BATTERSEA PARK AFFORDABLE ART - MARCH 2010

VISITING THE AFFORDABLE ART FAIR ON THURSDAY LATE AFTERNOON

Finding the free minibus in Sloane Square was easy, but traffic holdups meant it took ages to get to the Park on Thursday evening.
The entry area had interesting photo etchings by Andrew Curtis - very large and black/white. I admired the successful results of what I know to be a very difficult and demanding technique of etching.
Inside the main tent was the usual huge collecting of gallery pitches, luckily mostly named and with a location so you could find London galleries easily. I admired the determination of those people who came from Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands etc.
The ceramics I liked are by Pat Armstrong who works in Lincolnshire. Her work is fired in a raku kiln, and the copper in the glaze results in beautiful reds oranges and golds.

Also the small square paintings in acrylics by Anthony Frost jumped off the wall with their brilliance and texture. They were on show at the Penhaven Gallery from St Ives.
Particularly liked the work of woman artists Sue Stone in the Grimsby based gallery called Gate Gallery. She had a small painting of French's - the famous pub in Soho. Very lively and fresh.

It was exhausting though, and there was nowhere much to sit down and rest. Everything very crammed together. Luckily it was not packed up with visitors and many of the stands had nobody viewing, so I did have a good chance to look carefully at the art.

Noticed a lot of money had been spent by some artists on the most elaborate frames, and even small oils had been framed under glass in some cases.
Prices quite low on the whole, from about £300, so if you subtrace the price of framing - perhaps £70, and the commission, the artists do not get very much.

I admired several works done of urban scenes at night, with a lot of red and black. Seems a fashionable subject at present. Saw some of these on the Amstel Gallery stands, from Amsterdam.