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Artist Residence

Verdict: Art, jewellery, jam & cake

Art Exhibition - Free

Brighton Festival Fringe 10 - Artist Residence, Regency Square, Brighton – 1-23 May 2010 - 10.00 (20:00)

The Artist Residence, Brighton (c) Wendy Thomson 2010

The Artist Residence is an art exhibition inside a hotel. The hotel features art in every bedroom and displays a selection of art and crafts, with a cafe open to the public. The exhibition is in the hallway, two ground floor rooms; and artist-in-residence Gillian Westgate in the basement.

Hallway

2 large colourful paintings [c 60 cm x 90 cm high]. The canvas on the right (when facing into the hotel) features primary colours, a rainbow, circles, squares and other shapes, and people doing things in an abstract manner. There is something primary-school and Cubist about it. The canvas on the left is a big yellow oblong bordered in red, with dozens of blue-outlined faces: floating, detached faces without bodies. It evokes sad souls in a camp; blue and crowded together, slightly glum, spirits floating in a void. On the right side of the hallway is a tea display: a small round table with a red teapot, red cups and saucers, and a piled plate of scones with small pots of jam.

Room One

19 exhibits. The majority are paintings on canvas, plus an upholstered chair. Above a mantlepiece, the tea theme continues with a union jack teapot; sugar lumps in a small red bowl; four small pots of jam next to two small glass bottles of lemon-coloured lemonade; a three-tier white cake decorated with orange, yellow and blue starfish-shaped flowers, blue, orange and purple pebbles. Above the cake is a large picture with the same cake colours, but adding two shades of pink, a darker purple and a lighter blue. It looks like a woman's face in profile with a big hair-do transforming into a sea, volcano, sunset, waves mixed with curls and sunshine - cheery and bright, slightly psychedelic.

One wall has 5 pictures; 4 square and 1 rectangular. The 4 show tree branches in purple, blue and gold. The rectangular one features a full-size patchwork tree captioned My Neck of the Woods. Below is a table with flowers, photo frame, chintz flower-patterned teapot and cups - and a visitor comment book. On another wall, one of the pictures is a light-blue-and-black portrait. It could be a photograph of a woman with 1960s-style long hair, wearing a black waistcoat under naked, ample, dangling breasts. She is biting into what looks like an oversized playing card with a black-and-white death butterfly image, identical on both sides.

Room Two

Here are displays of crafts, clothes and jewellery. There's a serving-hatch for tea and cake orders; cakes are by Let Them Eat Cake. A clothes rail has individually-patterned short-length waistcoats by Kate D. There are handmade earrings; a table with pendants hanging from a bar; hand-made jewellery in little organza bags by The Teapot Club, who make tea-party- and military-inspired jewellery; a wicker hamper with red lining and crockery in the lid; a large two-dimensional cartoon-rabbit with green eyes; postcards by Mel Sheppard. Uzi Jet [60 wide x 30 long; stencil and spray-paint] on canvas is by artist Hutch: a black-and-grey 1950s child, surrounded by his smiling family, shoots down a modern plane with a rifle - humorous and a statement about modern terrorism and old-fashioned American family values.

Artist Credits: (alpha order): Artist - Amy Corcoran. Artist - Kate D (www.kated-designs.co.uk). Cakes - Let Them Eat Cake (www.letthemeatcake.gb.com). Artists - Amy and Sidonie - (www.theteapotclub.com). Artist - Gillian Westgate (gillianwestgate@yahoo.co.uk). Artist – Hutch (www.hutchpiece.co.uk). Artist - Mel Sheppard.

Company Credits: Company - The Artist Residence. Website - www.artistresidence.co.uk.

END

(c) Wendy Thomson 2010

reviewed Saturday 8 May 10 / Artist Residence, Brighton, UK

(review online 24 July 2010)

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