This Year’s Model ’25 (part one) at studio1.1 London, is a refreshing show of work by member artists linked with the gallery and its curators Michael Keenan and Keran James.

During my lumberjack phase, I realised art could be more entertaining. Like a long game of chess played against oneself, art is (as Nietzsche suggested) the antidote to nihilism. So I resumed my practice.

A cultural haven, studio1.1 allows interaction and discourse between like minded people, offering them a chance to showcase work in central London. Michael and Keran curate a series of shows throughout the year.

A gold-mine of creativity, this little gallery proffers an alternative to the glamorous machinations of capitalism in the capital.

London wows the World but in the January cold, it can be a hard, unmerciful place. Everyone there seeks ‘better’.

From the second you step into that environment til you leave, you are bombarded with ‘the ideal’; and a creeping, all pervasive authoritarianism. studio1.1 provides something of an antidote.

A wry sense of humour underpins the gallery ethos; something artists are often possessed of (but not paid for), an ability to celebrate the pointlessness of human striving, against the back-drop of all time.

This Year’s Model ’25 (part one), exhibits some engaging pieces, spanning the idiosyncratic and figurative to the formal and abstraction. Playpaint, Ruth Philo and others work in the latter category. Lee Knott’s ‘Hide and Seek’ celebrates sensual form, with a nod to Aubrey Beardsley.

Dominic Blower produces strong dissertations on the formal/figuartive into semi-abstraction. He uses colour well.

Anna Courcha makes assemblages; painting and drawing are melded with material elements – a theme which seems to run through the exhibition. Christopher Tree’s image suggests marquetry, whilst we glimpse human form.

Dan Davis presents a ‘Lucky Topiary Cat’ (and other things) I’d prefer not to stroke, likewise with Alan Dedman’s ‘Petra‘.

The possibility of being bitten is echoed in Euan Stewart’s superbly worked woodcut. Amanda Benson’s sculpture looks edible, like sponge cake and icing.

As if making art isn’t hard enough, Dedman offers two further weighty pieces on galvanised steel – from his Bums and mad dogs series. ‘Portrait of a boy‘ is an assemblage including a 40mm canon shell.

‘Bum’ is a transliteration of an academic drawing made in the life room at the Royal Academy Schools.

Perhaps the most important element, is the people who come to and are associated with studio1.1. It was great to discuss assemblages with Anna Courcha plus hear how Peter Sylveiere argued with Peter Blake at St. Martins in 1967.

Two St. Martins alumni, Johnathan Gibbon and Julian Wakeling came along as did Chris Finch, formerly from GYCAD and Maidstone. What is it Guy Clark sings?

This Year’s Model ’25 (part one) runs until the 2nd of February.
The gallery is open Thursday through to Sunday 12 – 5pm. It is at: 57a, Redchurch Street, London E2 7DJ.

Most works are for sale. If you are interested in purchasing an artwork (and you are at studio1.1) call out or look beyond the back wall of the area below the steps.
Hog
Who is the ugly old duffer in the red coat? Looks like a wrong’un!
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A bit bonkers about bagels, if I recall correctly ….