BIO

ALAA SHASHEET

Alaa Shasheet is a contemporary painter and printmaker based in London, UK. He studied Fine Arts at Damascus University before leaving Syria to pursue a Master's degree in International Contemporary Art in Malaysia. During his time in Malaysia, he explored Southeast Asian art and culture. Alaa then moved to the UK and is currently a full-time artist and photographer based in Camden.

The artwork features strong and bold forms on its surface, reflecting an expression of "the feelings of everyday life." Shasheet uses a mix of media including sand, cement, charcoal, pastel, pencil, gesso, varnish, shellac, Chinese ink, and acrylic paint to create a rough surface with a variety of textures and details. These details can be observed once one takes a closer look at the artwork.

Inspired by his background in printmaking, Shasheet uses blacks and greys to hold the composition. The background is full of small childish lines and scribbles that embody a philosophy of contrast and create a sense of balance and harmony in the artwork. As Shasheet sees it, the colour black is strong, elegant, direct, and clear, with a striking visual element which one can see immediately; but is hard to control, so the artist's role is to give it value and balance with the right contrast.

BIO

J J CAMPBELL

Is a internationaly aclaimed cameraman. Who has worked in all aspects of film & Tv.
He is curently a freelance operator & able to work in any form of media he choses, from promo's to
wildlife photography.
Each project he undertakes, however diverse allows him to bring the same amount of attention to detail & creative flair he is famous for.

SANDRA ZANETTI

PERFORMANCE ARTIST

Sandra Zanetti is an artist whose practice spans performance, sound, installation, video, and painting. Their carefully orchestrated pieces, composed of suggestion and symbol, reveal cyclical patterns within a variety of formalistic tendencies within our fabricated society by delving into the omnipresence of both micro and macro power dynamics our world and the self are built in response to. The most recent project the artist has undertaken involves training as a boxer in London with a coach from Brooklyn in real life after the dissolution of a fraught relationship. Zanetti has been performing live violent situations in their studio under the name, Sandy “Chicago Steel” Barbella. The goal of this work is to reevaluate forcibly submissive positions within the prevailing dynamics within the artist's personal life and relationships. The finale of the work premieres at Central Saint Martin's on June 25, 2024. Scan here to RSVP:

CATRIONA GRAY

INCISENTAL ABUNDANCE

The Celebrated Camden Photograhic Artist

Catriona Gray is a Kentish Town-based experimental photographic artist working with slow analogue processes that explore the physical nature of the photographic surface. This body of work uses hardy street weeds - the survivors, the punks, the anarchists of the plant world - to make camera-less photographic work. She teaches alternative photographic processes at Darkroom London on Marsden Street NW5.

PREVIOUS EXHIBITION

BIO

JOLENE LEON

Jolene Liam is an artist and an architect from Singapore. She currently lives and works in London. Jolene believes that the spaces we inhabit and the objects we collect reveal a lot about us; expressions of our identities, habits & personalities, Through drawing and making in different mediums, her work reflects on ideas of home, nature and identity.

'Summer in Winter' is a collection of works on paper about exploring new places and rediscovering familliar ones. Drawings in oil and pastel are made on location and from observation, using mark-marking to map out the experience of being in a particular place. Vibrant monotypes depicting abstracted imagined landscapes embrace uncertainty and happy accidents that occur during the print making process. with this exhibition, Jolene and Spring up Gallery hope to bring a splash of colour to the street during the winter months.

Jolene is currently participating in the Off-Site Program at Turps Art School, after studying at
'The Bigger Picture,' a post graduate fine art course at the Essential School of painting . Before this she practiced as an architect at Studio Egret West and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, having completed her training at the National University of Singapore. Technishes Universiat Munchen and the University of Westminster,

Jolene's work has been shortlisted for several awards including the Trinity Buoy Warf Drawing prize. Art Gemini Prize, World illustration Awards, Art Edit Self - Represented Artist Award and Royal Institute of British Architects, Eye Line Drawing Competition. She has also exhibited at the Royal Scottish Acadamy Annual Exhibition, The Royal watercolour Society open, and the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair. Her drawings have been featured in several issues of the RIBA Journal, an architecture magazine published by the royal Institute of British Architects.

HEATHER BLOCKEY

Heather Blockey has been a creative maverick since graduating from the London College of Fashion in the 1980s. First working as a wig maker and stylist, her sculptural designs were featured in The Observer and in windows such as Liberty, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and in New York and other high fashion stores internationally. She went on to further her art practice in black/white photography at Camden's Working Men's College and later, Fine Art, at Byam Shaw/Central St Martins UAL working in sculpture, installation and painting.

In the last ten years Heather's blending of art and social conscience turned towards photojournalism and her arresting photographs were soon being published in such titles as The Guardian and Vogue.

This show at Spring Up gallery keeps her close to home with abstract painterly images taken in and around Camden and Kentish Town.

BIO ALAA SHASHEET

SANDRA ZANETTI PERFORMANCE ARTIST

CATRIONA GRAY INCISENTAL ABUNDANCE