in a heavy metal band while also producing pop music. A true contrast and collision of sounds and genres. Dean is fundamentally a pianist and song writer, with huge experience in the digital format of sound. He gives the group a concrete base of knowledge to draw from when writing music. Songs often start from the keyboard, with Iggy bringing in a beat and then working forward as the duo. After realising that the songs they were writing would not suit just the one singing style, the decision was made to work fluidly with different vocalists to obtain the best for each song and avoid getting stuck in a narrow scope with one sound or genre. Working and producing material as UNO, they are open to interpretation from vocalists and aim to keep an open agenda when writing, and not be dictatorish. This allows a looser scope with the band to progress creatively. They use the website Starnow as an audition and casting forum, this has become a successful way to connect with vocalists. The ability to cast singers online with material they are sent to audition with, UNO can them edit down vocalist for each project creating a perfect union. Doing this via the internet saves a huge among of time, money, resources and has been a positive way in recent months for the band to collaborate and progress. A kind of Tinder for singing! Knowing what you want, and knowing what you don’t want is the trick in sourcing talent. Where you source talent from is an endless and time consuming challenge. The bands vision is to sign a producing deal with a label, then allow the label to provide vocalists as part of the process, saving time and allowing UNO to concentrate on the music. With a list of talents UNO have an aim to work with, they are not shying away from the challenge of pushing forward to a different level. Often creatives get stuck at a position where the idea of moving forward is either too worrying or just not where they want to venture. UNO are definitely pushing boundaries down. UNO are preforming a number of live energetic sets where they remix their original songs and vocals, stripping back the 3 minute pop format and becoming more of a live DJ set, with Iggy playing drums and guitar live. Check out their website for updated event and shows. www.soundsofuno.com |
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