'Incognito' exhibition by Art Number 23

INCOG A RT EXHIBIT IO N

Incognito Kim Wan Ronald Gonzalez Hugo de Brett Jane Cornish Smith Mihaela Panaitescu Lisa O’Donnell Darryn Michael Sally Whelan Sarah Legender

23rd-28th February

Private View

Friday 23rd February 18.30 - 21.30

NITO Mia-Jane Harris Nina Manikin

Ruth Brenner Sarah J. Vaci

Video Artists: Simon Kloss

Alice Karveli

Ewelina Trejta

V2 3 - 1 0 0 Cl e m en ts R o ad , The Ol d Bis cuit F actory, Block F, SE16 4DG

IN GNIT Introduction

Art Number 23 is a London-based organisation, mainly responsible

for

curating

art

exhibitions

inside

the

U.K. and overseas. The aim is to create opportunities

in order to encourage and support artists from all over the world to exhibit and promote their work. e: info@artnumber23.uk

Art Number 23 was founded in 2016, by the artist Constantine

m: (+44) 07570946696

Anjulatos, and is being supported by several artists with a common mission: to create a global network of artists,

curators, galleries and art enthusiasts, and organise artrelated events where the participants can socialise, practise

their skills, share their knowledge and exchange ideas.

Previous

projects

of

Art

Number

23

include

exhibitions in NYC and Philadelphia (USA), Moscow (Russia),

Berlin(Germany)

Sean L McNamara I

am

a

graphic

designer

living

in

West

London

with

experience working on various projects from logo design and branding to

web design, publications and various

other marketing materials. This particular E-Catalogue was

inspired by my love for independent magazine design.

If you would like to contact me please do so on: e: seanlmcnamara1@gmail.com m: (+44) 07808514536

and

Athens

(Greece).

NCOG TO Contents

01 Kim Wan

02 Ronald Gonzalez

03 Hugo de Brett

04 Jane Cornish Smith

04 Mihaela Panaitescu 06 Lisa O’Donnell

07 Darryn Michael

08 Sally Whelan 09 Sarah Legender

10 Mia-Jane Harris

11 Nina Manikin

12 Ruth Brenner

13 Sarah J. Vaci

14 Simon Kloss

15 Alice Karveli

16 Ewelina Trejta

Kim Wan Kim Wan (b.1970) is a British artist of Malay-Chinese and English heritage. Kim Wan’s artworks are all painterly – whether it’s the obsessive exploration in his series of self-portraits, or the ‘decorated’ dollar bills contributing to large-scale major installations. Surprisingly graffiti has been a strong thread throughout his art career.

info@kimwanart.com

http://www.kimwanart.com

https://www.facebook.com/kimwanart

https://twitter.com/kimwanart?lang=en-gb https://www.instagram.com/kimwanart/

01 “Self portrait tryptich� each 25x20 cm mixed media on canvas 2017

In the UK he has worked with museums and institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery, TATE Modern, the Institute of Contemporary Art and the National Gallery. International exhibitions include shows in Times Square New York, Scope Miami, Philadelphia, Athens, Berlin, Siena, Beijing, Moscow and at the Louvre, Paris.

Ronald Gonzalez

Ronald G figurative York. Since worked fro elegiac scu are embodi with grote Gonzalez w steel arma of time wo his surroun eroded wi glue, wire, dramatic to and revea torsos and fetishistic m quality imb energy and work. His ridden scu social, and decaying f autobiogra potent and r and nosta sculpture is estranged, human per

"Scorched Wax and bu 28 x 28cm 2017

Gonzalez is a contemporary artist based in upstate New e the mid seventies the artist has om his garage studio creating ulptures and installations that iments of death and loss infused esque narrative, and pathos. works primarily in a series with atures and macabre collections orn objects, and detritus from ndings. The work is then further ith metal filings, burned wax, , and black soot creating a onal range that both obscures als anthropomorphic heads, figures that appear as charred mementos possessing a visceral bued with a sense of primal d distress that permeates his obsessive production of angstulptures explore the emotive, d psychological associations of found objects that function as aphical metaphors charged with recurring symbols with childhood algic references. Gonzalez’s s mournful, confrontational, and standing on the border between rsonage and doomed phantom.

Face" urned paper

02 His restless investigation of animating materials has produced an art of dissolution with archaic, apocalyptic, and quasialien elements that convey an animistic mode of thought and intensely evocative expression of the human condition.

His work has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D C. De Cordova Museum & Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA. Savanna College of Art & Design, Savannah, GA. The Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS. Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MI. Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY. Museum of Contempory Hispanic Art, NY. University of Southern California, LA. Allan Stone Gallery, NY. Salina Art Center, KS. Intar Gallery, NY.N.Y The Hudson Walker Gallery of Art, Provincetown, MA. Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY. Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY. Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Spoleto Festival, Charleston, SC. Snite Museum of Art, Gonzalez@binghamton.edu

www.ronaldgonzalezstudio.com

https://www.instagram.com/ronaldgonzalezstudio/

Hugo de Brett

Hugo’s recent work has tackled mental health issues in his own life. He has been working to reproduce images and vivid memories from an episode he suffered in 2017.

He has found that creating work and using painting as therapy has helped him to deal with the immediate aftermath of his time in hospital, when words have been hard to find at times.

Hugo suffered a real overload during this period in his life, and as such has aimed to reflect on anxious and claustrophobic moments with an air of stillness, in what were otherwise tense and frantic moments.

Hugo suffered a real overload during this period in his life, and as such has aimed to reflect on anxious and claustrophobic moments with an air of stillness, in what were otherwise tense and frantic moments.

03 “Zombie�

Acrylic on Canvas 20.5 x 25.5 cm 2017 hugo_debrett@hotmail.co.uk

https://www.instagram.com/hugodebrett/

Jane Cornish Smith

04

Originally from Canada, Texas resident Jane Cornish Smith’s nomadic childhood, along with her artist mother, fostered an appreciation for varied artistic expression from a young age. A versatile artist, Jane produces multi media artworks-oil, gouache, mixed media, cold wax, encaustic and collage—with equally diverse subject matter. She received BFA and MLA degrees from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and a MFA degree from Texas A&M UniversityCommerce. She has completed artist residencies at the International School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture in Umbria, Italy; the Vermont Studio Center; and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She received Purchase Awards from the University of Texas at Tyler, Texas A&M University-Commerce, and Brookhaven College in Farmer’s Branch, Texas.

Her work also hangs in the Museum of Encaustic Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico; the Tenby Museum and Art Gallery in Wales; the Cancer Support Community of North Texas; University Park Public Library in Dallas; and other public and private collections. Jane enjoys teaching, and making art from her glass-lined studio in rural Lone Oak, Texas.

“My goal is to make work that provides an opportunity for selfreflection, and evokes the human spirit.”

“Gilded Exterior” encaustic, oil, gauze, plaster 23 x 18 x 13 cm 2016 jcsart@sbcglobal.net

www.janecornishsmithart.com

https://www.instagram.com/jcsart5555/

https://www.facebook.com/janecornish.smith

Mihaela Panaitescu

Mihaela Panaitescu - the artist, contemporary painter and fashion designer, was born în România, where she studied Art University -București.,2002- Fashion design degree. She had more personals and collective art exhibitions and 3 awards în fashion design.The most important was: 2017 - London “NOW THATS WHAT I CALL ART" selected with another 35 internațional artists at LauraIGallery, 2016 - personal exhibition contemporary art “SHOW OF THE SOUL" - Mogosoaia Palace, 2015 - Italian Asociations from România at România Parliament, room C Brâncusi, 2014 BEGINNING OF LOVE personal exhibition contemporary art at Victoria Road 33 Gallery.

michela_style@yahoo.com

https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000763521822

https://www.instagram.com/mihaela.panaitescu.94/

05

In all this time she was working with the most important Românian designers.

More thank 60 artworks was sold în Europe and USA, în private collections.

Her art is abstract, figurative expressive or textile collage, original and inovative. În fashion she loves to create luxury collections hautecouture, handmade painting and original embellishments.

Lisa O’Donnell

Lisa O'Donnell lives and works in L completed her BA Fine Art at The in 2010 and MA Fine Art at Centr

06

“Alias” Oil on linen 30cm x 22cm 2016 L.odonnell26@gmial.com

www.lisaodonnellartist.com

London. She was born in Ireland in 1986 and Centre for Creative Arts and Media, Galway ral Saint Martins, London, 2013. In 2014 she completed a residency at the New York Artist, Residency and Studio Foundation, and has also completed two funded residencies at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Ireland. She has had two solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows in Ireland, the UK and USA. She has received numerous artist bursaries from Galway County Council Arts Office, two Travel and Training Grants from the Arts Council of Ireland and a Culture Ireland grant for her 2015 exhibition at New York University. Her practice investigates the scope of painting in terms of being a more appropriate format rather than the documentary photograph, to represent a created, subjective and manipulated history of women’s narratives.

Darryn Michael

Darryn Michael is an artist based in Salisbury, UK, who paints emotive minimal figurative pieces dealing with themes such as addiction, isolation and perceived negative states of mind.

The piece is an honest reflective piece on how I sometimes feel. I feel it is is important in art to be as honest and soul bearing as possible as this adds a sense of authenticity and sincerity to the work. The piece is a reflection of feelings and emotions rather than an accurate self portrait.Â

“Escapism Artist” 50 x 43 cm Acrylic on canvas 2017 www.artfinder.com/darryn-michael

www.instagram.com/darrynmichaelart

07

Sally Whelan

08

Sally's figurative oil paintings have a strong narrative and bold composition that provoke a feeling of curiosity from the viewer.

A witty charm and well observed sense of humour blends uniquely with a hintingly dark undercurrent. Â "I paint because it gets the feelings out.

It’s an important part of my self care, for the head i mean. Bodies, people, their stories, their skin, the hidden shades and depths, from the inside out, a fabric that is always changing.

Never predictable, always challenging and something i feel compelled to depict."

A hairdresser & make up artist for the BBC and a trained wig maker by trade, Sally Whelan can always be found, some sort of brush or tool in hand, with a toothy grin and a bad back.

She travelled extensively in her early 20's, and eventually landed in Byron Bay, Australia. She lived here for 3 years in an artistic collective making films, props, sets and experimenting with sculpture, collage, painting and worrying attempts at taxidermy puppetry.

This was her education in the arts, a place of complete freedom to try new things surrounded by incredible scenic beauty and likeminded folk.

Moving back to the UK in 2012 Sally worked for the BBC, alongside her burgeoning painting career. Sally now paints full time from her studio at The Silk Mill, Frome, Somerset.

“Red Chair” oils on canvas 100cm x 70cm 2017 paintersally@outlook.com www.paintersally.com

https://www.instagram.com/painter.sally/ https://www.facebook.com/paintersally/

Sarah Legender

09

“Sad-eyed people” is a colla used to raise awareness of a more positive light, as op

“Sad eyed people” Plaster Bandage body casts Height 172.72cm Width 32cm 2017

The name “Sad-eyed people” is taken from a song by Irish rock band Stiff Little Fingers.

A band introduced to Sarah by her aunt, Tracey, who suffers with Bipolar. Despite her struggles, Tracey has been an inspiration to Sarah all of her life, and has been supporters of her artistic career. The work is a tribute who have loved and supported her, whilst overcoming

aged cast made from plaster bandage. It is a piece those suffering with mental health issues, but within pposed to the typical stigma that coincides with it.

n one of the most passionate to the women in Sarah’s life their own personal troubles.

The artist, Sarah Legender, has been surrounded by people suffering from different mental health conditions all of her life, and her work has often been inspired by their battles.The physical casts were taken from the body of Sarah’s close friend, Jamie, who has suffered with depression for most of her life. The casts resemble her vibrant personality and bravery, within the midst of what appears to be a very fragile shell. It is often tough to spot these issues from the outside. But, when the cracks are shown, it is important to remember that the colour and strength on the inside is what counts.

email: sarahjadelegender@hotmail.co.uk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/legenderscribbles/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SARAHLEGENDERSSCRIBBLINGS/

Mia-Jane Harris

Mia-Jane Harris' work delves into the curious, fascinatingly odd intrigue the viewer and pull them in to her world with strange ob their emotions on the subject of mortality - life, death & resurre inevitability of our disappearance after death by preventing d second life, an artistic resurrection, to deceased animals and se return this second chance she gives them will help her live on thro

Mother of Resurrection Taxidermy, mummified heart, second hand ceramic, golden leaf 7.5" x 2.5" x 10" 2014

d and morbidly beautiful. She aims to bjects and morbid curios to manipulate rection. Harris wishes to challenge the decay and rescuing ‘junk’. She gives a econd hand objects in the hope that in ough these creations when she is gone.

f, enamel

Harris' creations are about helping to overcome the fear of nothingness by accepting death as a thing of beauty and using preservation and upcycling to show herself that if she can stop decay and disappearance then she can have some sort of control over her own demise. The idea of mortality means a lot to Harris and has always fascinated her due to her death during birth, and her fear of when it will take her next. There were complications during Harris' birth which resulted in her being born deceased and after resuscitation left with Erbs Palsy, the partial paralysis and stunted growth of her right arm, so she has always had a fascination with the morbid and abnormal.

mia-jane@live.com www.mia-janeharris.co.uk https://www.instagram.com/art_of_miajane_harris/ https://www.facebook.com/artofmiajaneharris

10

Nina Manikin

Nina Mankin’s ‘Tabl forgotten world of narratives, contained The viewer is invit inside, so that the peering into private

Inhabited by the internal language o misfits & outsiders draws upon the w fairy tales, human

Her conceptions the past & visions At times they sensory, hypnagog imaginings, while o perverse & often Full of dark hu subtle sardonic &

“Bang” Sculpture 2017

www.ninamankin.tumblr.com www.instagram.com/ninamankin https://www.facebook.com/Nina-M

leau-Vivants’ explore a secrets and dream like within intimate settings. ted to take a glimpse ey become a voyeur, and clandestine spaces.

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silent discourse & of unseen protagonists; of society, her work wide resource of old psychology & dreams.

depict vignettes of s of dystopian futures. present beautiful, gic, opium fuelled others reveal macabre, n haunting realities. umour, they contain & feminist overtones.

Mankin-Artist-135790346512141/

Collecting symbolic and found objects is at the core of her work. These often take on fetishistic qualities, relating to the poetry of ‘things’, how they ‘speak’ to one another & their tactile, sensory & psychological nature.

Fascinated by the sense of presence and mystery of these displaced objects, narratives begin to unfold, and are displayed as though stills of a theatrical setting.

Her choice of materials (essentially found and discarded), are a direct response to our modern-day throwaway society. The attempt to salvage what has been abandoned and labelled as useless, becomes renewed in a search for beauty, playful dialogues and deeper meaning.

In an attempt to make sense of an essentially chaotic and fragile world, the feeling is one of hope and faith, in the attempt to uncover the lost parts of our psyche…our secret shadow selves.

Ruth Brenner

12

“Carnal” Sculpture, ceramic, multi-media 21 x 35 x 78 cm 2017

Ruth Brenner is a Scottish sculptor and installation artist living and working in Newcastle upon Tyne. After graduated in from Newcastle University in 2012 as a Master of Fine Art, she won a Royal British Society of Sculptors bursary award in 2013.

She is currently working on a practice led PhD. Brenner’s practice is intuitive based on material exploration and the bodily, both physical and mental, act of making. The influences of corporeality are central to her practice as the work has a direct relationship to her bodily dimensions; physical ability; sensory awareness and her relationship with the material. Making is, therefore, inextricably linked with the outcome which is a visual record of cognitive processes. The study of matter touches on natural science by exploring the nature of materials through observation and experimentation.

Intervention through decomposition or ex the action of breaking the materials down

Brenner’s work explores ritual - ritual as and amorphize objects.

By creating w attempts to create a visual language t

ruth@brenner.co.uk www.ruthbrenner.co.uk https://www.instagram.com/ruthabrenner/ facebook.com/ruth.brenner.39 https://twitter.com/RuthBrenner1

xperimenting with material stability is an attempt to have control, but n allows the object an autonomy that renders the artist ‘out of control’.

s process and the ritual object. She is interested how we fetishize works that pose questions regarding their meaning or function she that explores the relationship between process, maker and viewer.

Sarah J. Vaci

13 Sarah J. Vaci’s artworks can be divided into two distinct strands.

Her earlier pieces feature striking and often parodical portraits uniquely "painted" with wool. More recently she has developed her own technique to create visceral body pieces that comment on controversial topics such as mental health.

Complimenting an MA in Cross-sectoral and Community Arts from Goldsmiths College, Sarah taught animation at the British Museum, and spent many years making films together with children with autism. The experiences gathered during this time enabled Sarah to reflect in new ways on her practise, embracing the unexpected. This led to her interest in neurological diversity, and the ways in which we understand one another.

It was during her degree in Time Based Media at the Kent Institute of Art and Design, that Sarah began exploring the human condition and topics such as sado-masochism and eroticism in video installations and in her writings.

This led to a decade of short films and stop-frame animations that focused on taboos surrounding intimate human biology. The themes, and story-telling techniques developed during this "I'm Just a Bit Tired" time are prevalent in the work that is a direct result of Sarah continues to produce today. suffering severe postnatal depression and "Reach" evokes the “I'm Just a Little Tired” loneliness and struggle to Wool and silicone make connections in an 60cm x 24cm increasingly disconnected 2018 world. She is continuing 650 to explore the themes of how our bodies www.sarahvaci.com https://www.facebook.com/SarahVaciArtist/ and our inner selves https://twitter.com/SarahVaciArtist https://www.instagram.com/sarahvaci_artist/ engage with each other.

Simon Kloss

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Simon’s key influences have been Sigma Ryoichi Kurokawa. Hieronymus Bosch has had a large Bosch print in their dining ro around his plate; and stare for what se

In later life he was diagnosed with a Bi-Polar disorder; and on occasion omit to take his medications in order to experience vivid, extremely intense and sometimes frightening dreams, which he records in a diary. He uses these records to inspire his work.

“169 TO BARKING - A JOURNEY” Video Projection

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI2IzLd0W5sxK7_utEu3kWw info@promethean-mediagroup.co.uk

As an artist Simon has tried to use his ow experience with mental health issues. He ex using multilayered moving image and pho Simon’s piece for Incognito is a visual an

ar Polke; namely his more abstract 1970s work, Hieronymus Bosch and s interested the artist since childhood. As a young boy his grandparents oom. Simon would awkwardly push his gradually cooling, then cold, food eemed hours at the picture with all its grotesque other worldly content.

wn life experiences as much as possible in his work, and his own personal xplores these emotional (and) life states in an abstract and often ‘dark’ sense, otographic stills; to create deep, often powerful and honest visual montages. nd audio work on the notion of the voyeur, to see, but not being seen.

Alice Karveli

“Break-Mould.Taint.�

Video Projection

http

The performance works become personal rites facilitating esoteric work: tran exorcising fears, and integrating aspects of the shadow-self in a process of lib rites the viewer can project upon, thus potentially instigating an analogous exhibitions in Greece since 2009 and in London since 2014, getting involv Nave in recent years. She has had two solo exhibitions in Athens in 2013

15

blackarrowsinspace@outlook.com https://www.facebook.com/AliceKarveli/?fref=ts ps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHN9VZmBq77WTnCn14Zo6sg?view_as=subscriber

Alice Karveli is originally from Athens (b. 1990), Greece but has been based in London since 2014.

Graduating from a mixed Media Fine Art BA, she works across many media (painting, drawing, collage, photography, installation, music and dance), her main focus is performance, particularly on film, which is then edited into hypnotic visions, with immersive, experimental soundscapes.

In working with the body, she uses the kinaesthetic element, the sounds created by the performative actions and the expression of inner song. Materials used, either natural (eg clay or water) or artificial (eg black paint, cling film) always bear symbolic significance in relation to the human element.

She is interested in the transformational potential of both the making and the showing of the work, by means of the symbolic processes she undertakes.

nsforming psychological and physical pain into protective and creative power, berating the true self. In doing so, the goal is also to create transformational s transformational process within themselves. She has participated in group ved with independent art collectives like the Random Artists TAA and The 3 and 2014 and one in London at The Hive Dalston social space in 2017.

Ewelina Trejta

Ewelina Trejta Born in Poland. Living and working in London. She studied Fine Art at the Westminster University, currently studies Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art. Her practice involves sculpture, video and photography. In addition to experimenting with a variety of materials like resins, latex, silicon or plaster, she also uses ephemeral ones like meat, preserved animal body parts and blood or food (e.g. burned bread). Her work often encompasses processes of decay, organic associations, bio-morphism, anti-forms, motif-vanitas, evanescence and abject. Through the individual experience of the form, she reflects on the social processes.

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“Intensive Stage of Solitude�

Video projection

Email: ewelina.trejta@network.rca.ac.uk

INCOG

This is an E-Exhibition created to save the This guide is hyperlinked to the pages, click a name and go to websites and don’t forget to save our

Guide trees. artists their trees!

NITO www.woodlandtrust.org.uk

created by sean l mcnamara