News

For the latest updates, images of work in progress, installation mages of exhibitions and other contextual information, please visit Instagram: @edwinaitkenart

The paintings ‘Leaning Master’ and ‘Drift and Fix’ have been selected for the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2024.

‘Leaning Master’ (2023) & 'Drift and Fix' (2024) acrylic on canvas, 42 x 30cm, 2023.

The painting ‘Kicky-Wicky’ has been selected for ‘It Rose and It Fell Terrace Open 2024, 20 years of Terrace Gallery, 150 painters, 150 paintings’.

‘Kicky-Wicky’ will be exhibited at Patchworks XYZ in London from 29th May to 23rd June 2024. Thank you to Karl Bielik and Terrace Gallery.

Private View 6-9pm Wednesday 29th May.

Open on Saturdays and Sundays from 12pm to 4pm.

Patchworks, 258 Church Road, London E10 7JQ.

The painting ‘Dirty Tapping’ has been selected for the Fronteer Open 2023 by curators to Michael Borkowsky and Sharon Borkowsky.

‘Dirty Tapping’ is a painting that references aspects of nature, suburbia and notions of territoriality centred around a fig tree.

Exhibition Info:

Private View is on Tuesday 31st October 5.30pm -7.30pm.

The exhibition will be open 1st – 18th November from 11am - 4pm Tuesday to Thursday and 2pm – 5pm on Saturday.

‘Dirty Tapping’ acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 42 x 30cm, 2023.

The painting ‘Local Traffic’ has been selected for the Wales Contemporary 2023 by selectors Mehdi Moazzen, Janette Kerr and Ashley Hall.

Exhibition dates: 21st October – 22nd December 2023.

‘Local Traffic’, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 42 x 30cm, 2023.

The painting ‘Thunder Worm’ will be exhibited alongside paintings by Graham Lister and Kate Whateley in ‘Three Movements of a Longer Work’ at Prosaic Projects Gallery in Bloc Studios, Sheffield. This exhibition has been organised and curated by Sean Williams.

From the press release:

‘Three Movements of a Longer Work’ is a micro exhibition that looks at three styles of Abstraction. Edwin Aitken's painting presents an emotive, subjective response to the natural world. A woodland walk is the catalyst for an ultimately non-literal interpretation of the landscape. The build-up of an array of marks creates a complex surface and a pictorial space in constant flux. Graham Lister uses the activity of painting as a way of thinking about contemporary physical experiences. His work encompasses gradual abstraction processes, investigating visual codes and surface textures through repetitive mark-making and a delicious combination of gesture and careful filling in. Kate Whateley's work is both painting and sculpture, or neither painting nor sculpture. It is an intriguing ambivalence. She meticulously constructs works that only bear resemblance to something fabricated by machine, yet with just enough handmade-ness to create a unique, human experience for the viewer.

The exhibition is curated by Sean Williams at Prosaic Projects Gallery within Bloc Studios, 198 Arundel Street, Sheffield S1 4RE.

Exhibition dates: 1st – 31st May 2023.

Opening times: Viewing is by appointment only. Please contact Sean Williams at swseanwilliams@gmail.com to arrange a time. Admission is free.

Thunder Worm, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 42cm x 30cm, 2023.

The painting ‘Thunder Worm’ will be exhibited in ‘Contrafibularities’ at Fronteer Gallery Sheffield. Contrafibularities is curated by Sean Williams and features the work of:

Edwin Aitken, Paul Allender, Jackie Berridge, Stephen Carley, Alison J Carr, Andy Cropper, Bryan Eccleshall, Paul Evans, Mandy Gamsu, Nick Grindrod, Rob Hall, Kate Jacob, Jack Kettlewell, Simon Le Ruez, Graham Lister, Mandy Payne, Georgia Peskett, Katya Robin, April Virgoe, Kate Whateley, Joanna Whittle, Myfanwy Williams, Sean Williams and Siân Williams.

‘Thunder Worm’ acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 30cm x 21cm, 2023.

Contrafibularities

Saturday 1st to Thursday 16th April

Tuesday - Saturday 11-3.pm

Orchard Square

Sheffield.

S1 2FB

New paintings and drawings from the series From The Big Tree will be exhibited in From The Dark Soil at Blyth Gallery, Imperial College, London. From The Dark Soil is a two-person exhibition with the artist Hannah Maybank featuring paintings, works on paper and various items in several cabinets of curiosity.

‘From the Dark Soil’ Private View is on Tuesday 20th September 6.00pm - 8.30pm.

For more information about Hannah and her work please see her Instagram @hannahmaybankartist

Exhibition dates are:

Wednesday 21st September to Thursday 3rd November

Open Monday to Friday 10am – 5pm

Blyth Gallery

Level 5 Sherfield Building

Imperial College

London

SW7 2AZ

From the Press Release:

‘From the Dark Soil’ brings together a group of paintings by London based artists Hannah Maybank and Edwin Aitken. A selection of the artists’ collected objects of curiosity, often garnered on journeys, support the wall exhibits in cabinets.

To go for a walk on your own in the woods

To lie down in an overgrown garden

Amble in unkempt countryside or over a piece of scrubland listening to the breeze or the branches.

Listening, through the humus, to the field and forest floor.

The quiet chitter chatter of life creeping, crawling, communicating underneath you.

As dusk comes to dark and dark to dawn, these in-between states re-connect us with the slow emergence or fade of the stars and moons and the consciousness of our pin prick place amongst it all.

To look

And be looked at.

The title ‘From the Dark Soil’ stems from an extract of Eileen Agar’s autobiography where she likens painting to germinating seeds:

‘ … I am a secret painter, painting for me is a very private occupation…it is something that germinates like a seed; in the dark soil and recesses of the living coral of the mind.. They grow like a plant, slowly putting out shoots, they need pruning, meditating on, while the roots grow in the dark.’

The wonder of it all; we can personify the slow circinate vernation of a fern or the uncoiling of a length of Solomon’s seal or a simple rolled stone. Our souls stretch from the soil to the stars and beyond.

Paintings that come from a place near the guts, intuition, the place where there are no appropriate words.

About a walk of the senses

About not only the meeting of human psychology with ‘nature’ and the outer cosmos, but also our physical interconnectedness

Some things are for certain

Some things feel most confused

About life, love, loss

About being a human under the stars

And isn’t that what painting is?

The painting French Gary will be exhibited in Think Of Me With Kindness at Gage Gallery Sheffield.

From the Press Release:

Think Of Me With Kindness presents 25 artworks celebrating picture-making in all its forms - from pure abstraction, through collage, photo-realism to objects on the edge of sculpture. The artists are: Edwin Aitken, Stephen Carley, Alison J Carr, Andy Cropper, Bryan Eccleshall, Paul Evans, Salvatore Fiorello, Mandy Gamsu, Nick Grindrod, Rob Hall, Harriet Mena Hill, Kate Jacob, Simon Le Ruez, Graham Lister, Jen Orpin, Mandy Payne, Georgia Peskett, Katya Robin, Helen Thomas, Judith Tucker, Kate Whateley, Joanna Whittle, Mark Whittle-Bruce, Myfanwy Williams and Sean Williams.

The exhibition is open Thurs – Sat, 11am – 1pm, with a closing event on Sunday 4th September from 1 – 3pm.

Think Of Me With Kindness has been curated by Sean Williams. The exhibition is supported by Freelance Fund 2.

The painting Chiggywig has been selected for the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2022.

From the Royal Academy’s website:

RA Summer Exhibition 21st June – 21st August 2022

Summer at the RA is not just a time of year, it’s the world’s most joyful art experience. Run without interruption since 1769, the Summer Exhibition showcases art in all forms, from prints, painting, film and photography to architectural works and sculpture by invited artists, Royal Academicians and emerging talent.

After two years in winter, it’s back where it should be. The theme chosen by the exhibition’s coordinator, Alison Wilding RA, is ‘Climate’. Whether as a crisis or opportunity, or simply our everyday experience, it is an all-embracing subject.

For more information and to book tickets: RA Summer Exhibition 2022

The painting Woodhill has been selected for the 2022 Beep Painting Prize.

The exhibition will be in July at Elysium Gallery with the winner of the prize being announced on 29th July.

Artists in the 2022 Beep Painting Prize:

For more information: Instagram @beeppainting and website: 2022 Beep Painting Prize

The drawing From the Big Tree #6 will be featured in Knot Works: Presents II.

This is an exhibition of thirty drawings by various contemporary artists.

For more Information: instagram: @knotworks website: Knot Works

The online catalogue/exhibition of the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2021 which features each of the longlisted and shortlisted paintings is now available.

For more information: Contemporary British Painting Prize 2021 Instagram: @paintbritain

The painting Tooth and Claw will be featured at Bird Box Gallery Cambridge as a part of their series of exhibitions inspired by the landscape.

From the Bird Box Gallery website:

The Bird Box Gallery was started in Cambridge by Roger and Sarah Healey-Dilkes, as a creative response to the first lockdown. The aim was to provide a unique Covid secure gallery space for artists and public. It is simply a gallery in the form of a box, located in a garden hedge, open 24/7 and visible to any passer-by.

For more Information: Bird Box Gallery Instagram and Bird Box Gallery website

A tour of the Silent Disco exhibition with curator Graham Crowley is now live on the ArtTop10 YouTube channel.

For more information: ArtTop10

Edwin Aitken has been interviewed by Robert Dunt on ArtTop10.

The interview was held in conjunction with the exhibition Silent Disco curated by Graham Crowley and covers The Last Painting (which is featured in the exhibition) as well as Edwin Aitken's wider artistic practice. The interview is now live on the ArtTop10 YouTube channel: ArtTop10

The painting The Last Walk will be featured in Silent Disco at Greystone Industries curated by Graham Crowley.

Artists exhibiting in Silent Disco: Edwin Aitken, Matilda Bevan, Terry Bond, Kate Bowen, Graham Chorlton, Lara Cobden, Graham Crowley, Sally Crowley, Rosalind Davis, Karen Densham, Rob Dunt, Geraint Evans, James Faure Walker, Sam Jackson, Robin Mason, Hannah Maybank, Donna Mclean, Clare Mitten, Kate Murdoch, Ruth Murray, Andrew Stahl, John Stark, Kate Terry, Josh Thompson, Twinkle Troughton, Judith Tucker, Dina Varpahovsky, Joanna Whittle, Simon Willems and Glyn Williams.

The exhibition is open from 29th August to 10th September 2021.

For more information: www.grahamcrowley.co.uk

The painting A Wooden Heart Beats Slower (Frogspawn & Bark) will be featured in the exhibition your FOOT in my FACE and other tectonic strategies at Kingsgate Project Space curated by Dan Howard-Birt.

From the Press Release:

“Come in, come in,” cried the old man. He was radiant with delight… Porbus and Poussin, burning with eager curiosity, hurried into a vast studio. Everything was in disorder and covered with dust, but they saw a few pictures here and there upon the wall. They stopped first of all in admiration before the life-size figure of a woman partially draped. “Oh! Never mind that,” said Frenhofer; “that is a rough daub that I made, a study, a pose, it is nothing. These are my failures,” he went on, indicating the enchanting compositions upon the walls of the studio […]

[S]aid Poussin, coming once more toward the supposed picture. “I can see nothing there but confused masses of colour and a multitude of fantastical lines that go to make a dead wall of paint.” Frenhofer looked for a moment at his picture […] He sat down and wept.

- Honoré de Balzac, The Unknown Masterpiece, 1831

Artists exhibiting in your FOOT in my FACE and other tectonic strategies : Edwin Aitken, Michael Ajerman, Karolina Albricht, Leila Al-Yousuf, Ned Armstrong, Phil Ashcroft, Suzy Babington, Anthony Banks, Tristan Barlow, Fungai Benhura, Kiera Bennett, Karl Bielik, Kofi Boamah, Miranda Boulton, Matthew Burrows, Simon Burton, Ilker Cinarel, Jake Clark, Sarah Cooney, Billy Crosby, Martyn Cross, Leigh Curtis, Gordon Dalton, Luke Dowd, Grant Foster, Holly Froy, Carole Gibbons, Henry Gibbons Guy, Max Gimson, Luke Gottelier, Rebecca Gould, Thomas Greig, Rebecca Guez, Rob Hall, Jacqui Hallum, Andy Harper, Alice Hartley, Marcus Harvey, Helen Hayward, Adam Hedley, Adam Holmes Davies, Diane Howse, Mark Jessett, Liam Jolly, Patrick Adam Jones, Agnieszka Katz Barlow, Simon Keenleyside, Dominic Kennedy, Bernadette Kerrigan, Neill Kidgell, Phil King,Anna Liber Lewis, Iwan Lewis, Xiao-yang Li, David Lock, Scott McCracken. Kirsty McEwan, Vanessa Mitter,Francesca Mollett, Rosie Mullan, Hannah Murgatroyd, Tahmina Negmat, Mahali O'Hare, Joe Packer, Daniel Pettitt, Alexander James Pollard, Katie Pratt, Clare Rees-Hales, Ben Sanderson, Ed Saye, Mark Sibley, Mark Siebert, Leah Nyssa Stewart, Neal Tait, Ross Taylor, Susan Taylor, Hannah Turner-Duffin, Henry Ward, Paul Wardski, Joe Warrior Walker, Casper White, Isabel Wilkinson, Nicola Williams, Rose Williams, Sam Windett and Laura Wormell.

Kingsgate Project Space 14th August – 4th September. There will be a closing event and book sale on Saturday 4th September from 12 – 6pm.

For more information: Kingsgate Project Space

Two works on Paper – Squirrels Heath Lane (Version 1) and Squirrels Heath Lane (Version 2) will be featured in the exhibition Without Borders at Elysium Gallery Swansea.

From the Press Release:

Without Borders is an evolving digital project and physical exhibition that brings together 22 communities and nearly 300 artists from around the world.

Without Borders seeks to remove barriers, create alliances, and connect with neighbours. It aims to bring creative people together, to collaborate in an international touring exhibition of works on paper – a collection of artists pages.

At the end of the elysium exhibition, the pages will be bound together to make a book and taken to another venue to be taken apart, displayed, and then reassembled before moving again to its next location.

The exhibition will travel to Japan, Norway, USA, Venice, Canada, and back to Wales. The project will also be globally accessible via an e-catalogue.

At the end of the tour, the artworks will permanently be bound together to create one unique artist book, to be housed in a special collection’s library which will be announced at a later date.

Curated by Jonathan Powell, elysium gallery Director and Heather Parnell, co-editor of 1SSUE artist books. The project salutes the diversity of creativity, showcasing the work of all participating artists democratically, in a format that is portable and accessible. The ‘Artists Book’ serves as the vessel and sets the parameters into the exploration of the notion of Borders.

The term Border describes literal or invisible lines: edges that separate and divide, that contain and limit. Without Borders is particularly evocative and redolent in these current times. Ever-quickening, reactive politics results in some borders hardening, whilst others dissolve. The divide between rich and poor appears to be widening. Physical, geographical, and social borders, together with the fragile, permeable border between life and death have also been highlighted by the recent pandemic.

The exhibition is open from 17th July – 28th August 2021.

For more information: Instagram @Elysium website Elysium Gallery