RP BROWNE’s APEX London – A virtual tour

For those of you who weren’t lucky with the dates of the exhibition, or those who were and would like to revisit it, here’s some footage of the exhibition’s first leg. I personally did most of the shooting during those wonderful summer days in London. I’m particularly happy with the ending sequence, shot during the opening night: moving with the camera (probably a tad tipsy) through the gallery’s corridors, and from one vaulted chamber  to the next. The editing did the rest: the scene conveys the notion of a look real predator on the loose about to eat my guests on the spot!

APEX consisted of three related series of paintings (The Elements, The Swamp and The Boardroom)  and it was quite interesting to notice people’s preferences. These were quite balanced among all three series and even of the different pieces. The interviews in the video are somehow an accurate portrait of this.

As indicated in previous posts, many people mentioned how well the exhibited art and the Crypt Gallery worked together…the video seems to back this view.

I am back in good old Dublin after the London Tour-de-force. APEX has gone really well and on many levels comfortably surpassed my expectations. Normally surprises aren’t part of my diet (the architect in me works hard to avoid them), but during the exhibition days at The Crypt Gallery, there were a pleasant few!

The exhibition was hardly advertised and yet a lot of random people walked in from the street, attracted by two simple banners hanging from the railings onto Euston Road. I was surprised by their diversity in gender, age (from kids to senior citizens), nationalities, professional/social spectrum, etc., but mostly because their positive comments pointed pretty much in the same direction. People left the gallery (in their own words) with a sort of sensory fulfillment after experiencing the show, and reflecting in their own way about “the primal drivers of power, hierarchy and dominance which lie motionless beneath the crisp, urban crust”.

Having the visitors to APEX in mind, I decided to make a slideshow with some of the guest book pages, highlighting a few comments (representative of the public’s different angles) on each page. Enjoy!

Great crowd at the opening night of APEX!

The official opening to the exhibition was fabulous thanks to the wonderful attending crowd.
Some invitees traveled from abroad specially for the event (Dublin, Paris, Buenos Aires), and I cannot thank them enough!
As far as I know, there was only one semi professional actor among them…so I guess most praiseful comments were all but genuine.

Thanks everyone!

R

According to an already half full Guest’s Book, RP Browne’s APEX and The Crypt Gallery London are a successful match. Here’s some:

I’m truly glad for this choice which initially was not an easy one to take. As mentioned in previous posts the space is really special, full of character and atmosphere. You don’t have to be an architect to realize how those caryatids guarding a beautiful red door make up for a great entrance, or how right after it a soft cascade of stone steps brings you down into a different world altogether, in this case, beneath “the crisp, urban crust”.

During my first visit last year to the gallery though, I had serious doubts as to whether to exhibit here. I immediately worried about the venue imposing over my (or any) work; I thought my efforts might not be up to the challenge.

Now that the APEX pieces sit in not just well, but perfectly comfortable on the vaulted walls and passages of the gallery, I feel very happy and yes, also relieved…this one is a match where a draw feels like a win for the two of us!

Media Release

Defiant Argentinean artist to show work in London and NY

R.P. Browne’s APEX, a provocative exhibition of recent the artist’s recent work is confirmed at The Crypt Gallery, St Pancras Church, London in June 17-28 /2015 and at The Library Lounge, Midtown Manhattan in December 1-18/2015. The artist promises to “flood the space with landscapes of the city swamp and portraits of its rulers”.

Please click RP Browne s APEX press release to see the full statement

If you’ve been following closely the progress of the APEX project, then you already know this story. For everyone else I’ll make it short.

From the very beginning of the series I had this image in my head, and made several sketches (see APEX on the pipeline).It was a natural spin-off of the piece “Water”, previously called “The swamp”, where I made a landscape merging New York and London’s skylines on the back of a croc which lied motionless underwater.

For some reason I left it there; the piece seemed too ambitious and I lacked the technical clarity to address it. So I carried on with other parts of the project.

However, while visiting the Dublin Zoo, the piece was brought  back to my mind. A croc’s green and greedy pair of eyes looking from a position of power (thankfully from behind a safety glass) somehow elicited my artistic ambition… I had to give this one a try!

The technical problems, of course, remained. How was I going to make a credible Manhattan background and blend it with a perfectly positioned croc, as in the one of the photos taken in the Zoo?

The first attempt, which I painted in a small format (60 x 80 cm), disappointed me. It wasn’t nearly as crudely “in your face” as I had envisioned it. For the second time, I gave the idea further time to mature.

And then one day everything changed. I saw it immediately, right there in front of me and a hundred more consumers: the raw material and technical solution altogether. It was even framed and ready to be placed in the trolley for check out…in the decoration area of IKEA!

A motif replicated and sold by the thousands in as many IKEA outlets all over the globe, was going to become a unique base for that powerful but elusive idea. And so it was; I finally begun the painting…

Here’s the before and after. The “after” would eventually become the calling card and poster of the exhibition, as I’m sure some of you’ve found out checking your recent post.

I recently made a short “business” trip to Milano, city which in the past I had only bypassed on the way to other north Italian cities. Milano shows its past and present power pretty much everywhere, starting with a robust and dominant architecture.

My business consisted on selecting and buying five to six cuts of suit fabric for the next characters in “The Boardroom”, the last and remaining part of the APEX series. As charming as Dublin can be, this sort of fabric simply can’t be found here… so I reverted to the fashion factory itself: distances in Europe are short!

My Dublin Italian connections tipped me off in advance, and I went straight to a spot where great fabrics were offered “scampoli” – at an affordable price (a tenth of the retail cost). These are cuts which wouldn’t be enough to make a suit (I learned that at least you need 6 meters for one suit) but were perfect for my new set of “canvases”.

The selected shop, “Il Vecchio Drappiere”, was everything I wished for. A Milanese family business solely dedicated to sell the best quality suit fabrics with hundreds of patterns and textures to choose from, and all the time in the world to do so. What’s best, it’s location in Via Meravigli made obvious a visit to Santa Maria Delle Grazie, to admire the restored “Last Supper” by Leonardo.

Hopefully this background story will further enrich this series of paintings about the power driven specimen among us, everyday humans.

I’m delighted to announce the confirmation of my exhibition in London. APEX  will take place in the second half of June 2015 at The Crypt Gallery, St Pancras, which I visited last month.

I had a very pleasant meeting with the gallery manager, and after the details were agreed, she invited me for a toast at the Church’s grounds where some fund raising event was starting. Apparently a building as old as St Pancras Church requires constant maintenance which, in a city like London, doesn’t come cheap.

The Gallery is immensely interesting in itself: a maze of brick vaults full of character; a burial place in a non distant past now converted for art happenings. The access couldn’t be more appropriate…four caryatids framing an intriguing red door where the steps to this art underworld begin. So, if things go as planned, this underground venue will be the perfect space to reflect on the urban crust above; specially considering that the opening / press event will be held high up in The Shard!

Looking for some specific details and live inspiration for APEX I recently visited Dublin Zoo. It’s a great outing, and so different to the Zoo in my memories (see Telescope Safaris in a City of Millions). I took some good shots, specially of the wonderful creatures I was after…the primitive ones. I am particularly happy with a croc who looked at me with greedy eyes; the shot is just what I needed for my next piece.

Last week I went to London for two neat reasons; one was scheduled for the near future but was happily precipitated by the other. My best friend’s first visit to Europe, who came on work related matters, pushed forward my initial scouting for art spaces in London. It couldn’t have been better timing; I found London in full blossom!

The two areas I wanted to check were SOHO and, to the east, the Brick Lane surroundings- Shoreditch; neither disappointed me. In fact I saw great works in SOHO by Brett Amory (Twenty-Four in London, in Lazarides, great leg of the project), Emma Richardson (Feast, in The Outsiders, colourful slices from someone’s hypothalamus, taken with a very sharp katana and skilfully stuck to canvas ) and, perhaps on a different point of the spectrum, Lionel Smit (Cumulus, in Rook & Raven). As for Shoreditch, I know…easy to say it’s full of character. But I think there’s something else here that adds to my project, APEX: the perception of a top from a bottom. Transcript: the City’s corporate landscape is just there…silently cut on the background when you walk some rusty alleys. The StolenSpace had a great show by Cyrcle. called “Overthrone! Pooring Reign”. In both areas I met interesting people, some of whom are quite interested in the project.

Meeting this old friend was a real treat, I’m happy. It’s like a part of your life coming back to you in the form of memories, anecdotes, and more importantly, that ease of mind reflected in a to-the-point talk mixed with affection and the cheerful mood from childhood, even discussing serious matters (he is in a separation process). At the moment he’s working in a book for the Argentina Embassy in UK, and he was staying at the Ambassador’s Residence in Belgravia. On Saturday we went with Alicia Castro, the Argentina Ambassador herself, for an informal wondering around to various places, like the market in Portobello rd – Notting Hill, etc and the tour ended having tapas and a great red in Borough Market. To finalize a spectacular sunny day, and in order to check the last location for my project, we went up the View of the Shard, London’s physical APEX.

A special mention to my good friend and former Dublin mate Anahi Fernández, who very kindly left me her home in Paddington, thanks Anita!