Every first Thursday of the month, the whole area of Shoreditch is focused on open galleries and exhibitions organized throught the day. Everywhere you go, you will find brilliant and varied works, as well as amazing and friendly atmospheres. Last 1st of November, Leonard Street, in the hart of Shoreditch, was particularly busy with a huge number of open galleries. “Jeunesse”, at Blackall Studio, was very impressive both for quality and variety of works. “Jeunesse” was the first show of Jaster Jacques Gallery, a platform founded by brother and sister Karen and Guy Shidlo. “It has been thought for artists without label or tags, whose practice may across over genres”, says Karen.
From French street artist Ador, to Rose Skinner’s installation, Jeunesse presented nine talented and emergent artists with different skills. Ador, after spreading his works around France (Paris, Toulouse, Nantes), has recently started to paint walls across London, with his personal style, very funny and so similar to comics. The French artist represents in most of his works a word populated by odd creatures, with bug eyes and large noses.
Street art is the same starting point of Jamie Humphrey, present at the exhibition with works slighlty different from street art, but definitely vibrant and enjoyable. Reece Withehead and James Cochran (Jimmy C.), two rising urban atist, finding inspiration from the streets, shared the same theme at Blackall Studios. With different styles and subjects, their works were both concerning last year’s riots in London. Their tecniques are used as a contrast to the violent nature of the riots.
Rose Skinner’s installations were particlarly interesting too. Her works were mainly concerning reconstructed toys (some of them remembered the bad guy’s toys in the first “Toy Story”) with the intention of showing the disturbing side to thing usually associated with innocence and play. London based artists Adam Walker, Rosemary Cronin and Jack Jones had a great success too as well as Clare Connor who has already exhibited in Dublin and Berlin.
The works of these brilliant artists, represent a very good starting point for Jaster Jacques Galleries. Karen and Guy are planning already a new exhibition that should take place in the first months of next year. We are looking forward.
www.jesterjacquesgallery.co.uk
