From 9th to 12th March, The Other Art Fair transformed the Truman Brewery in East London with a brilliant selection of boundary-pushing artworks by local and international artists. The Other Art Fair is a unique art experience, providing the opportunity to talk and connect with emerging artists and browse pieces of all styles and sizes. It is the ideal place to begin your art collection and discover your new favourite artist. Read on to learn about the Art Republic artists who were selected by a committee of art-world experts to exhibit at The Other Art Fair.
Nessie Ramm is a Sussex-based contemporary landscape artist with a passion for plants. At the Other Art Fair, Nessie exhibited her flattened drinks cans and her series of abandoned road signs. Ramm upcycles and breathes life and colour into detritus with the quirky and colourful adornment of flowers. Ramm studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, before going on to take an MA in Fine Art, where she revealed the thriving life of lawns through detailed paintings. She combines her artistic skill and scientific knowledge in intricate representations of nature with an important message. We love how Ramm incorporates the instructions of the road signs into her art, allowing them to take on a whole different meaning.
Hannah Gilson is an illustrator and educator based in London. With a background in fine arts, Hannah's mixed media practice combines painting, screen printing, drawing and digital illustration. Hannah's artworks begin life as basic pencil sketches, which she then develops into digital forms on photoshop, weaving in her references to popular culture and aesthetics. Hannah is interested in the role of both women and animals in folklore, mythology and cautionary storytelling. She re-tells well-known stories by playing on familiar imagery and juxtaposing it with pop cultural references and messages of female empowerment. We spotted Hannah’s spectacular Wonder, as well as some fantastic new framed three-dimensional collage works – watch this space for more exciting works to come.
Lisa Lloyd is a contemporary artist in Brighton who strives to capture the beauty of nature, all through the medium of paper. Initially making her intricate designs from card and paper, Lisa then carefully photographs her work. These energetic artworks draw from the dynamism to be found in our natural environment. We love how Lisa creates layers of texture and colour that give each piece a sense of movement; each work imitates and is inspired by the plethora of life to be found in nature. Lisa showcased her new editions of the Rise series, which you should check out on her collection page now.
Yorkshire-based artist and printmaker, Angus Vasili, is known for his architectural-infused Silkscreen prints. Driven by his passion for process, Angus creates a delicate balance between the abstractions of printmaking and the monumental forms of modern and contemporary architecture, which fuse and coalesce in an extraordinary dance of visual elements. Weaving in screen-printing, photography, and hand-finished texture, Angus' practice continues to evolve, ever informed by the experimental. Angus brightened up the fair with an exciting range of intriguing, textural originals.
Man in the Mirror by Simon Shepherd
Simon Shepherd is a London-born artist, now based in Brighton. Simon's sculptures explore the distinctions between the familiar and the unfamiliar by combining different, relatable objects and creating or illustrating new meanings from this amalgamation. Simon's work looks for and develops the beauty and aesthetic of the everyday object and invites the viewer to reassess their expectations and preconceptions of it. Simon exhibited his fantastic Man in the Mirror and Freedom in a Tube, as well as prints of his quirky and witty sculptures.
Lene lives and works in London and is a Danish artist who enjoys and is inspired by travelling and exploring other cultures. A background in graphic design is the foundation for the thought-provoking artworks she creates, capturing the joys of everyday life on a smaller scale. We love the way Lene captures hidden beauty, finding it in even the most mundane of settings. On display at Lene’s stall were some wonderful butterfly artworks, a favoured theme of hers, as well as some intriguing pieces composed of multiple razor blades.
Scottish artist AAWatson is known for his darkly humorous works of art, which blend the old and the new for a unique, contemporary aesthetic. With a successful career in the corporate world behind him, and a passion for travelling (for pleasure as well as work) under his belt, it’s no surprise that AAWatson’s art should be suffused with a range of diverse influences, combing varied genres and styles throughout his oeuvre. But perhaps the single, running thread in all of AAWatson’s work is its ability to make the viewer smile: overlaid with words and phrases in gold leaf lettering, his pieces are both comic and cathartic, relatable and also approachable, and utterly mesmerising, with a bold, visual language all of their own. AAWatson certainly made us smile with his new scrabble-style pieces, Naughtiness and Foolishness.
The Other Art Fair happens twice a year, so make sure to pay a visit next time it is back in London - you are in for a treat.
