I'm very proud, excited and nervous to announce that my MASKS show will be going to Berlin for the Pictoplasma festival. The show will be part of the Character Walk that runs over the whole festival from the 11th until the 15th April and MASKS will be exhibited at Berlin Weekly. I'll also be giving a talk at .HBC as part of the Character Lab talks and workshops (you can read more about the other speakers HERE).
The MASKS show has been expand a bit from the London show at Nobrow last September. New collaborative work with my Father, Colin Newman and the ever fantastic, Felt Mistress will be on show for the first time. Here are some sneak previews.
On Thursday 15th September, Masks opened to the general public and the launch night was a blast. Thank you to everyone who attended and a special thanks to Sam and Al at Nobrow for hosting the event, Adrian, James, Natasha, Ann Lou and Joe for being such stars helping me ready the show, Nick White and Laura Beckett for looking after me in their lovely home all week, Sahar Freemantle for her beautiful hats, Felt Mistress for the incredible and gigantic felt versions of Mr Fish, Taimatsu Maru and Neko Mata from the Bento Bestiary and lastly, my father, Colin Newman for the fantastic work he put into making the Masks come to life in 3D. Hopefully this is just the first of many projects with him in the future. The prints from the show are available from Nobrow. Below are some pictures from the night and some press reviews I've found from around the interwebs.
As the show is a part of the London Design Festival it has been gaining some great press. Here are some snippets and quotes.
"Newman’s evocation of primitivism, however, is also layered with a retroactive sense of futuristic fascination. Weird, wily faces are composed with a repetitive mechanical energy reminiscent of Italian Futurism, the graphic rigor of Russian Constructivism and the clunky horror of nineteen-fifties American science-fiction monsters in a faded pulp comic palette. Symmetry offers no solace in these images, at once remarkable reminders of the highly organized aesthetics of the uncivilized and machined abstractions of ritualistic horror."
During the last week of August, I was fortunate enough to be asked to fly out to Dublin and join nine other artists in the ABSOLUT VIS10NS project which was being curated by The Small Print. I was part of a team of very talented folk from a wide scope of the creative spectrum. We all had to customise an 8ft fibre glass Absolut vodka bottle each and we all had a blast. I'd like to say a huge thank you to Absolut, the fantastic Small Print crew and all the awesome creatives for making my week in Dublin so incredible. Below are some shots of my final bottle design (you can see the full set of bottles HERE on the Creative Review website).
Here is a shot of me working on the bottle in the final stages. Finally, here is a great 7 minute mini-documentary about the creation of the bottles and footage from the launch night which we were all flown out to on the 7th September. FYI, I'm the one who keeps waving all the time.
Artists included in the project were Ben Newman (UK) / BRENB (IRL) / Celestine Cooney (IRL) / DALEK (US) / Linda Brownlee (IRL) / Mario Sughi (ITA) / Niels Shoe Meulman (NL) / Rilla Alexander – RINZEN (OZ) / Steve Alexander – RINZEN (OZ) / The London Police (UK)
Here are the first glimpses of two of the three 3D masks that I have collaborated on with my father for the MASKS show (Facebook users can RSVP here) that opens on the 15th September in London at the Nobrow gallery. The show will run until the 11th November. My Dad and I talked at length about how to get these image to work three dimensionally and with a spot of elbow grease, luck and determination, I am pleased to say that I couldn't be happier with the end results. My Pops has really out done himself. He cut, drilled and chiseled the wood perfectly and it was up to me to paint and varnish the buggers. Just a few tweaks left and then they will be back at his work space for gluing before they are shipped to London for hanging. Exciting times.See here for exhibition details during the London Design Festival.
September 15th marks the opening of my new solo show 'Masks' at the Nobrow Gallery in London which will feature my mask designs from the last six months. The show opens just in time for London Design Festival and you can read more details on their website by clicking HERE. To make the event even more special I have enlisted the help of some very talented friends. In fact one of the collaborations is with my Father, Colin Newman but more details and pictures of that project nearer to the exhibition.
With the show just over a month and a half away, I can contain myself no longer as I'm very, very, very excited to preview photos of my collaboration with the extremely talented and very lovely, Felt Mistress. This is a dream project for me as back in 2008, I was exhibiting alongside Felt Mistress in a Christmas show and completely fell in love with her monsters and her ability to visualise and create these incredible beasts in three dimensions and only using felt! Anyway, three years later and to much anticipated excitement, I've finally gotten to team up with her and the results are amazing. Felt Mistress is creating three Yokai from my book, The Bento Bestiary (which is available to buy HERE) and today you can see sneak preview shots of the terrifying Taimatsu Maru. YEAH!This bad boy even has a big blue tail. SHAZAM! Boy oh boy, he is a handsome devil!
A big Thank you to Jorge Alderete fo asking me to take part in Pinatarama at the Vertigo Gallery in Mexico. Here is the press blurb for the show.
The piñata’s associated with the Latino culture, but historians point to Asia (especially China) as its actual point of origin. It’s supposed that the famous traveler Marco Polo’s visit to that nation, he saw how the Chinese created colorful animal figures covered with paper, which is hung with ornaments, and were used in the New Year celebrations. As a good observer, Polo brought Europe the idea of these early piñatas. Although housed in various regions of their religious significance, today, is considered a symbol of fun and entertainment.
Between contemporary design of characters and this popular tradition the project aims to let ourselves be surprised by the unexpected results arising from the interpretation of these characters by Mexican artisans who made them. And give the viewer a particular facility where the 30 piñatas “design” reflect the contemporary look of mixtures, juxtaposition and appropriation, in this case an object culturally ingrained in Latin America. Mexican artisans Ricardo Linares and Lorenzo García will be constructing the piñatas based on the designs of 25 worldwide artists including Cupco, Cecy Meade, Apak, S.britt, Snaggs, Tado, David Gamez, Gaston Caba, Sonni, and many more!
Who is that dapper sea creature? It's the Mr Fish Dude Piñata! Here is a picture of more of the Pinatas. Go to nfgraphics to see a whole host of great photos of the show.
Also, I recently set up a facebook page so feel free to join up here for sneak previews of projects before I post them on this blog.
Opening from the 5th February until the 7th March, 'The Museum of Small Things' is being held at Ultralounge inside Selfridges, London, and it is one hell of a show. Here is the skinny on the exhibition.
The Museum of Small Things will inspire visitors to open wide their eyes and to slowly look, and then look again, at the world they inhabit. M.O.S.T. will house priceless gems too subtle to compete with the show-stopping technology of the modern world. Modest masterpieces under-valued in cultures where biggest is better and mega, if achievable, is best, will be centre-stage. The variety on display in this museum will dynamically demonstrate how the lines between all forms of visual expression have become blurred. Exhibits range across images, objects, moving pictures, ideas, detritus and treasures.
I was asked to design a Deity mask that would be built for the exhibition by the extremely talented Felix Wentworth. Here is Porporpeius himself, the drug addled half-brother of Neptune, god of water and air, bodiless and pathetic!
Here is the legend of Porporpeius.
One of the little-known God Deitys of water and air is Porporpeius, who you may remember from his booming music career during the Blues revival of the 1960s. Heavy drug use and a failed suicide attempt during the late 1970s drove Porporpeius to confront his half-brother Neptune about his rights to the Kingdom of Atlantis. Unfortunately, Porporpeius fell off the wagon just before this confrontation and after causing a dreadful scene at Neptune's son's birthday party, Neptune decided to sever Porporpeius' head and hide his body in the darkest depths of the sea. For the past 40 years, the bodiless Porporpeius has been strung out on cheap liquor and cheaper drugs, searching every square inch of the Earth for his missing body but to no avail.
Whilst at the preview for the show, I made a film of how the mask is viewed because I couldn't do it justice with just a photograph.
The photos below are to demonstrate how amazing Felix's skills are and to help give a better impression of the depth and layering of the mask.
I'd like to say a big thank you to Ali, Valentina and Nicola at Pocko and Kit Grover for the huge amount of energy and time they put into making the show look so incredible and also, for asking me to take part in it.
Roll up, roll up! Thats right folks, you can pre-order the first ever Nobrow vinyl figurine designed by moi (er..me) and available exclusively from the Nobrow website. This sexy chunk of plastic is a limited edition of 50 which will never be made in the same way again! It will also be presented in a sumptuous silk screened printed box which I will hand sign and edition ready for it's release on the 12th February. Holy Nizzle Whizzle! Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks for the launch of a few more super exciting projects which I have been working on for the past couple of months. Gidee-up!
(Please note that the toy box in the picture above is not the final design and is for advertising purposes only)
POCKOSHKO opens this weekend exhibiting across all 3 Magma stores as part of London Design Week. The show involves 20 international Pocko artists and will showcase a set of Russian dolls by various Pocko illustrators including Paul Bower, Tabas, Kinpro, James Braithwaite and many others. Above is the full set of my dolls that will be exhibited. It's nice to see them together at last.
The first batch of these dolls were jinxed and were sadly stolen whilst on route to London (boo hiss). The good news is that the second batch look heaps better. I didn't photograph the first set and wish that I had so I made an effort to document these just incase I never see them again. These dolls will be showcased along with the big daddy doll (who is currently on holiday at the Pocko gallery in Milan, you can see him here in a previous blog post) and a whole host of super fine Pocko artists at the London Design Festival. The show will take place at Magma in Clerkenwell, London starting from the 19th September until the 19th October, and then they will cross the pond to the Big Apple for another exhibition. I'm going to try and figure out how I can fit in the these dolls so that I can go too!
September 15th marks the opening of my 
