Kid Acne: Kill Your darlings Exhibition, Mellenium Galleries

This is Kid Acne first solo Exhibition in his hometown Sheffield. Viewing the gallery myself I was impressed by his murals which transformed the interior windows of the gallery. They featured a leaf motif just like on the flyer above. I really liked the aesthetics of his work and his broad use of mediums included toy figurines and skateboard illustrations. The illustrations themselves i feel don't have much depth. 

Kid Acne claims to be influenced by pagan rituals and Celtic per-history sources but from my interpretation I don' see this at all. Studying Celtic art myself and learning the works of Courtney Davis which pays beautiful homage to Celtic art and Myth Kid Acne work I feel is just purely aesthetic and cartoon based. I feel his reference of head dresses and the five pointed start to be purely spontaneous and lacks the showing of spiritual elements. for example the symbolgy behind a Celtic warriors sword is that it represented status and life after death in the other world. So when i view Kid Acne characters they have a pretty childish look to them and there just quirky. I feel he's cornered a niche in the market but I'm sure soon another graffiti artist will come with something different and his work will quickly pass.     

I'm just reflecting on this blog and I'm not saying he's not a talented artists he's just one which doesn't appeal to me. They are certain elements of his work I admire like his typo. And the ideology of combining Graffiti and Celtic Myth to create a contemporary style but i don't feel he can communicate this idea.

John Martin : Millennium Gallery, 22 June to 04 September

John Martin is an iconic 19th century Painter renowned for his scenes of Apocalyptic destruction. Viewing the work first hand I wasn't only taking away by the scale of destruction happening in his pieces but the the actual scale of his pieces. They were a very large format where your eyes would explore the waves of debris from one side of the painting to the other.

Artists 'CIRIA' : Exhibition at 'Institut Valencia D'Art Modern,' Spain

Ciria is a Spanish Painter but lived most his life in Spain. His work is very abstract and the section of colors create a lot of tension in particularity the red. I was surprised to see with the portrait above part of a series that he used fine liners. He captures a lot of emotion, and a feeling of tourched souls, his work and been compared to Francis Bacon. His influences include Jackson Pollock and Miró.  

I like his looseness with the paint which is really expressive. I feel the freedom of the strokes gives his portraits extra life and impact, you can definitely see the influence of Jackson pollock with his techniques of broad strokes.