The collection will feature an array of A5 artwork postcards by 22 Japanese artists, many of whom lost family and friends when the disaster struck. The works intend to offer visitors a stark insight into the grace and resilience of the Japanese spirit and the exhibition is curated by Hirinori Katagiri and Kate Thompson, two respected fundraisers who were working in Tohoku when the earthquake hit North East Japan on 11th March 2011.

The inspiration behind the exhibition’s works comes from the detrimental effect the tsunami had on Japan’s communication channels; where many landlines, mobile phone networks and internet services went down, forcing the Japanese people to depend on the country’s postal service as their primary method of communication, in many cases to report news of survival or death to loved ones.

Postcards From Japan – A Message From Tohoku Artists
Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Birmingham, West Midlands B1 2HS
15 February – 22 April 2012

Image credit:
Shigenobu Yoshida (1958–), Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture
Light Bird, 2011
Acrylic on acrylic board
5 3/4 x 8 1/4 in. (14.8 x 21 cm)

Words: Jon Price

It starts Saturday 7th with a launch event between 2-4pm and the show will run for 6 weeks.

Go check it out!

However our visit wasn’t just about sampling tasty noodles (which they really are) but to check out the work of local graffiti artist Glenn Anderson. Inconspicuously placed around the busting restaurant the pieces by Anderson adorn several walls. A face on the street art scene his work can be spotted all over the city as one of the must-call people for a wall piece or mural.

Wagamama teamed up with Moniker Art Fair (the street-art fair based in London taking place during October) to choose a selection of artists to adorn the walls of the restaurants up and down the country.

“Wagamama wanted to give a platform and free funding to these emerging artists and bring their art to the masses, as it wouldn’t normally be seen. By working with Moniker art fair to take this out of the traditional gallery space, they are creating an alternative street art movement which is more mainstream.”

Anderson’s pieces were a different take to the characters we recognise him for. For this installation he’d opted to present some smaller collage-based framed paper pieces that included his signature characters surrounded by abstract patterns and animals. Another piece looks like a flat totem made from, we think, a skateboard and brooms.

Along with the wall pieces whichever city you choose to dine you’ll get to see other work by the 9 artists on the place mats.

The pieces will be on display until the 20th November so you’ve got a few days to check them out.

Artists involved in the artandeat project
Remirough (London and Cardiff), Holly Thoburn (London), Patriciaellis (London), Inkie (Bristol), Malarky (Newcastle), Matt Sewell (Manchester), Pam Glew (Brighton), Mark Lyken (Glasgow) and Glenn Anderson (Birmingham)

Our favourite Wagamama eats:
Duck Gyoza – 5 deep-fried tasty and succulent duck dumplings with a delicious spicy cherry hoi sin sauce

Chicken Raisukaree – Tender marinated Chicken breast stir-fried in a coconut and lime curry sauce with mangetout, peppers, red and spring onions, fresh ginger and garlic. Served on sticky white rice and garnished with red chillies, coriander and lime.

Chilli Squid – Tender and soft deep-fried squid seasoned with sea salt and shichimi (japanese chilli pepper) served with a chilli, garlic and coriander dipping sauce.

Stephen invited independent, artists and producers from the cultural industries, based in or associated with Birmingham, to appear in the paintings and asked them to choose one of the scenarios.

When he approached team Fused (image above) to take part we scoured the book and opted for this ‘Jab to the Eyes’ pose – we must have been on deadline! We were also allowed to choose the colour. A few photo’s, one sitting later and, we’re sure, painstaking hours of time by Stephen, and the results will be seen as part of Ikon Gallery’s Autumn Almanac from the 17th – 20th November.

Other practitioners featured are Ian and Pippa Francis of 7 Inch Cinema, artist duo Juneau Projects, writer and curator Matt Price (pictured above), artist Tom Ranahan, the Founding Directors of artist-led space Eastside Projects and a self-portrait.

“I approached each of the subjects and asked them to look through the book and choose a particular illustration that they were attracted to. I offered a limited range of colours to choose from and only permitted myself to add white to the body of the chosen colours. These monochrome paintings are transcriptions and re-enactments of the illustrations found in the book”. Explains Stephen. “The book’s role is to inform the reader of how to be self-sufficient in difficult circumstances, an important quality for anyone involved in the cultural industries, a precarious life with no clear career paths or financial certainty”.

Showing Thursday 17 November – Sunday 20 November, 11am – 6pm at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (Second Floor Galleries). Free admission.

There are a series of events taking place for the Autumn Almanac:

Oliver Beer – The Resonance Project: Pay and Display
17-20 November, First Floor Galleries
In June 2010 artist Oliver Beer worked with Ikon and singers from Ex Cathedra to create a sound piece at Pershore Street Car Park in Birmingham.

Ikon Posters
17-20 November, Second Floor Galleries
Specially selected by Ikon’s Director, Jonathan Watkins, these posters assert the breadth of artistic talent featured at Ikon during the last eleven years.

7 Inch Cinema – 17.11.11,
Thursday 17 November, 7-10pm
£3 on the door (Or free if it’s your birthday. Proof required)
An evening of short films and music, taking place on and inspired by the seventeenth of November.

Moseley Folk Festival – Treetop Flyers
Friday 18 November, 7.30pm – 10.30pm
£4 plus booking fee from www.moseleyfolk.co.uk or £6 on the door
. Five-piece Treetop Flyers recently earned themselves a slot at Glastonbury’s prestigious Other Stage after winning the Emerging Talent Competition earlier this year.

Celebrating Sanctuary Birmingham – Crossroad Collision
Saturday 19 November, 2-3pm
Free, Donations welcome
Celebrating Sanctuary Birmingham harnesses the arts to raise awareness of the contributions that refugees make to the UK, and in particular to the city of Birmingham.

Slow Boat Sessions
Saturday 19 November, 7.30-10pm
£5 on the door
In September, Ikon Youth Programme’s (IYP) Slow Boat hosted a series of performances by local musicians, embarking on a journey of sound along Birmingham’s canals.

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Sunday 20 November, 2-4pm
Free
BCMG gives a rare performance of all 34 of Luciano Berio’s Duetti for two violins, with a sprinkling of solo pieces by composers including Howard Skempton and Oliver Knussen.

Capsule present Andrew Moscardo-Parker and the ensemble Ore
Sunday 20 November, 8-11pm
£6 (available via www.theticketsellers.co.uk and on the door)
Andrew Moscardo-Parker performs as Lash Frenzy, exploring the action of playing, turning performances into immersive, participatory events.

You’re from Rubery, and I’m from Rubery, and I’ve got to say that not once have I been like ‘Shit, that’s definitely the flyover!’ eyeing one of your landscapes. If anything, a lot of your stuff seems to have an East Asian or Aztec kind of influence (when it’s earthly at all). Do you think there’s actually something inspiring about coming from an ostensibly hugely uninspiring place? Like you have to create your own somewhere beautiful and not grey?
First of all, I still haven’t been abroad. I know for a lot of people that’s the equivalent of me saying I’ve never yawned. However I think it’s had a huge bearing on my work… the rest of the world to me is truly alien. France is as real to me as Narnia. So I have other worlds just beyond the horizon that I’ve only read about, or seen in films, that I’m told definitely exist. Then that kind of blurs with all the fictional places I’ve read about which are alien too, so when I draw, it’s the resultant mix of all of that. Rubery is just on the outskirts of Brum where grey brick scum metal suddenly hits the solitude of green fields and hills, and I’m fond of that proximity between nature and society, but I definitely feel like I’m drawing largely from childhood memories of British coastal towns a lot of the time, but ones that’ve become overrun by every demigod or culture you’ve never heard of. I do love the local countryside like Lickey, Waseley, Clent and Malvern and it has been massively inspiring to me, but then I think there’s something about the way Victorian artists used the sudden influx of eastern art being injected into their lives allowing them to change and evolve things that I want to rip off, so I don’t stick to just forests and hills. With the internet, there’s no excuse not to start mixing all types of influences from the furthest reaches of the globe with the kinds of things I enjoy drawing already and it’s a privilege to be able to do that.

A lot of your work also features a range of these phenomenal bizarro human/animal/nothing that officially exists hybrid characters with no bones and wearing fezzes and stuff. Do they have whole stories? And do you dream them?
When I was younger, between 11 and 16, I filled books with pages and pages of character bios. There would be a picture of the character (none of which were human. I guess mainly because my favourite cartoons often focused on mutants, robots or jumbo jets with faces) and then a very brief description of their names, abilities and allegiances. The main character was a ninja bee. I suddenly found that after I’d filled a book, I’d started creating a universe of sorts, one that I had complete control over and is the same one I draw my personal work from today. So innocent doodling turned into a minor god complex. I think I still have that feeling now when I see a studio Ghibli film or play a Final Fantasy game… ‘I want a book with ALL of this beautiful information in it, in one place, collected’ and though I can have that, with books or the internet, it’s more fun and completist to author my own, mixing parts of things I like. I don’t dream about them during the night, they’re more daydream things I guess. Things that I see when I put my imagination filter on or just put pen to paper. A world that’s as true as any one I’ve read about. Parts of their stories and histories come out when people ask about them and I think about them before I fall asleep. They all have origins and connections for me as I’ve grown up with them and stayed faithful to their world.
So who and what are your artistic influences in music and film and literature and the rest of the world, as well as in art?
So many… Okay, the first handful that come to mind and in no particular order: Tove Jansson, Aubrey Beardsley, William Morris, Alan Moore, Katsuhiro Otomo, Hayao Miyazaki, Johnny Foreigner, Grant Morrison, David Attenborough, David Bohm, Jeff Jordan, Reggie Pedro, Shigeru Miyamoto, Storm Thorgerson, Roger Hargreaves, Gustav Doré, Stewart Lee, Peter Venkman, Hermes Trismegistus.

Have you considered doing a graphic novel or a children’s book?
It seems wise.
Absolutely. They’re both high priority. Though both I’ve found a lot harder to do well than I’d imagined they would be. I just haven’t got the skills there yet to nail the ideas I’ve been having for both, but I have faith I’ll get there. I found an Aesop’s fables book, illustrated by Walter Crane that is definitely close to something I’d like to do. I think I’ve spent the last few years learning what I need, and drawing as much as I can, so I can produce something I’m happy with and proud of. That’s the side-effect of constantly finding new influences and having perceptions changed by art, is that you’re constantly having to update your work to fit with your mindset. Constantly trying to better the last piece…So I’ve found when I draft a first page, by the time I get to the third I hate the first and am rapidly going off the second. I’m getting better though, and hopefully I’ll get some help soon.

You’ve done a whole load of artwork for bands and gigs and things, most prolifically for Johnny Foreigner and This Is Tomorrow. Did you always see your work being used for musical projects or did it just happen that way?
I always used to mess around on mspaint making pretend album sleeves for my favourite bands. They were pretty dreadful, but I always had fun messing with logos, photos and colours, creating different moods to suit the music. Reggie Pedro was a massive influence early on, because his painting was so eye-explodingly good, and I was lucky enough to talk to him a few times before he sadly died. He was hugely talented and very positive about my work and it was seeing his posters for Gomez on walls near my house that made me realise album art was important and that the artwork alone could make you buy an album, or entire discography, as I ended up collecting all the singles and promos as art objects more than anything. I used to collect books by Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis too, and though they featured little illustration in their finished work, the symbolism, obsession with metaphor, technique and sheer scale was attractive to me. Music and art naturally sit well together and I’ve always enjoyed both drawing and listening to music, so it seemed inevitable really, in retrospect, that I would end up doing gig posters and album art at some point.
I hear a lot of people bellyaching about the lack of a cohesive music scene in Birmingham, though I get the impression that it’s at least a bit more accessible and inclusive than any similar art or literary scene. Do you feel part of an art scene? Or would you consider yourself more as part of the music scene anyway? Or is it reductive or destructive to treat these ‘scenes’ as separate or important or existent at all?
This is a hard question for me to answer. I risk making myself sound like an uninformed idiot, but I’ll be honest, I don’t get scenes. I don’t understand what a scene is. I don’t know if a scene is a good or bad thing. I go to the occasional gig and exhibition, but I feel I know very little about what’s going on in my city, art and music-wise, though I get the impression gigs have drastically improved in quality and consistency recently. I get that musicians and artists want to feel like they belong to a local movement of some sort, so if ever there’s a retrospective book collecting everything from that’ scene’, they’ll be included…but it seems a limiting concept in that it creates an Us and a Them as well. All I know is, about 4 years ago I thought Birmingham had Jasper Carrot, Ocean Colour Scene, Ozzy and Noddy Holder to be proud of and little else, which was quite depressing. Though that may’ve been down to ignorance on my part, now I feel there is lots more, music-wise especially, from Birmingham to be proud of.

Do you have any kind of general mission statement for what you want your art to be?
I just want it to be useful. No one knows what their art will become. I doubt Joseph Ducreux contemplated rap or memes when he was painting away. But I feel everything important becomes useful and vice versa. Some people say one of art’s defining features is that it serves no practical purpose. My nice picture won’t bring your cat back to life or help you get that mortgage payment down. But it is an expression of how much fun I can have with just thoughts in my head, a pen and paper. Even if in 200 years time someone remembers a picture I drew and it gives them the idea for a type of curve they should use in the bonnet of their parallex space-time folding escape vehicle for the last survivors of the human race, I’d have done my part. It won’t do that, but it could lead to anything, and it may lead to something good. At least it stands a chance once it’s outside the confines of my head. In simpler terms I’d like my art to help show people the exits and that an enjoyment of the world and maintenance of childhood wonder can be created with just a pen and paper.

Some of your new work I’ve spied is incredible and also quite different to the style that most people know you for, eclectic as that is within itself. Was it a conscious decision to do some different kinds of things or just a natural artistic progression? And WHATEVER’S NEXT?
Thank you. It’s weird, I like both learning new techniques and focusing on a uniform and recognisable style. Hopefully I do both simultaneously and they’re changing noticeably but not dramatically. It also goes round in waves, in that I find myself returning to things after learning in a particular field for a time. I always used to draw with pencils, then I realised I could use the pencil to perfect an ink-line over the top and then erase the pencil. After a time of doing that, I realised my pencil drawing had naturally changed to fit the needs of the ink. So I thought; what happens now if I remove the ink? And my pencil style had indeed changed for the better, as it now incorporated two styles instead of just one, which sounds like quite a mathematical and logical artistic progression to me. Trends go round in circles, changing ever-so-slightly each time, and it’s a comfortable way to grow, so hopefully I’ll keep doing stuff that’s recognisably me, but constantly bringing new things back from itself.

As for what’s next, the aforementioned compendium of all things ‘my head’ is definitely going to go off. More This Is TMRW stuff, which I really enjoy as it’s a good parallel to my personal work. New prints next month; hopefully my first exhibition; a Dusseldorf based project involving limited tees, prints and stickers; new Johnny Foreigner album; Pandas and People E.P. and a couple of supersuper-exciting maybethings that I don’t want to jinx. Plus, I want to make toys. Mighty Max style.

LOOK here…
LOOK AND READ here…
BUY here…

Words: Eve Philips

For her first solo show in the Danielle Arnaud gallery, Tessa Farmer has created a series of free standing works, involving detailed mises-en-scene that capture fairies (made from plant roots and insect parts) and hornets in ferocious battles.

Born in 1978 in Birmingham, Tessa has received BFA and MFA from the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University. She was also selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2004 and played Artist in Residence at The Natural History Museum, London in 2007. Her previous exhibitions include Dead or Alive at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York.

Tessa Farmer will exhibit her piece Nymphidia, 20th May – 26th June
Danielle Arnaud Contemporary Art
123 Kennington Road, London SE 116SF.

Tessa will also be showing at the Crypt Gallery from 26th May as part of a collaboration with Amon Tobin for the release of his new album ISAM: Control over Nature.

RC

Project Pigeon has been busy breeding pigeons since February 14th (romantic ay?), ready for the 2011 young bird racing season. They now have 29 racing pigeons, each a potential winner and each looking for sponsorship.

Two lucky members of last year’s syndicate (unfortunately not Sly & Robbie) took home a massive £4.60 and an official certificate, so get sponsoring now and who knows what you could win!

Project Pigeon also has 10 Birmingham Rollers available for sponsorship. These Pigeons were selectively bred by a Hall Green bus driver in the early 1900’s, after he saw one of his pigeons back-flip in the sky. He then bred this trait into his birds to create the Birmingham Roller.

Last year we interviewed Co-Curators Alex Lockett and Ian England discuss their pigeon fancier project.

Membership is £20 per year. You can see photos of the pigeons on the website here.

Email projectpigeondigbeth [@] gmail.com once you’ve decided which pigeon to support.

20 year old Harriet Shephard from Worcestershire, aka Alana, is flying the flag for skater girls everywhere with her impressive zine ‘Brash’, showcasing artwork of her own as well as other emerging artists and interviewing skaters, illustrators and anyone else who takes her fancy.

Harriet is currently in her second year of an illustration degree at Camberwell College (part of the University of the Arts London) and creates the zine in her spare time as well as personal art projects and skateboarding.

Fused caught up with Harriet to chat about the new issue of Brash which has evolved from a black and white photocopy to a skillfully screen-printed booklet full of great illustration.

Hi Harriet, do you mind us using your real name? Also, who is Alana?
Yeah you can use my real name, I’m not a Banksy or anything. Alana is my middle name (Alannah on my birth certificate), I use it as a sort of alter ego/pseudonym type thing and it’s kinda stuck now. I get called Alana at the skatepark sometimes which never fails to surprise me. I think it’s because people generally forget names but if they’ve received a zine from me it’ll have ‘alanasartwork.blogspot.com’ on the back, so of course they’re gonna call me Alana.

What made you want to start a zine?
The simple answer to that is skateboarding. Through skating I have met so many creative individuals who make stuff and get it out there, including zines, and when I realised how easy it was I began drawing and photocopying my creations. I started with really shitty ones on A4 paper, folded and cut in a way to make a book format because they were so cheap to make and I have easy access to photocopiers at Uni; I just wanted to give them out to everybody! Not only does it get my artwork out there, but it’s just a nice thing to do (giving them away for free). Sometimes it can make someone’s day and they’re so stoked to receive a little zine of my crazy scribblings.

I have had occasions when I’ve given zines to skater kids and they handed me them back wondering “what’s a zine?” I shake my head in disbelief, “call yourself a skater and you don’t what a zine is?!” I jest at them and I have to tell them “no, you can keep it!”

I think it’s sad that a lot of kids that start skating don’t know what a zine is because skaters just don’t make them anymore. I mean, I know a few skaters who do, but they’re in the minority. Zine making was a big part of skateboarding years ago, they used to zine swap all the time and dudes used post stuff out to their bros if they lived far away from each other. That kinda shit is sick! It’s a shame making skate zines doesn’t come hand in hand with skateboarding so much these days. I guess that, along with all the positive reactions I got from my little zines, is what encouraged me to start making Brash, a ‘proper’ skate zine that I could potentially sell very cheaply. Initially, I still kept the format cheap and simple (double-sided A3 folded to A5) but packed a ridiculous amount of stuff into it including an interview with a skater, a drawing of Rodney Mullen, music I was currently listening to, info on tricks I was learning at the time and a comic strip about accidentally flashing my boob to Kevin ‘Spanky’ Long (Professional Skateboarder).
I was so stoked that I was able to sell it and went round a few skate parks, hollering at skaters to buy it and a lot of them did…well you can’t complain at 20p!

I am so stoked on skateboarding, it is insane how much it has changed my life. I’ve even got a paid job out of it.  I teach young people, predominately girls, to skate. I want to share my continuous excitement with everybody and a zine is definitely the best way to go about it. As I am a female skateboarder, that is going to have some influence on what content I put in my zines because, naturally, I want to promote girls in skateboarding and promote skateboarding to girls. My attitude to skating is that it’s a fun thing to do, it’s not a boys thing, it’s not a girls thing, it just so happens that boys gravitate towards it more and girls shy away from it, maybe because they might feel intimidated by the sheer amount of testosterone at their local skatepark. Through my drawings, comics, anecdotes, interviews and articles, I want to encourage girls to skate and overcome that initial intimidation, or, if anything, just do something rad and worthwhile. The main focus of Brash is skateboarding but in the latest issue I have other stuff relating to art and music which I hope will be inspiring to my readers as well as all the skate stuff.

So tell us more about the new issue…
I have managed to make issue two of Brash into something of a nice little publication as part of a recent Uni project, with a screen printed cover and colour print inside as well as ‘traditional’ photocopied goodness. I’m over the moon on how it’s turned out and I’m currently ‘getting it out there’ posting it out to various people within the creative and skateboarding industry. However, I can’t help that feel I’m ‘selling out’ even though that is actually a stupid thought! Because it is now more of a book format and so much more time, effort and money went into it, I am charging a lot more that issue one’s 20p. I was doubtful that anyone would want to buy one but have been pleasantly surprised that people have quite happily handed me over £2 in exchange for my printed goods. I plan for future issues to be cheaper because I want everybody to benefit, including pre-pubescent ’skate rats’ with no money.

Who would you like to interview in future zines?
Oh wow, so many people! I’m really lucky that I know so many people that would make perfect interviewing material for Brash. Because Brash is about skateboarding and art from my perspective and about the scene that I’m directly involved in, it makes sense to talk to people that fit into that. It’s more real and honest. I want to interview people who have maybe not had that much exposure, or if they have, reveal something more about them. I wanna interview as many lady shredders as I possibly can, not only give them more exposure, but to show other girls that we are out there; you just have to get more involved. I also aim to interview people in person, the good ol’ fashioned way with a Dictaphone. To me, that’s the best bit. I had so much fun when I interviewed Bunny Bissoux for issue two as we had a real nice chat about her work and how she got to where she is today. It means it’s genuine. However, if it’s just not feasible to do that, I do like to have at least met the person a few times. I really wanted to interview Georgie Winter (sponsored skater) but in the time I had, meeting up was just not gonna happen. But, because I know her and we’ve hung out and skated a few times it didn’t matter so much. I hate the idea of just emailing someone I’ve never met a bunch of questions for them to just reply to. It’s not an interview then, it’s a questionnaire.

Can we read Brash online?
You can’t read my zine online because the whole idea of it is to actually have something in your hand to physically hold and experience. Too many things are online now, like magazines, which is sad. It gets a bit depressing if a person’s main stimulation comes from a computer or iphone screen. It’s good to step away from that sometimes. I do have a web presence though where you can read about my zine activities and how to get your hands on one – alanasartwork.blogspot.com – It also features my artwork, skate videos and stuff I think is cool…treadmill cats…

Contact Harriet via her blog or Facebook page to request a copy of Brash.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Nick Walker, much like Banksy, is a celebrated pioneer of the British graffiti scene and has no shortage of famous fans. His shows are sell-out successes and buyers can often be found camping outside galleries to ensure a chance of purchasing one of his limited edition prints.

Fused went to the opening for Nicks new show “in God We Trust” and interviewed the artist on his work.

Canadian artist Ron Terada’s practice engages with themes of signage and although Who I Think I Am is his first European exhibition his work is no stranger to the West Midlands.

His illuminated ‘Stay Away from Lonely Places’ signage brightened up an otherwise dull rundown chapel on the corner of Digbeth’s Floodgate and Fazeley Street before the building was refurbed and turned in to the Fazeley Studio space.

The reproduction of texts drawn from street signage, popular music and advertising are a key theme in Terada’s work and this mix of painting, photography and sculpture will make up this exhibition at Ikon. Entering City of Vancouver (2003), a large-scale aluminium highway sign will be shown alongside a related series of advertisements and posters for group exhibitions of Vancouver-based artists.

Meanwhile Big Star (2003) is a neon reproduction of the logo of the mythic rock band of the same name, who themselves appropriated it from a local supermarket chain. Playing on the idea of fame and recognition, it corresponds to Soundtrack for an Exhibition (2000/2010), the latest in an ongoing series of mix-tapes that take music as another base for language and the soundtrack as the accompaniment to the ‘roadtrip’ of a traveling exhibition. The audience can take away free copies of the ‘mix-tape’ from Ikon, in limited edition vinyl album format.

Ron Terada – Who I Think I Am
Until16 May 2010
Ikon Gallery, Oozells Sq, Birmingham