A MODERN CAPRICHO
The Inaugural Exhibition of Prints and Works

6-8 Vestry St, London N1 7RE

A Modern Capricho brings together work by artists Nicola Bealing, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Denise de Cordova, Simon Marsh, Rebecca Scott and Mark Woods.

It is apposite to be thinking about Goya while the world stumbles; if you think we’ve got it bad, with our pandemic, financial crisis, unstable leaders, wars and natural disasters, look at Spain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

History is replete with war and starvation, but Goya has an ability for penetrating hurt. Goya doesn’t exonerate the evils of individuals and groups, he amasses evidence of universal depravity. His trademark is detachment, and his work contains a layering of meanings. He masks his satire by using images that inspire multiple interpretations, mixing horror with ribaldry.

A Modern Capricho is very relevant today in our era of fake news and new normal.  The work in this exhibition is eloquent and urgent enough, to be displayed in proximity to Goya’s Los Caprichos and create a contemporary dialogue.

A Modern Capricho will be the first exhibition at Cross Lane Projects’ new gallery Vestry St in Hoxton, London. Visitors are invited into this uniquely intimate space to read, reflect, discuss and view contemporary art in a salon-like setting. Located in a private residence on the road that bears its name, Vestry St presents a programme of curated exhibitions and events by leading contemporary artists, both local and international.

The salon at Vestry St will be open every Saturday, 12 – 6pm, in June and July 2022, or by appointment.

Image : Mary Toft (giving birth to rabbits) (30x26cm polymer gravure etching, edition of 20 – one of a set of 8 ‘Broadsides’ 2018)

Arcade Campfa, Cardiff 2nd July – 13th August 2022

Inspired by the 60th anniversary of ‘Sunny Prestatyn’ Philip Larkin  1962

Curated by Nick Davies

Image : Come to Sunny Prestatyn (oil and spray paint on panel 40x30cm)

Insect Odyssey : Insects, books and the artistic imagination 

25th June – 25th September 2022

Salisbury Museum

This exhibition offers an insight into the insect world through the visual responses and interpretations of contemporary artists and makers to the entomological publications which, since the 17th Century, have recorded and illustrated these intriguing creatures.

Insect Odyssey celebrates contemporary artistic practice, champions the relationship between art and science and highlights the crucial role played by insects in the environment’

https://salisburymuseum.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/insect-odyssey-insects-books-and-artistic-imagination

image : The Mutation 2022 (oil on linen 60x90cm)

MIRROR presents Bodies in Space, a group exhibition curated by Ben Borthwick.

Nicola Bealing / Flo Brooks / Andrea Büttner / Andrew Pierre Hart / Nick Jensen / Claudette Johnson / Joy Labinjo / Bruno Pacheco / Charmaine Watkiss

Bodies in Space presents work by artists using the figure in painting and drawing to question and understand how we occupy, move through and negotiate the public and private spaces of daily life. The exhibition also reflects how figurative painting and drawing becomes more visible at times of wider social and political change.

This exhibition, itself hugely delayed due to the Covid 19 pandemic, has been adapted to reflect on the impact of social distancing and the wider disruption of social conventions on issues of representation and equality.

Some artists in this show use the figure in allegorical ways while others treat the figure as an apparition emerging from abstraction. In spite of these differences in approaches, the disjunction between the body, space and time is a common thread across works and forms the basis of this exhibition.

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Ben Borthwick is an independent Curator and Head of Creative Programme at KARST. He combines working internationally with grass roots artist development and community engagement in Plymouth. He was previously Artistic Director of Plymouth Arts Centre, CEO of Artes Mundi and Assistant Curator at Tate Modern.

(Image : ‘Dirty Man, Clean Man’ –  oil on linen 121x91cm 2014)

I’m delighted to be the recipient of a Bryan Robertson Trust Award.  This will allow me to dive deeper into recent work….

Image : Most Nights I Can Hear the Sea (oil on wood 30x20cm)

A beautiful publication by Hospital Rooms – and a reminder of last year’s projects at Greenfields women’s mental health recovery unit and Centre Court Psychotherapy Service in Plymouth.

February – March 2020

1 month studio residency at CaSa, Oaxaca : an art’s centre in a former 19th century textile mill, transformed by the artist Francisco Toledo and architect Claudia Lopéz Morales in 2006.

Mexico Diary no. 11 : Cactus on coast road, Oaxaca. (Gouache 50x32cm 2020)

Salisbury Arts Centre  (Bedwin St, Salisbury SP1 3UT)

27th January – 28th March 2020

Image – The Horse (2019 oil on linen 118x76cm)

The British Museum has acquired a set of my 8 Broadside Etchings for its permanent Print Collection

(Image : Broadsides, shown here in A New Song (To an Old Tune) at the Foundling Museum, London 24th May-1st September 2019  Polymer gravure etchings, edition of 20, each 30x26cm)

I’m delighted to have been invited to show Darn (ink, oil and spray paint on linen 182x213cm) in the 251st RA Summer Exhibition 10th June-12th August

Mono is an exhibition of mono prints which I have made over the last 3 years with the help of master printmaker Simon Marsh.

http://www.kestlebarton.co.uk/arts-and-events/nicola-bealing-mono/

(image : An Argument (Since Forgotten) – monoprint 100x80cm)

I’ll be showing new paintings and mono prints made in response to 17/18th century broadside ballads in ‘A New Song (to an Old Tune ‘ at the Foundling Museum, London alongside their major exhibition : ‘Hogarth and the Art of Noise’.

Hold up, my Dear  (mono print 80x100cm)

Installation views. (photos courtesy of Matt’s Gallery, London & Jonathan Bassett 2018)

My show, Capital Crime will be at Matt’s Gallery, London from 6th-15th July 2018.

Rivalry in Somerset….11-13th May 2018  http://www.odartsfestival.co.uk

Red Tree with Caterpillars (oil on linen 121x121cm)

Misfits  oil on linen 152x152cm

Kettle Barton – 9th July – 4th September 2016

http://kestlebarton.co.uk

The Columbia Threadneedle Prize 2016 @ Palazzo Strozzi
Figurative Art Today
The Columbia Threadneedle Prize 2016 @ Palazzo Strozzi
The Strozzina area of Palazzo Strozzi in Florence will be hosting The Columbia Threadneedle Prize 2016 @ Palazzo Strozzi from 1 to 24 July 2016, an exhibition designed to trigger a debate on contemporary figurative art in the work of forty-six international artists selected to mark the prestigious European award known as the Columbia Threadneedle Prize.

Over forty works of art ranging from paintings and drawings to engravings will be coming together to probe the relationship between art and figuration today, taking a fresh look at such traditional genres as portrait painting, landscape painting and still-life. Addressing this theme inevitably means reflecting on the intrinsic value of the artistic image, playing realism off against the abstract and fostering an in-depth debate on our society today as it sinks beneath the weight of an ever increasing number of images disseminated via the new digital communication media. While artists such as Nicholas Holmes, Coll McDonnell and Stephen Read focus on chance, everyday issues and topics from daily life, exploring and extolling the theme of looking in painting, others such as Lewis Hazelwood-Horner, Nicola Bealing and Laura Smith appear to want to rethink the role of painting as a metaphorical tool of the present, at times in a totally dreamlike vein and at others in a profoundly realistic manner.

Palazzo Strozzi is the second venue to host the eighth edition of the Columbia Threadneedle Prize, an award devised and sponsored by Columbia Threadneedle Investments, a leading global assest manager, as part of the support the company dedicates to culture and the arts. The exhibition was first held at the Mall Galleries in London, running from 3 to 20 February 2016, but Palazzo Strozzi will be the first Italian venue to host this prestigious exhibition.

The Columbia Threadneedle Prize is selected by an illustrious international panel: journalist Emma Crichton-Miller; artist, writer and photographer David Dawson; Tim Knox, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge; Lewis McNaught, Director of Mall Galleries in London; and Arturo Galansino, Director General of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.

The Columbia Threadneedle Prize 2016 @ Palazzo Strozzi offers Palazzo Strozzi and Florence a unique opportunity to establish new forms of cooperation and to foster an important moment of exchange and debate on contemporary art at the international level. A rich and varied programme of workshops and activities forming part and parcel of the event will be held in the Strozzina for the entire duration of the exhibition, providing an opportuntiy for reflection on the figurative genre in contemporary art and on the relationship between cultural heritage and the contemporary art scene in Italy today.

Opening – 2-5pm Saturday 9th July 2016.  Artist’s talk 3pm.

(image – An Escaped Lion – oil and spray paint on aluminium  30x40cm)

I’ve just launched a blog  to tell some of the stories from the Death and Circuses project.   Each post will document and illustrate how an individual museum object launched a painting – or in some cases, a whole series of paintings.

deathandcircuses.wordpress.com

Trannack Misfits  (152x245cm) has been selected for the Columbia Threadneedle Prize Exhibition : 3rd – 20th February 2016, Mall Galleries, London www.columbiathreadneedleprize.com

@nicola_bealing for updates from the studio

@death_and_circuses for news on the Death and Circuses project and exhibition

Swallow Dive  (oil on linen 152x121cm)

Zebra Head  (oil on wood 50x50cm)

I’m delighted to have been awarded an Arts Council Grant for my project with Helston Museum Archive : ‘Death and Circuses’.

2 paintings : Gleaners and Infested Carpet will be included in the National Open Art Competition, Somerset House, London 18th September -25th October.

Infested Carpet  (oil on linen  152x121cm)

‘Boiled’ oil on linen  152x121cm

‘An exhibition of paintings, limited edition prints and drawings by leading, contemporary British artists who produce works on paper as part of their practice.’

Image: Aquarium (monotype and mixed media 56x76cm)

Image: Plague Season (121x121cm)