Saatchi Painted Faces Showdown at the Griffin Gallery

Following on from the Griffin Art Prize 2013 Exhibition – which is now on the road around the South of England for a few months (see post) – the Griffin Gallery are transferring Saatchi’s Showdown from the virtual online world in to reality.

The winner of the prize has been announced as Miguel Laino for his simple but expressive small oil painting shown here, winning over a very high quality – and truly international – final ten. The remaining finalists were: Chris Stevens, Casper Verborg (illustrated middle left), Stephane Villafane, Kristina Alisauskaite (middle right), Sergey Dyomin, Fiona Maclean, Minas Halaj, Maurice Sapiro, Daniel Gonzalez Coves (bottom).

Painted Faces is one phase of a continuing Saatchi Online competition that provides artists from anywhere in the world a showcase for their work. Chantal Joffe was the judge for this event.  Previous judges have been equally big names of the contemporary art world and Barnaby Furnas, Ged Quinn, Wangechi Mutu and Dexter Dalwood have for example run their eyes over entries.

For the first time the works of the 10 Showdown finalists are being shown at the Griffin Gallery, from 5- 20 December with the winner and runner-up receiving art materials to the value of £1000 and £500 respectively – not bad I’d say.

The competition is being run in partnership with Winsor & Newton and is on at the West London Griffin Gallery until 20th December 2013. This is an excellent small show which is a short stroll from Westfield shopping centre – why not take a break from the Christmas shopping and drop in for an artistic break – or a more arty gift? All works are on sale and modestly priced.

For more details about the competition please go to www.saatchionline.com/showdown

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The Artists Colouring Book of ABC’s launched at the Serpentine Gallery

I dropped in to the Serpentine Gallery last night for a charity auction event in support of  the Kids Company Charity. A veritable who’s who of top contemporary artists were all persuaded to each donate a drawing representing a particular letter of the alphabet (the full list is below).

Grayson Perry produced a plethora of ‘P’ objects in a typically witty sketch, Harland Miller a wicked Devil cartoon, Tracey Emin lazily scribbled a cat (representing A for Animal – what?) Jake and Dinos Chapman went wild with O’s – in a design that also featured on hostesses dresses – and Keith Tyson‘s neatly drawn treasure map featured a prominent X (of course!)

Paula Rego‘s excellent contribution was a dark, contorted monkey whilst my money would have gone on bidding for a colourful Gillian Ayres or a great work from Joseph Kosuth – a ‘G’  with another ‘G’ in a thought bubble.

The end result was The Artists Colouring Book of ABC’s a fun book for adults and for children to approach the alphabet through an exciting interplay with art. Each original work was auctioned either by Sotheby’s guest auctioneer Henry Wyndham or offered in a silent sealed auction.

Hopefully the end result was a success for the charity although the rent-a-crowd (from  the event planners who very kindly donated their time) to me seemed to consist of rather more B list wannabes out for a party than art collectors?

The book would make a great Christmas gift for parents who want to display their arty credentials amongst fellow parents or a cool adults gift, especially in the £250 boxed limited edition version that includes a Chapman Brothers editioned print!

The Artists Colouring Book of ABC’s  (buy here)

Size: 265 x 365 mm, 60 pages, 200gms. Paperback. RRP: £15.99

Charlotte Colbert, Alix Janta and Lauren Jones. A collaboration between AlteriaArt & Humpty Dumpty Publishing

Artists
A is for Tracey Emin
B is for Fiona Banner
C is for Alex Katz
D is for Harland Miller
E is for Chantal Joffe
F is for Gillian Ayres
G is for Joseph Kosuth
H is for Betty Woodman
I is for Gary Hume
J is for Pietro Ruffo
K is for Cathie Pilkington
L is for Mat Collishaw
M is for Paula Rego
N is for Keith Coventry
O is for Jake & Dinos Chapman
P is for Grayson Perry
Q is for Bob & Roberta Smith
R is for Gavin Turk
S is for Rachel Howard
T is for Polly Morgan
U is for Georgie Hopton
V is for Maggi Hambling
W is for Paul Fryer
X is for Keith Tyson
Y is for Yinka Shonibare
Z is for Marc Quinn

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