#WINDOWGALLERIES
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#WINDOWGALLERIES
Curated by Love Your plane
PRESS RELEASE
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Oxfordshire artists create art gallery in empty Randolph Hotel windows
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On the 17th October, The Randolph Hotel will be closing its doors for five months for a large refurbishment project. Working closely with the hotel, Fusion Arts, an arts organisation in East Oxford, has created a new space for artists and community projects. In collaboration they have brought together a group of artists, led by Josh Rose of Love Your Plane, to provide a platform for artists and designers to showcase their work to the public.
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Kieran Cox, Artistic Director of Fusion Art said,
“It’s great to be working with a brilliantly diverse range of artists, many of whom are Oxford based, all working in different media, from paint to sculpture to mixed media and furniture design.
Having these six artists display artwork in an easily accessible public space allows for more people to experience art in a different way. It also brings another layer of interest to the city centre.
It is fantastic to work with the team at The Randolph to provide this space for people to view art on the streets, for the artists to have an audience, and for them to potentially sell their products and make a living.”
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Josh Rose, Artist behind Love Your Plane commented,
“By curating a series of mini galleries we aim to support the artists, inspire a wider audience who may not be traditional art viewers, increase positive interest in the arts and provide an attraction and footfall in this particular area.”
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Philip Lewis, General Manager of the Randolph commented:
“Despite such a challenging year we must try and focus on any green shoots of positivity. I am delighted to be able to work alongside Kieran Cox and support such a worthwhile community project. The current economic challenges are influencing a wide range of businesses none more so than the hospitality and arts sectors, and therefore It is important that we work together to support artists and help showcase their creativity.”
The Artists
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Kleiner Shames, originally from Oxford and now in Penzance, Cornwall, started writing graffiti in his teens, moving to working with screen printing, canvas painting and three-dimensional work. His current art practice comprises of experimentation with form and colour, using shapes that have been developed over 15 years of painting. Driven by process, the artworks are developed by trusting instinct instead of planning. Shames is now resident artists at the PZ Gallery and has taken part in over twenty exhibitions, many of which have been in Oxford. He also completed murals on Cowley Road in 2013 and 2014.
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Daniel McNaboe, an Oxford resident, uses time and skill to create his incredibly detailed work. His personal work showcases his fascination with his grandfather’s story (a US Marine in the Second World War) and the American side of his family history, often using images, collected items and memories to produce his work.
Josh Rose comments on his work,
“Many among his generation may be rushing to gain recognition, but for Danny, one of his attributes is his patience to tackle big personal themes. His works are reflections on his family and friends, he draws close attention to them, perhaps asking whether they make up who he is.”
Love Your Plane, a design and craft driven art practice by Oxford based Josh Rose explores a mixture of mixture of disciplines developing works around sculpture, product and print. Rose places value on the everydayness of things and objects that help shape our environment in which we live in. He explores ideas of ownership, purpose and empathy, and questions how the surrounding environment influences us and how we influence our own environment. His works developed from these ideas are often playful, ad-hoc natured, structure led and purposeful, and all portray a strong graphic identity.
Celebration and value are also placed on the handmade, firstly through the reference to the woodworking tool ‘plane’ in the name, and second through his focus on the process and enjoyment of making.
Katya Mora’s work explores processes of artistic creation linked to transformations in nature – both the material world as well as human nature. She is interested in investigating the cycles of changes that happen in natural surroundings and the relations of those cycles with human nature. Recent works have with incorporated the idea and impact of colonialism within society and culture.
Mora, who resides in Oxford and has a studio in Cowley, works in a variety of mediums including installation, painting, mappings, video-art and photography.
Jordi Raga, originally from Valencia, studied Arts in Spain, Italy and Greece, obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts and a scholarship to study marble sculpture in Carrara, Italy in the early 2000s. He spent over a decade working on Heritage restoration in different countries of Europe before settling in Oxford as a full-time sculptor, where he is currently based.
His practical contact with historical Architecture allowed for new ways of understanding sculpture in space. The dynamism of years moving between cultures and situations, emerges visible in a work that's constantly evolving and regenerating. At the moment his interests are widening towards the landscaping possibilities of sculpture, focusing on ideas of integration between Art, Nature and Architecture.
Ryan Orme, currently based in London, creates work that explores the relationship between people and space. He has always been fascinated by travel and seeing how different life can be in other places. Every city, every place offers its own way of doing things, its own model of existence - human experience is not fixed but infinitely adaptable. His practice varies depending on the project and often moves between disciplines, from sculpture to painting to ceramics.
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Artist Links
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Kleiner Shames
http://www.kleinershames.com/
Daniel McNaboe
http://danielmcnaboe.co.uk
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Ryan Orme
https://www.ryanorme.com/
Love Your Plane
https://www.loveyourplane.com/
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Katya Mora
http://katyamora.com
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Jordi Raga
https://www.jordiraga.com/