Unbound 2016
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Espacio Gallery
159 Bethnal Green Road, London E2 7DG
22 - 27 November 2016
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Private View - Thursday 24 Nov 6 - 9 pm
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Espacio Gallery and The Artists' Pool presents a group of young artists making early transitions in their careers, encouraged to unleash their creativity on the world.
Creativity is a free spirit. It can be nurtured, supported, guided and developed. But it thrives best without restrictions and is at it's strongest without limitations; when all rules are relaxed, bindings are cut and obstacles removed, a visceral creative energy is allowed to flow freely and truly from the soul.
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Unbound Artists
Artist Statement
Abigail Chapman
​Abigail Chapman Romero was born in the tumbleweed-strewn borderlands of America. Eschewing encouragement to embrace a practical profession, she instead finished her MSc in History from the University of Edinburgh in 2014. She currently resides in London as a content creator who works predominantly in three-dimensional and social media. Her creations are inspired by film, traditional animation, practical effects and costume. Though she has worked behind the scenes in museums and galleries in Edinburgh, Oxford, and London, this is her first time displaying her work.
Benson Walker Chen
Benson Walker Chen, originally from Hong Kong and currently studying mechanical engineering at UCL.
His art work involves designing and creating paper sculptures. He's been doing this consistently now for more than 10 years. He has devised his own unique way to create his sculptures which are made from recycled paper ( usually school notes) and a few years ago he invented a device that can roll the paper up tightly in preparation for construction of his work.
Typically, a sculpture would take him at least 3 months to complete as the process is very labour intensive. He has also developed techniques where parts move. Skeleton and mechanics are two of his favourite subjects and this is what inspires his work.
Benson has shown some of his works at an end of year exhibition at Merchiston Castle School Edinburgh but this is his very first Gallery exhibition.
Billy Riley
Often we place labels on other people and this seams to be endemic within our society, particularly how we make assumptions of each other based on their race, gender, social class or sexuality. These labels create barriers that stop us from expressing ourselves to our truest extent leaving us unable to truly see the person in front of us.
Over the last year, Billy’s artwork has been focused on trying to portray these social barriers. He paints his subjects wearing masks and also paint portraits which are partially obscured by abstract angular forms.
This is an exploration into the motivations that lead people to obscure their faces and the reasons why people do so, from religious to acts of showmanship.
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Claire Andersen Frank
Claire is a lively, keen learner with ambition. She's strongly driven to expand her skills in the creative areas, art, writing and acting. Art has always been a great importance to her– both experiencing others’ work, and creating her own. She's currently completing a nine-month writing course at Soho Theatre and look forward to a year ahead with lots of creativity and fun.
Eliot Willicome-Lang
Eliot Willicome-Lang is a student at Kingston University studying product design and furniture. He's been makeing art from before he can remember. His current influence on his art is how the digital world is killing off traditional art forms. To reflect this e's recreated traditional masterpiece out of simplified pixels of colour
Ellora Torchia
Ellora Torchia was born in London, and graduated from the Royal Academy Of Dramatic Art in 2014.
With a mixed heritage of Italian, South-African-Indian, her passion for travel is almost hereditary. She grew up with a nomadic life-style, moving from place to place as a child, and now as an adult, Ellora continues to displace herself, explore and learn about new cultures, when her profession allows.
An artist in her spare time, and gifted in both performance and visual arts, Ellora often uses both mediums as a way of projecting her ideas, often drawing initial inspiration from her love of literature. Her running themes include a pivotal search for 'the story of the true essence of 'being', in all human-beings’. For this exhibition she displays her work for the first time in a series of photographic portraitures from India.
Frances Willoughby
Frances Willoughby is a British artist, currently studying BA Fine Art at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB). She predominately works with sculpture and collage using a mixture of textiles, found objects and images. Willoughby’s work explores themes such as memory, nostalgia and the uncanny. Her practise is a conversation between opposites, such as, playful vs serious or comfort vs threat. Her work contextually draws on psychoanalysis, surrealism and the devotional object. Displacing the mundane she offers up a new context for the viewer to interpret and decipher.
Gwil Hughes
Gwil Hughes is a Welsh visual artist currently based in South-East London. Self-taught, Gwil has been developing his practice since completing a Modern Languages degree at the University of Oxford in 2014. Painting and drawing on a range of media (from slate to Perspex) are Gwil’s current focus. One ambition which drives his work is translating personal responses to experience – emotional, physical, real, imagined –to evoke a response in the viewer. How do choices of media and gesture carry meaning? How can you be truthful rather than descriptive?
In April 2016 Gwil had a successful first solo exhibition, ‘Ripple’, which focused on the undulating lines and liminal spaces of the natural landscape. He has taken part in numerous group exhibitions in London and has been chosen as a selected artist for this year’s ING Discerning Eye exhibition.
Lola Michaels
Lola Michaels is an artist from East London, who specialises in portraiture.
She calls herself ‘Lola The Heartist’, as the basis of her artwork is to bring to life issues that reside closest to her heart.
Experiences within her childhood have groomed her to be more open and expressive, and art has played a vital role in doing this.
It all started as a child, spending hours replicating covers of her favourite Disney films – taking time to include every minute detail – which later led her to develop her own style, using portraiture art as a form of inspiration.
Miranda Pissarides
Miranda Pissarides is an independent artist currently living and working in London. She works predominantly in the medium of painting and sculpture, as well as taxidermy, mosaic and drawing. In 2012 she graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, London with a BA in Fine Art and Theory, after achieving a Foundation Diploma from St Martin’s College, London in 2008. In 2015 Miranda was awarded the ArtSlant Showcase Winner award. Miranda has exhibited extensively in London as well as New York, Brazil, Italy and Japan, and is currently preparing for a solo show at Gallery K, Nicosia.
Mitch Vincent Earley
For as long as he can remember Mitch have always loved watching “movies”. In particular, classic feature films, documentaries and innovative animation. He now has an appetite for photography and a growing interest in film making.
Mitch fell in love with photography when he photographed the FIBA Summer Slam National basketball tournament. This was when he bought his first camera and began to learn the art of shooting, editing and sound. His basic introduction to photography has grown to such an extent that he is now drawn towards the world of film making, or for him, “making a short film”.
He is inspired by the work of Filmmaker and YouTube personality ‘Casey Neistat’. Neistat’s projects are quite unique and portray a strong message. With today’s technology, the impossible is now possible and this fascinates and intrigues him endlessly.
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Shakira Walker Allen
Shakira has always been very interested in Photography and Film as well as drawing and painting. She's been taking photos since she was 11 years old and have used all she's learned in Art to help her capture special moments in pictures.
Her current work explores street life in London, she was attracted to Camden and Brick Lane area's as many other artists have done before these are such lively bustling areas.
Shakira's main objective was to present a body of work that shows a very personal viewpoint. She chose to concentrate on the unique and diverse culture of London, people going about their daily life's, each one with their own story to tell. This was achieved by capturing natural shots of people interacting with each other or simply just sitting deep in thought alone . She was very aware that she must not be an intrusive photographer and it was interesting to observe that people behave differently when they think no one is watching and quite often felt that this is a reflection of their true self.
Tom Cox
Tom Cox’s paintings engage with both the social and architectural evolution of modern day London. He carefully considers the human narrative that is evoked from his subjects balanced with the bold angularity of the urban landscape. Construction and regeneration offer him an outlet to portray rough, bold material physicality in his technique.
He uses Indian ink to sketch out his scenes as a starting point and serves the initial freedom of the ink as he develops the artwork with oil paints. Often using the palette knife to gain depth in his image he explores the textures and sculptural qualities of the paint on his canvas.
Robyn Eve Flynn Earley
Robin is currently studying Product Design at Glasgow School of Art, specialising in interaction, experience and service design, better known as Product Design. This allows her to combine creativity with a vast range of problem solving opportunities which is fascinating and intriguing.
She is constantly aware of her immediate environment and the world around her, which is why she is drawn to this particular area of creativity. This also allows her to focus on human interactions of everyday design and has become a never ending search for perfection in her practice.
In today’s society, technology is at its strongest because of the constant evolution of design. The advancement in electronics allows her to build upon basic concepts and recreate them and in turn, keeps her up to date with the world’s constant turnover of trends. It is vital to a designer to be aware of the advances in the creation of products. Being at art school, specialising in this subject, has highlighted the importance of design for Robin.
Tonatiuh Bieletto Trejo
A photograph is an ideal way of capturing a fleeting moment. Whether it is an object, a landscape, or living thing, these snapshots are views of what the photographer sees or feels in that exact moment.
Tonatiuh Bieletto Trejo, has completed his university studies in the field of Mechanical Engineering, and looks to further develop his knowledge by undertaking a Master’s degree. Alongside his studies, photography has been a vital part in expressing his creativity. As is similar to Engineering, photography has a sequential process in order to achieve the final image. Tonatiuh’s passion lies in taking part in all stages of constructing the photograph; loading the film, hunting for the shot and finally developing the negatives in order to obtain photographic prints.
Camera of choice: Pentax LX 35mm SLR
Preferred lens: Pentax SMC 50mm F1.4