Eco?

This one is quite close to my heart as i spent a fair amount of time in the area as a child. Edward Iliffe has been granted permission to build on Green Island. Nothing against the decision, or the building particularly, just the fact is being pre-fabed in Canada. What? No chance of using one of the hundreds of brilliant Green builders in the West Country? Using local materials? Totally in tune with the immediate environment? Very stupid indeed.

Last Minute

Meant to do this ages ago but it slipped my mind. Rob Vialle, whom i shared a workshop with for years started making a Bass Marimba for a friend of his, Max, some 18 months ago (if not more). Rob is an amazing cabinet maker, but the Marimba took him well out of his comfort zone. For one, they are huge, and secondly, they are very complicated and finely balanced machines. Anyway, after months of tinkering, tuning, retuning, construction, head straching.....and more head stratching, its done! And Max is playing it TONIGHT. Not sure if there are any tickets left, but try, its sounds brilliant.
(Hope it all goes super, good and well)

Yinka Shonibare

I am going to jump the gun on this one and get it in early as i feel this is going to get a whole lot of interest when it appears, on the 24th May. I was fortunate enough to design and make the furniture for Yinka Shonibare's new studio last year, working with (the brilliant) Ann-Marie Pena. All the work is  finely considered and meticulously constructed, and the i can't wait to see the new Fourth Plinth sculpture in the flesh. Its a very large object, but obviously most of it is transparent, so the impact it has will be interesting to see. I am guessing it will be big.

Michael Johansson

Free standing furniture commissions are unfortunately less frequent than fitted projects, probably due to the fact that these days we have some much stuff and very little space to put it all. Michael Johansson explores the nature of our ever increasing objects and the fitted/freestanding dilemma in the most interesting way. In trying to make sense of what it is, and why we possess it, Johansson creates arrangements of things that are far, far greater than the sum of their parts. Check out the site fully if you have time. This is serious work, totally real but highly imaginative, executed immaculately. I am all over it.

Dionisio Gonzalez

Super interesting, and intelligent, imagined architecture from Dionisio Gonzalez. Gonzalez's work....."is not just artistic or theoretical commentary – it is a semi-concrete vision for the possible restructuring of shanty towns. He has imagined and proposed a reuse of the spontaneous constructive elements of the existing structures in mass settlements to create controlled hybrid-but-functional communities of the future."
"The artist’s critique and proposal are based on his observation of the slash-and-burn tactics of the Brazilian government which, when it intervenes, simply swoops in and sweeps areas before rebuilding utterly – at the expense of the shared structural history of an area that might not be ideal but is what many people call home."

Bram Boo

I am sure i had mentioned Bram Boo before, but had a quick look through and i can't seem to find the post so i will try again. He is very interested in emotion and personality in furniture, although function is of huge importance as well. I really like the concept of these dog like benches, barking at passers by, from the inside of the Brussels Parliament.

Opening Closing

When i was living in Peckham, (admittedly some time ago),  the creative population was huge, but so underground, it was literally living in the sewers. Of course there was, (and still is, Camberwell College), but there were so few places for Graduates to show their wares. In the nineties, the Peckham Palais, beautifully situated at the top of the Rye Lane, was a building i liked, but certainly not somewhere i ever dreamt of going, but now i think very differently. It about to open its door as arts biased music and performance venue, and i very much hope it takes off - big time. Its a brilliant area, and the latest incarnation of the Palais can only be a good, good thing.
Going in the other direction, and soon to close is Trio, at the Rocket Gallery, before a new, pure painting show, opens at the start of May. Go see, its (always) worth it.
(Also liking the blue sky/yellow colour combination)