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Sarah
Maple to headline Salon Gallery’s third
annual exhibition showcasing
the best of British talent
“UK’S FUTURE GREATS”
11th June – 11th July 2009
London. 4 June, 2009. It has just
been announced that controversial British
Muslim artist Sarah Maple who has just returned
from representing Europe at the opening
of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada, is
to headline the west London gallery SaLon’s
UK’s Future Greats exhibition, which
showcases the very best of the UK’s
new talent. This will be an opportunity
to see Maple’s long-awaited new work
before it goes on display at her first major
solo museum show at the Chelsea Art Museum
in New York later this year.
The infamous young artist is renowned for
her contemporary depictions that offer an
extraordinary take on being a contemporary
Muslim in Britain today. Through her art
Maple is open about her struggle to live
as a ‘good’ Muslim in western
society, which has been the main focus of
her work to date. However her new works,
to be unveiled at the UK’s Future Greats
exhibition, are said to reveal her new pre-occupation
with the exploration of femininity. The
works experiment with themes such as manipulation,
where her sexuality can be used to alter
the world’s perception of her. Numerous
self-portraits in provocative and amusing
guises are to be expected.
Sarah Maple said: “Salon
Gallery is a gallery like no other. It offers
freedom of spirit, yet an unequalled nurturing
that a young artist could not equate elsewhere.
Samir Ceric’s ability to identify the
talent of tomorrow and the belief system
behind it, makes it truly unique and for
that reason I am honoured to headline an
exhibition of such talented artists. I look
forward to presenting my new work that I
hope will probe and intrigue as much as
my previous works have.”
SaLon Gallery’s annual UK’s
Future Greats exhibition is becoming
a stalwart for talent in London. It features
a selection of the most talented and innovative
graduate artists to emerge in the UK’s
contemporary art scene. The show is a heady
culmination of three years of talent spotting
by curator Samir Ceric who is renowned
for his sharp eye and ability to spot potential
at an early stage. The eight artists in
this group exhibition are all Samir Ceric’s
discoveries and their diverse mediums, themes
and aesthetics will bombard you with much
food for thought.
Samir Ceric, Curator, SaLon Gallery
said: “After three years of talent
scouting across the country this exhibition
will be a culmination of all the hard work
and progression that the artists have made.
I feel that each of them brings something
unique, whether it be style, technique or
medium, further enhanced by their combination
of cultural differences. I am very proud
and privileged to be able to present their
work and particularly delighted to platform
new ground-breaking works by Sarah Maple,
an thinking artist who epitomises the SaLon
Gallery’s ethos.”
Alongside Sarah Maple the exhibition will
also debut the latest work of conceptual
artist Steve Rosenthal. Rosenthal
set up a Gaydar account in January 2007,
which has currently received over 28,000
hits. The 33,500+ profile pictures of the
11,500+ visitors to his page are used as
mosaic squares to “de-create”
over 40 historical images from the homoerotic
artistic canon – including works by
Caravaggio and Leonardo da Vinci, through
Cadmus, Tom of Finland, Quaintance and Bazille,
to the likes of Warhol, Ray Johnson, Hockney
and Pierre et Gilles (each work being constructed
of approximately 20,000 images). Rosenthal
has also produced two sister series –
the first depicting the heads of state from
countries where homosexual acts are currently
punishable by death (i.e. His Highness Sheikh
Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi),
and a second series of film and pop music
celebrities who have at some stage throughout
their career led a closeted existence.
Other artists include the multi-media ‘Queen
of Craft’ Sarah Gwyer who produces
hand-stitched portraits and sculptures of
cult British celebrities. Korean artist
Dorothy Yoon will present her series
’13 Blondes’ which explores the
idea of a fantasy world mixed with reality,
where a combination of Western and Eastern
traditional algorisms, symbolisms and metaphors
can be found. She will then debut her new
series which is inspired by the Brother's
Grimm Fairytales in October 2009 at Salon
Gallery covering 8 of the principal stories
and is multi-layered with symbols of her
East/West culture crash. This will sit alongside
portraits by Irish artist Brian Fitzgerald
who confronts the unspoken crimes of Catholic
priests in his homeland. Fitzgerald’s
series of Priests, Christ figures and school
boys are created out of Guinness beer mats
and other paraphernalia. Jacky Tsai,
who impressed Alexander McQueen so much
with his silk-screen prints that he helped
design a sell-out line of t-shirts, will
exhibit his stunning prints to bring a calming
quality to the show. Thai artist Pakpoom
Silaphan will also be showcasing his
series ‘It’s a Wonderland’
which he expresses his hopes of Utopia being
a possibility that can be can be reached
through society pulling together. Finally,
the winner of SaLon’s ‘Best of
the UK’ competition, Oliver Jones,
will be showing his enormous confrontational
portraits of Big Issue sellers who challenge
the aesthetic tradition of beauty and question
society’s obsession with avoiding the
uncomfortable.
END
Notes to Editors
Since opening SaLon Gallery in 2006
Samir Ceric has gained a reputation for
being more than just another London art
dealer. His hot-bed of new talent, carefully
selected from the UK’s leading art
schools, offers an array of original works
that explode onto the art market with refreshing
vivacity. The works themselves explore diverse
mediums and themes and range from narratives
about discovering and representing self-identity,
to humoristic interpretations of political
and social comment.
If you require more information on any of
the artists please do not hesitate to contact
SaLon Gallery:
Ilona Eyre
020 72211650/1
ilona.eyre@salongallery.co.uk
END TO ALL
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