The Bite Magazine - Autumn/Winter 2021 - Issue 30

The StART Art Fair 2021 Jada Brookes attended the eighth edition of the StART Art Fair held at the Saatchi Gallery in London and was fascinated by the wealth of artistic talents. biteartistreview Artist ProFIle A rt lovers and enthusiasts were delighted to ex- press their admiration for creative art at the StARTArt Fair 2021 that took place at the Saatchi Gallery in Sloane Square, London earlier this year. Over 70 emerging and established global artists and galleries from more than 25 countries were represented, includ- ing K-pop stars-turned-artists Ohnim and Yooyeon from the band Winner and Canadian-born Henry Lau. Since 2014, StART Art Fair has helped to springboard the careers of many emerging artists around the globe. The organisation was founded by David and Serenella Ciclitira who are passionate collectors of contemporary art and dedicated supporters of young and emerging artists and the global art scene. Whilst on a business trip to Karlsruhe, Germany in 2007, they attended the art exhibition Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves which left them with a thirst to learn more about the Asian contemporary art scene. In 2009, they founded Parallel Contemporary Art (PCA) and launched the Global Eye Programme. Five years later, the couple launched the annual Eye Awards and through PCA, held the first StART Art Fair at Saatchi Gallery celebrating established and emerging artists and galleries from around the world. For more than 25 years, David and Serenella have awarded the Parallel Prize and the Serenella Ciclitira Sculpture Prize to graduates of the Royal College of Art, London. Addi- tionally, since 2014, the Ciclitira Prize has been present- ed annually to one graduate of The Prince’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts. Charles Saatchi first opened the 30,000 square foot Saatchi Gallery in Boundary Road, London in 1985, featuring key works by Donald Judd, Brice Marden, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol. Two years later, the New York Art Now introduced several artists including Jeff Koons, Robert Gober, Ashley Bickerton, Carroll Dun- ham and Philip Taaffe to the UK for the first time. Their cool blend of minimalism and pop had a profound in- fluence on British art students. The gallery moved to its current site in Duke of York Square in 2008, a 70,000 square foot venue. Its inaugural exhibition, The Revolution Continues: New Art from Chi- na showcased the work of thirty leading young Chinese artists and broke the previous attendance record set by Sensation in 1997. Since then, Saatchi Gallery has fea- tured exhibitions such as Pangaea: New Art From Africa and Latin America in 2014 and the virtual reality pres- entation We Live In An Ocean of Air in 2018. Interesting artworks such as Philip Hunn’s oil on canvas Gretchen; Dawn Beckles’ enamel, acrylic, spray paint, oil and collage on canvas Master of Hidden Beauty; Ohnim’s acrylic on canvas Shy ; and Chris Fallows’ fine art pho- tography Leviathan were impressive. But something that didn’t fail to get my attention was Bassa’s Italian Maimeri acrylics on canvas pieces: Snake-‘Viper’ and Alexander McQueen-‘The Skull’. They were so visually eye-catching and astonishing that I had to stop to admire them. I also liked Russian artist Ivan Shalmin’s series of col- ourful digital abstracts featuring a mirage of colours that twirl beautifully in contrast. In the 1980s, Shalmin was an active member of the Russian paper architecture movement and the works he produced during that pe- riod are still touring across the globe. In 2016, he be- gan producing digital abstract paintings; or ‘paintings without paint’ as he calls them. His daughter, Sasha, who promoted his work at the fair created an amazing interactive display. Another artist that caught my eye was the lovely Han- nah Nijsten, a British artist who has dedicated her work to exploring new techniques to add depth to her paint- ings both physically and metaphorically and invites the viewer to deeply engage with her art. Three Eclectic Gal- lery artists, Alexey Golovin, Johnny Morant and Carina Wagenaar had standout pieces. Golovin paints detailed scenes, Morant focuses on themes of impact and legacy, and Wagenaar’s life-sized medallions are intriguing wall objects.

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