Essays / Exhibition news / Publications

Win It! Art Prize / Aire Place Studios / Press Release

I’m pleased to announce that my photographic work “14 Exposures” has been selected for the upcoming Aire Place Studios “Win It! Art Prize”; their inaugural art competition. Full press release below. Many thanks to the judges and I’m looking forward to showing alongside 39 other artists!

PRESS RELEASE

Issued: 25th May 2022

For Immediate Release

Amazing Artist Prizes for Deserving Artists - And you can have your say!

Aire Place Studios presents Win It! 2022, our very first art prize exhibition. Showing, sharing, and celebrating talent, this exciting visual arts competition offers winning artists valuable prizes to aid their future practice.

Launching on Friday 10th June, this premier edition of Win It! features the works of 40 talented artists. Join us at Aire Place Studio’s Gallery from 6-9pm to mark the breadth of creative genius and congratulate the winner of the £750 Win It! award, as chosen by our judging panel.

That’s not all though! Following the big reveal, voting commences for the 2022 People’s Choice Award. We need you to help us decide the deserving winner by telling us your favourite on our Instagram, with the winner of an additional £250 prize announced at the closing of the show.

Viewers can explore our newly purpose-built gallery space and browse over 40 diverse and wonderful artworks, with most works available to purchase.

This competition gives artists across the nation the opportunity to showcase their work in our gallery as well as be in the chance of winning amazing prizes, designed to help support the artist’s practice:

Our Prizes:

Aire Place Studios Prize: £750 cash prize.
The People’s Choice Award (selected by a public vote): £250 cash prize

Our Prize Exhibition judging panel have the tricky task of naming one worthy artist to receive the top prize. The panel consists of four passionate industry experts: Sarah Francis, Founder and Curator of Aire Place Studios, Joss Cole, Gallery Owner of Coles Gallery, Hannah Merril, Artist & Tutor and Lucy Fiona Morrison, Artist & Curator. Together they have toiled to debate the winners; “I’m really happy with our final selection and hope that it will have a positive impact for all of the artists involved”, Judge Sarah Francis.

To cast a vote in the People's Choice Award simply head to our Instagram @aireplacestudios to preview the Artists profiles ahead of the exhibition closing. The artwork shown the most love will win! Voting opens at 7pm on Friday 10th June and closes at 5pm on Friday 24th June 2022.

The winner, as chosen by the judges, will be announced publicly during our launch event on Friday 10th June 2022 6pm - 9pm.

##Ends##

Notes to editors

@aireplacestudios | www.aireplacestudios.com

Aire Place Studios is a creative studio which holds spaces of equality and solidarity. We host comfortable studios spaces, hold safer spaces for workshops and a bold gallery space centred around innovation and inclusivity.

Aire Place Studios also features a collective of associated artists who exist to radically uplift under-represented creatives with empathy and warmth to realise the potential of those often overlooked by traditional art institutions. This dynamic collaboration builds trust and collective accountability to serve our communities.

Key dates:

Win It! Exhibition

1 June - 24 May 2022*

*See our socials for daily opening times

Public Launch Event Friday

10 June 2022 @ 6PM - 9PM

Closing Event

24 June 2022 @1PM - 4PM

Creative Café Networking Events

Every Friday @ 4PM – 6PM

Higher Resolution files of the featured images are available on request.

All artist images feature in Win It Exhibition 2022 are available for publishing in promotion of Aire Place Studios, please contact for requests to use alternative Artist imagery.

Judges Bios

Sarah Francis

Sarah Francis is a Leeds based Artist Curator. Founder and Curator of Aire Place Studios, Curator for Emergence(y) in collaboration with Ort Gallery and International Curators Forum. Sarah is part of DISrupt collective of disabled artists in Leeds and is a practising artist in mixed media and performance photography.

Lucy Fiona Morrison

Lucy Fiona Morrison is an international artist and Curator of the annual Great Yorkshire Show – Art Show, Harrogate, and founder of The Virtual Art Fair. Morrison has established a reputation as an oil painter renowned for capturing the character and essence of the land with large scale landscapes.

Joss Cole

Joss Cole is the founder and owner of Cole's Gallery, an independent art gallery established in 2019 and located in the historic Leeds Corn Exchange. Cole is a practising artist known for creating expressive watercolour paintings. Works explore conceptual links between literature (poetry), visual art and life.

Hannah Merrill

Hannah Merrill is a globally exhibited artist and tutor, hailing from Connecticut, USA. Having trained professionally all over the world, Merrill now resides in Leeds, where she creates and teaches from her home studio. Making beautiful delicate works with an environmental conscience, Merrill's recent series provides a feminine viewpoint on environmental issues.

Curious Minds Virtual Exhibition / The Flux Review

Many thanks to Lisa Gray and The Flux Review for selecting four of my works for their April Virtual Show. The interactive exhibition features a range of international painters, photographers and sculptors; a guided virtual tour and artist website links are all available.

“Curious Minds” will run until May 4th 2022

Raccolta da un Esilio - ATB Gallery

Settembre 17 - Ottobre 5 / Via Riccardo Sineo 10 / Torino

Galleria fotografica dalla vernissage e una fantastica recensione critica di Alessandro Allocco, fondatore di ATB.

le opere in mostra: Choice Material (2021), Bums on Seats, The Dilemma, First Past the Post, A Coincidentalist Work (2020), 14 Exposures (2018)

di Alessandro Allocco

Puro significato, pura materia, povertà del soggetto, ma ricchezza infinita di un "credo" fortissimo: il cambiamento dell'arte.

"Raccolta da un esilio" è il lavoro, frutto di un'appassionata ricerca di Sam Vickers, esposto presso ATB Associazione Cultuale. E un esperimento di "non-arte come arte" nell'era dei social media,. Una serie di opere interattive baste sul tempo e sulla scelta dei materiali che trovano la loro ragion d'essere tra la vacuità concettuale e valore materiale in costante fluidità di significato pregna o scevra di valore affettivo a seconda che rientri o meno in una tendenza di mercato (di per sé privo di phatos, sensibile solo alle logiche economiche). Le opere di Sam Vickers traducono visivamente la voglia di dare al modo di percepire l'arte, un segno di cambiamento effettivo attraverso concetti coerenti ispirati dai social. In questa sua crociata in "esilio", l'artista britannico rinnova un linguaggio pittorico con la raffinatezza della materia provocatoriamente trasformata solo dal tempo. Le opere in esposizione, materiche e social, sono una concreta affermazione di stile dell'artista britannico. Sam Vickers ricerca l'avanguardia nel XXI secolo, come già fecero molti suoi colleghi artisti nel XX da Fontana a Burri, attraverso la tendenza a riconoscere un significato fondamentale alla materia non più subordinato all'immagine che si vuole rappresentare, in quanto è la materia stessa protagonista dell'opera.

Artisti del Neodadaismo come Rauschenberg, Johns, e Nevelson oppure dell'Arte Informale come appunto Burri, Milani, Somaini o addirittura del gruppo Gutai rientrano nella cerchia dei sostenitori della "materia", ma già nel precedente Surrealismo e Futurismo possiamo riscontrare grande interesse che avvalorerà quest'importante corrente artistica.

I primi quadri materici vennero realizzati con chiari intenti provocatori di denuncia sociale: violenti strappi, inquietanti sfondi neri o accozzaglie di tessuti senza una forma precisa, ma con simboli inerenti al contesto storico, gioielli dal fascino innegabile che suscitano curiosità e interesse. "Raccolta da un esilio", affronta una complessa questione: la non-arte è arte? Questo concetto non è nuovo anche se, nel nostro mondo occidentale odierno, la scissione tra Arte e non-arte è piuttosto recente. C'è una lunga storia legata al "quotidiano" -in particolar modo con il pensiero modernista- in cui il mondano sublima in quella "carica creativa" tipica del linguaggio artistico contemporaneo. Le opere di Sam Vickers in esposizione sostengono "un approccio culturale e olistico, soprattutto non etnocentrico, nella delineazione del processo di costruzione delle idee, delle pratiche e delle istituzioni delle arti..." (Larry Shiner in The invention of Art. A Cultural History 2001).

Il concetto di non-arte come arte si collega alle nuove e migliorate condizioni sociali del nostro opulento occidente, che hanno stimolato nuovi gusti e concezioni estetiche in verità dissimili rispetto alle realizzazioni accademiche del passato: nuovi luoghi nei quali fare esperienza e discutere di poesia, di pittura o musica strumentale al di fuori delle loro tradizionali funzioni sociali, luoghi fisici e virtuali, materiali e immateriali.

Il concetto di non-arte come arte non può prescindere dalla storia dell'arte attraverso la quale si percepisce che in ciò che la nostra cultura considera artistico c'è varietà di tempo, di luogo e di strato sociale come ben sottolineava Picasso che riconosceva l'arte in oggetti quotidiani, di lavoro o feticci provenienti dall'Africa o dall'Oceania (maschere rituali, bastoni, lance) e li innalzava a oggetti da museo. Aveva ragione perché, al di là del sistema di relazioni sociali che l'arte ha da sempre generato nella cultura e al di là dei diversi modi e stili di creatività formale, la dimensione estetica è sempre propria di ogni attività umana.

Il concetto di non-arte come arte è un elemento esperienziale comune e trasversale che interessa tutti gli strati sociali perché, in fondo, essere artisti è una caratteristica fondamentale della nostra specie, è bisogno e capacità codificata nella nostra memoria genetica, è necessità elementare dell'essere umano alla continua ricerca di appagamento, soddisfazione e agio, al di là della mera utilità.

Collected from an Exile - ATB Gallery

September 17 - October 5 / Via Riccardo Sineo 10 / Turin

Photo gallery of the private view and accompanying critical review by Alessandro Allocco, ATB founder.

Works on show: Choice Material (2021), Bums on Seats, First Past the Post, The Dilemma, A Coincidentalist Work (2020), 14 Exposures (2018)

by Alessandro Allocco

Pure meaning, pure matter, poverty of subject, but the infinite richness of a staunch belief in the change of art.

"Collected from an exile" is the work and result of Sam Vickers’ passionate research, exhibited at the ATB Cultural Association. It is an experiment of "non-art as art" in the age of social media. A series of interactive works based on time and the choice of materials that find their raison d'etre between conceptual emptiness and material value in constant fluidity of meaning - either full or devoid of emotional value depending on whether or not it falls within a market trend (in itself devoid of phatos, sensitive only to economic logic). Sam Vickers' works visually translate the need of perceiving art as a sign of effective change through coherent concepts inspired by social media. On his crusade into "exile", the British artist renews a pictorial language with the refinement of the material provocatively transformed only by time. The works on display, both material and social, are a concrete statement of the British artist's style. Sam Vickers seeks the avant-garde in the 21st century, as many of his fellow artists did in the 20th from Fontana to Burri, through the tendency to recognize matter’s fundamental meaning - that is no longer subordinate to the image being represented, as it is the very same protagonist of the work.

Neodadaist artists such as Rauschenberg, Johns, and Nevelson or of Informal Art such as Burri, Milani, Somaini or even the Gutai group, are part of the circle of “matter” supporters but we can also find considerable interest that confirms this important artistic current in Surrealism and Futurism.

The first material paintings were made with clear provocative intentions of social denunciation: violent tears, disturbing black backgrounds or jumbles of fabric without a precise shape, but with symbols inherent to the historical context, jewels of undeniable charm that arouse curiosity and interest. "Collected from an exile" addresses a complex question - is non-art art? This concept is not new even if, in our western world today, the split between art and non-art is quite recent. There is a long history linked to the "everyday" (especially within modernist thought) in which the mundane provides that "creative charge" so typical of contemporary artistic language. Sam Vickers’ works on display support "a cultural and holistic approach, above all non-ethnocentric, in the delineation of the process of construction of the ideas, practices and institutions of the arts ..." (Larry Shiner, The invention of Art. A Cultural History 2001).

The concept of non-art as art is linked to the new and improved social conditions of our opulent West, which have stimulated new tastes and aesthetic conceptions that are actually dissimilar to the academic achievements of the past: new places in which to experience and discuss poetry, of instrumental painting or music outside their traditional social functions, physical and virtual places, material and immaterial.

Equally, the concept of non-art as art cannot disregard the history of art through which it is perceived, namely to understand what our culture considers artistic there is a variety of time, place and social strata to consider; as well underlined by Picasso, who recognized art in African and Oceanic everyday objects (for work or otherwise: ritual masks, sticks, spears) and raised them to museum object status. He was right because beyond the system of social relations that art has always generated in culture and beyond the different ways and styles of formal creativity, aesthetic dimension is always proper to every human activity.

The concept of non-art as art is a commonly experiential element that affects all social levels because, after all, being artists is a fundamental characteristic of our species, it is a need and capacity encoded into our genetic memory, it is an elementary necessity of human beings constantly looking for fulfillment, satisfaction and ease, beyond mere utility.

The habit of considering art distinct from what is not currently dominant art in the West, is spreading further into the rest of the world and collects peculiarities of one’s own life as an artist, of unique pieces, of unerring research and the authorship of wonder. All that is called art is a cosmopolitan phenomenon that globally connects not only the markets of aesthetic products, but also many (if not all) local aesthetic dimensions that are, more or less, already "contaminated" - often consciously and programmatically hybridized with non-art.

The exhibition "Collected from an exile" by Sam Vickers welcomes the two sides of art and non-art as art and treats them as complementary attitudes towards traditions and post-modernity; also making them part of a complex framework of hybridizations between local traditions, mass culture, experimentalist elitism - in an intrinsically "postnational" dynamic.

Here4 at Cavallerizza Irreale

May 2019. The debut showing of “Monument to the EU”, selected as part of the Here4 festival at Cavallerizza Irreale in Torino. The space allows for the full implementation of the project as I originally saw it. The sculpture is accompanied by photographs and technical drawings that make up the 2026 competition entry from LAS Architects Associates. Conceptually speaking, the piece draws from the current political fragility across Europe that has allowed for the rise of nationalism. The threat of EU breakup is very real and this work is prophetic in its intention. More information on the work itself can be read in the blog entry “Predicable Monumentalism”. The banality of the competition entry ‘visualisations’ highlights how the passage of time affects public spaces and monuments of this type.

The Cavallerizza Irreale is a community of multi-disciplined artists that occupy and maintain the premises of the old royal stables in Turin, Italy. The building was left abandoned for many years but now hosts a variety of exhibitions, performances and screenings. Here4 is the fourth edition of the festival and this years theme is ‘temporary cities’.