KCAW x HIGH STREET WINDOWS
KCAW is proud to present HIGH STREET WINDOWS, a series of visual art commissions by Kensington and Chelsea Council.
The project features site-specific window installations across Kensington, activating local high streets through imaginative interventions by contemporary artists. Taking over vacant store windows, High Street Windows aims to showcase artists’ practices and engage visitors to the High Street, in a visual celebration of culture and creativity, turning vacant spaces into pop-up contemporary artworks.
Commissioned by Kensington and Chelsea Council, the installations encourage visibility of arts and culture unique to the borough, increasing positive perceptions of a vibrant and diverse area of London steeped in history and bustling with creativity, injecting creativity and promoting cultural engagement for a more sustainable high street.
The first sites feature new works by London-based artists Fiona Grady, Ian Kirkpatrick, the Dotmaster, Gala Bell, Alexander Ikhide, LUAP and Orlanda Broom.
Follow us on Instagram @kcawlondon and subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to find out about new sites and learn more about the project and participating artists.
XANADU BY ORLANDA BROOM
– 155 High Street Kensington
Two artworks by Orland Broom are installed as the latest editions to KCAW x High Street Windows. They depict wild places that are uninhabited and timeless, offering a glimpse of paradise that would ultimately ensnare and/or is potentially lost to us. The title of one of is ‘Xanadu’, references Romantic poet Coleridge and his poem ‘Kubla Khan’ and the second artwork, displayed next door, is titled ‘Wisp’ - an abstract form in monochrome and reminiscent of a ghostly presence or cloud.
Broom’s landscapes represent re-imagined places which are celebratory, and in some senses, a rose-tinted view of the natural world. The surface joyousness is tempered by an uneasy sense of abandonment.
Two artworks by Orland Broom are installed as the latest editions to KCAW x High Street Windows. They depict wild places that are uninhabited and timeless, offering a glimpse of paradise that would ultimately ensnare and/or is potentially lost to us. The title of one of is ‘Xanadu’, references Romantic poet Coleridge and his poem ‘Kubla Khan’ and the second artwork, displayed next door, is titled ‘Wisp’ - an abstract form in monochrome and reminiscent of a ghostly presence or cloud.
Broom’s landscapes represent re-imagined places which are celebratory, and in some senses, a rose-tinted view of the natural world. The surface joyousness is tempered by an uneasy sense of abandonment.
XANADU by ORLANDA BROOM
– 155 High Street Kensington
Broom’s painting practice takes two distinct forms, both presented here: lush, exotic landscapes and abstract pieces. Connecting these bodies of work is a strong sense of colour, references to organic forms and the exploration of the mediums she works with.
Broom’s landscapes represent re-imagined places which are celebratory, and in some senses, a rose-tinted view of the natural world. The surface joyousness is tempered by an uneasy sense of abandonment. Broom depicts wild places that are uninhabited and timeless, offering a glimpse of paradise that would ultimately ensnare and/or is potentially lost to us.
Broom’s painting practice takes two distinct forms, both presented here: lush, exotic landscapes and abstract pieces. Connecting these bodies of work is a strong sense of colour, references to organic forms and the exploration of the mediums she works with.
Broom’s landscapes represent re-imagined places which are celebratory, and in some senses, a rose-tinted view of the natural world. The surface joyousness is tempered by an uneasy sense of abandonment. Broom depicts wild places that are uninhabited and timeless, offering a glimpse of paradise that would ultimately ensnare and/or is potentially lost to us.
WISP by ORLANDA BROOM
– 155 High Street Kensington
Orlanda Broom‘s abstract paintings are created through a process that involves no intervention with tools or brushes, just the flow and manipulation of the medium on the canvas. There is an immediacy and freshness borne out of this way of working which is complementary to the layered aspect of her landscape paintings.
‘Wisp’ is an abstract form in monochrome and reminiscent of a ghostly presence or cloud.
Orlanda Broom‘s abstract paintings are created through a process that involves no intervention with tools or brushes, just the flow and manipulation of the medium on the canvas. There is an immediacy and freshness borne out of this way of working which is complementary to the layered aspect of her landscape paintings.
‘Wisp’ is an abstract form in monochrome and reminiscent of a ghostly presence or cloud.
Dotmasters (Lite)
– 35-36 Thurloe Place, South Kensington
Dotmasters are the street practice of the artist Léon Seesix. They are sideways look at a populist media made with a typically English sense of humour.
The small boxes displayed in the windows are experiments in materials and light that were made during lockdown. Boxed-in, we have all tried to see the bright side, and these naughty rude kids lights have been Dotmasters way of bringing some light to these humorous candid acts of disobedience.
For this site-specific installation, Dotmasters have brought their iconic wall paper patterns to a monumental scale. The entire building is transformed into a giant, glowing light box, blurring the boundaries between inside and outside.
@dotmasters
dotmaster.co.uk/lockdown-show
photo by Graham Fudger
Dotmasters are the street practice of the artist Léon Seesix. They are sideways look at a populist media made with a typically English sense of humour.
The small boxes displayed in the windows are experiments in materials and light that were made during lockdown. Boxed-in, we have all tried to see the bright side, and these naughty rude kids lights have been Dotmasters way of bringing some light to these humorous candid acts of disobedience.
For this site-specific installation, Dotmasters have brought their iconic wall paper patterns to a monumental scale. The entire building is transformed into a giant, glowing light box, blurring the boundaries between inside and outside.
@dotmasters
dotmaster.co.uk/lockdown-show
photo by Graham Fudger
Dotmasters (Lite)
– 35-36 Thurloe Place, South Kensington
Dotmasters are the street practice of the artist Léon Seesix. They are sideways look at a populist media made with a typically English sense of humour.
The small boxes displayed in the windows are experiments in materials and light that were made during lockdown. Boxed-in, we have all tried to see the bright side, and these naughty rude kids lights have been Dotmasters way of bringing some light to these humorous candid acts of disobedience.
For this site-specific installation, Dotmasters have brought their iconic wall paper patterns to a monumental scale. The entire building is transformed into a giant, glowing light box, blurring the boundaries between inside and outside.
@dotmasters
dotmaster.co.uk/lockdown-show
photo by Graham Fudger
Dotmasters are the street practice of the artist Léon Seesix. They are sideways look at a populist media made with a typically English sense of humour.
The small boxes displayed in the windows are experiments in materials and light that were made during lockdown. Boxed-in, we have all tried to see the bright side, and these naughty rude kids lights have been Dotmasters way of bringing some light to these humorous candid acts of disobedience.
For this site-specific installation, Dotmasters have brought their iconic wall paper patterns to a monumental scale. The entire building is transformed into a giant, glowing light box, blurring the boundaries between inside and outside.
@dotmasters
dotmaster.co.uk/lockdown-show
photo by Graham Fudger
Art Deco Paradise by Fiona Grady
– 154 Kensington High Street
This bespoke installation by artist Fiona Grady is inspired by the Art Deco department stores that helped establish Kensington High Street as the centre of retail during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The birth of the department stores such as Derry & Toms and Barkings of Kensington had a significant impact on the profile of London; highlighting the changing lifestyle and aspirations of the public. These buildings were iconic famed as palaces of luxury – Derry & Toms was home to Europe‘s largest roof garden, which consisted of three different gardens with 500 species of plants, fountains, a stream, ducks, flamingos and a restaurant.
“Art Deco Paradise“ takes influence from the clean lines of the Art Deco movement, incorporating a base of gold and silver mirrored vinyl with layers of triangles in light green, forest green, warm yellow, light blue, aqua and royal blue. These woven shapes zigzag across the window front – reflecting one of London’s finest examples of an Art Deco High Street.
The colours evoke the tropical roof garden, and capture the magic of Émile Zola’s novel “The Ladies‘ Paradise“ which so beautifully describes the excitement and innovation during the boom of the early department stores in Europe.
Fiona Grady is a London-based artist who creates site-responsive drawings on walls, windows and floors using sequences of dispersing geometric shapes. The artworks are spatial systems composed from repeating intervals that expand in proportion or direction. The use of repetition is a means to set in place an unconscious balance or understanding, that can be interrupted by the introduction of a changeable factor. This challenges the viewers reading of the drawing asking them to consider its internal logic.
Her practice recognises the relationship between architecture, installation art and decoration; often using traditional mediums in a modern context. She plays with light, surface and scale; each piece changes with the light of day emphasizing the passing of time and the ephemeral nature of the work. The artworks are imaginings of how light moves throughout a space, stretching and rotating with the throughout the day. However she does not seek to literally map light but instead create rhythms; the blocks of colour act as a vessel that pinpoints the viewers’ presence within their setting and allows them to contemplate their surroundings.
@fiona_grady
fionagrady.co.uk
photo by Graham Fudger
This bespoke installation by artist Fiona Grady is inspired by the Art Deco department stores that helped establish Kensington High Street as the centre of retail during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The birth of the department stores such as Derry & Toms and Barkings of Kensington had a significant impact on the profile of London; highlighting the changing lifestyle and aspirations of the public. These buildings were iconic famed as palaces of luxury – Derry & Toms was home to Europe‘s largest roof garden, which consisted of three different gardens with 500 species of plants, fountains, a stream, ducks, flamingos and a restaurant.
“Art Deco Paradise“ takes influence from the clean lines of the Art Deco movement, incorporating a base of gold and silver mirrored vinyl with layers of triangles in light green, forest green, warm yellow, light blue, aqua and royal blue. These woven shapes zigzag across the window front – reflecting one of London’s finest examples of an Art Deco High Street.
The colours evoke the tropical roof garden, and capture the magic of Émile Zola’s novel “The Ladies‘ Paradise“ which so beautifully describes the excitement and innovation during the boom of the early department stores in Europe.
Fiona Grady is a London-based artist who creates site-responsive drawings on walls, windows and floors using sequences of dispersing geometric shapes. The artworks are spatial systems composed from repeating intervals that expand in proportion or direction. The use of repetition is a means to set in place an unconscious balance or understanding, that can be interrupted by the introduction of a changeable factor. This challenges the viewers reading of the drawing asking them to consider its internal logic.
Her practice recognises the relationship between architecture, installation art and decoration; often using traditional mediums in a modern context. She plays with light, surface and scale; each piece changes with the light of day emphasizing the passing of time and the ephemeral nature of the work. The artworks are imaginings of how light moves throughout a space, stretching and rotating with the throughout the day. However she does not seek to literally map light but instead create rhythms; the blocks of colour act as a vessel that pinpoints the viewers’ presence within their setting and allows them to contemplate their surroundings.
@fiona_grady
fionagrady.co.uk
photo by Graham Fudger
Art Deco Paradise by Fiona Grady
– 154 Kensington High Street
This bespoke installation by artist Fiona Grady is inspired by the Art Deco department stores that helped establish Kensington High Street as the centre of retail during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The birth of the department stores such as Derry & Toms and Barkings of Kensington had a significant impact on the profile of London; highlighting the changing lifestyle and aspirations of the public. These buildings were iconic famed as palaces of luxury – Derry & Toms was home to Europe‘s largest roof garden, which consisted of three different gardens with 500 species of plants, fountains, a stream, ducks, flamingos and a restaurant.
“Art Deco Paradise“ takes influence from the clean lines of the Art Deco movement, incorporating a base of gold and silver mirrored vinyl with layers of triangles in light green, forest green, warm yellow, light blue, aqua and royal blue. These woven shapes zigzag across the window front – reflecting one of London’s finest examples of an Art Deco High Street.
The colours evoke the tropical roof garden, and capture the magic of Émile Zola’s novel “The Ladies‘ Paradise“ which so beautifully describes the excitement and innovation during the boom of the early department stores in Europe.
Fiona Grady is a London-based artist who creates site-responsive drawings on walls, windows and floors using sequences of dispersing geometric shapes. The artworks are spatial systems composed from repeating intervals that expand in proportion or direction. The use of repetition is a means to set in place an unconscious balance or understanding, that can be interrupted by the introduction of a changeable factor. This challenges the viewers reading of the drawing asking them to consider its internal logic.
Her practice recognises the relationship between architecture, installation art and decoration; often using traditional mediums in a modern context. She plays with light, surface and scale; each piece changes with the light of day emphasizing the passing of time and the ephemeral nature of the work. The artworks are imaginings of how light moves throughout a space, stretching and rotating with the throughout the day. However she does not seek to literally map light but instead create rhythms; the blocks of colour act as a vessel that pinpoints the viewers’ presence within their setting and allows them to contemplate their surroundings.
@fiona_grady
fionagrady.co.uk
photo by Graham Fudger
This bespoke installation by artist Fiona Grady is inspired by the Art Deco department stores that helped establish Kensington High Street as the centre of retail during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The birth of the department stores such as Derry & Toms and Barkings of Kensington had a significant impact on the profile of London; highlighting the changing lifestyle and aspirations of the public. These buildings were iconic famed as palaces of luxury – Derry & Toms was home to Europe‘s largest roof garden, which consisted of three different gardens with 500 species of plants, fountains, a stream, ducks, flamingos and a restaurant.
“Art Deco Paradise“ takes influence from the clean lines of the Art Deco movement, incorporating a base of gold and silver mirrored vinyl with layers of triangles in light green, forest green, warm yellow, light blue, aqua and royal blue. These woven shapes zigzag across the window front – reflecting one of London’s finest examples of an Art Deco High Street.
The colours evoke the tropical roof garden, and capture the magic of Émile Zola’s novel “The Ladies‘ Paradise“ which so beautifully describes the excitement and innovation during the boom of the early department stores in Europe.
Fiona Grady is a London-based artist who creates site-responsive drawings on walls, windows and floors using sequences of dispersing geometric shapes. The artworks are spatial systems composed from repeating intervals that expand in proportion or direction. The use of repetition is a means to set in place an unconscious balance or understanding, that can be interrupted by the introduction of a changeable factor. This challenges the viewers reading of the drawing asking them to consider its internal logic.
Her practice recognises the relationship between architecture, installation art and decoration; often using traditional mediums in a modern context. She plays with light, surface and scale; each piece changes with the light of day emphasizing the passing of time and the ephemeral nature of the work. The artworks are imaginings of how light moves throughout a space, stretching and rotating with the throughout the day. However she does not seek to literally map light but instead create rhythms; the blocks of colour act as a vessel that pinpoints the viewers’ presence within their setting and allows them to contemplate their surroundings.
@fiona_grady
fionagrady.co.uk
photo by Graham Fudger
Alexander Ikhide
– 24-25 Cromwell Place, South Kensington
Alexander Ikhide is a multidisciplinary visual artist working in a range of media, primarily collage/mixed media and drawing. Ikhide’s experimental practice uses digital/graphic image, text, and recently, photography in the vein of documentary-style portraiture to interrogate issues of representation, identity, history, gender and race.
His work examines the political, social, historical and cultural ideologies of African diasporic traditions in a post-colonial age, and drawing upon surrealist aesthetic sensibilities of the post modern that inform his stylistic approach – utilising materials that draw from a myriad of sources whether tangible or intangible/found or archived, but primarily photographic, to be repurposed as parts of a whole in creating compositions.
The figure or the image is a central theme of his works as a signifier for the 'other', as both the personal and political, which simultaneously serve as a point of departure and arrival upon which the foundation to his ideas stem from and is explored expansively.
Photo by Graham Fudger
Alexander Ikhide is a multidisciplinary visual artist working in a range of media, primarily collage/mixed media and drawing. Ikhide’s experimental practice uses digital/graphic image, text, and recently, photography in the vein of documentary-style portraiture to interrogate issues of representation, identity, history, gender and race.
His work examines the political, social, historical and cultural ideologies of African diasporic traditions in a post-colonial age, and drawing upon surrealist aesthetic sensibilities of the post modern that inform his stylistic approach – utilising materials that draw from a myriad of sources whether tangible or intangible/found or archived, but primarily photographic, to be repurposed as parts of a whole in creating compositions.
The figure or the image is a central theme of his works as a signifier for the 'other', as both the personal and political, which simultaneously serve as a point of departure and arrival upon which the foundation to his ideas stem from and is explored expansively.
Photo by Graham Fudger
Alexander Ikhide
– 24-25 Cromwell Place, South Kensington
Alexander Ikhide is a multidisciplinary visual artist working in a range of media, primarily collage/mixed media and drawing. Ikhide’s experimental practice uses digital/graphic image, text, and recently, photography in the vein of documentary-style portraiture to interrogate issues of representation, identity, history, gender and race.
His work examines the political, social, historical and cultural ideologies of African diasporic traditions in a post-colonial age, and drawing upon surrealist aesthetic sensibilities of the post modern that inform his stylistic approach – utilising materials that draw from a myriad of sources whether tangible or intangible/found or archived, but primarily photographic, to be repurposed as parts of a whole in creating compositions.
The figure or the image is a central theme of his works as a signifier for the 'other', as both the personal and political, which simultaneously serve as a point of departure and arrival upon which the foundation to his ideas stem from and is explored expansively.
Photo by Graham Fudger
Alexander Ikhide is a multidisciplinary visual artist working in a range of media, primarily collage/mixed media and drawing. Ikhide’s experimental practice uses digital/graphic image, text, and recently, photography in the vein of documentary-style portraiture to interrogate issues of representation, identity, history, gender and race.
His work examines the political, social, historical and cultural ideologies of African diasporic traditions in a post-colonial age, and drawing upon surrealist aesthetic sensibilities of the post modern that inform his stylistic approach – utilising materials that draw from a myriad of sources whether tangible or intangible/found or archived, but primarily photographic, to be repurposed as parts of a whole in creating compositions.
The figure or the image is a central theme of his works as a signifier for the 'other', as both the personal and political, which simultaneously serve as a point of departure and arrival upon which the foundation to his ideas stem from and is explored expansively.
Photo by Graham Fudger
Fry Up by Gala Bell
– 32 Thurloe Place, South Kensington
In a cross over between the comfort of the kitchen and the dominion of the studio, it felt perfect that any artwork should undergo hot oil in the method of deep-frying. The alchemy of painting is surprisingly close to the recipe and material substances of batter – egg yolk in tempera, linseed oil mixed with pigments, the ground white powder of gesso, the heat and energy of hands. Both the space of the kitchen and the space of the studio operate as a lab of material transformation.
The process of frying rekindles a simpler time, when deep fried food wasn’t scowled at for its high calories and dizzying fat. How we think, feel and act is a direct consequence of the society that nourishes us, and as the working-class rise, taste has a cavalier way of expressing itself; it is articulated status or lack thereof. The most prestigious and revered cultural objects are those which have been consecrated by powerful institutions and people. Expressions of taste are assertions of power or powerlessness. Social inequities are reinforced, perpetuated on the basis of cultural distinction, invisible market forces lead us towards a cultural condescending of taste.
For the creation of an artwork, boundaries of taste must be relieved, for to really play with a city and its people you need to explore like an unbridled traveller, without the burden of history and veiled hierarchies.
Hot oil, re-fried over and over, glows like gold.
Like specimens at the Hunterian museum, they expand like diseases, a collection of cadavers, artefacts soft and soaking.
Great affliction precedes enlightenment. Highly caloric food bears the traces of less prosperous times, and can explain how the material conditions of existence have a significant effect on our choices. Deep frying is a ritualistic purging, originating from missionaries in Portugal who used it as a way to fulfil fasting and abstinence rules around the ember days, Quattuor Tempora. It travelled to the port of Nagasaki and detonated as a street food that later climbed from fish mongers to haute cuisine, fried food is part of a collective effervescence. Resplendent, silvered heat simmers, it is roasting, blazing in sterling brilliance the movement of foil drones.
As our experience is increasingly isolated, mechanized, how estranged are we or how much closer do we want to come to the enchantment of matter, of material alchemy and the soulful and imperfect work of the human hand?
The heat. A well greased riot. A sizzling break down of superstition and grandeur laid to waste. A ruptured floodgate through which everything can flow.
galabell.co.uk
@galabelll
photo by Graham Fudger
In a cross over between the comfort of the kitchen and the dominion of the studio, it felt perfect that any artwork should undergo hot oil in the method of deep-frying. The alchemy of painting is surprisingly close to the recipe and material substances of batter – egg yolk in tempera, linseed oil mixed with pigments, the ground white powder of gesso, the heat and energy of hands. Both the space of the kitchen and the space of the studio operate as a lab of material transformation.
The process of frying rekindles a simpler time, when deep fried food wasn’t scowled at for its high calories and dizzying fat. How we think, feel and act is a direct consequence of the society that nourishes us, and as the working-class rise, taste has a cavalier way of expressing itself; it is articulated status or lack thereof. The most prestigious and revered cultural objects are those which have been consecrated by powerful institutions and people. Expressions of taste are assertions of power or powerlessness. Social inequities are reinforced, perpetuated on the basis of cultural distinction, invisible market forces lead us towards a cultural condescending of taste.
For the creation of an artwork, boundaries of taste must be relieved, for to really play with a city and its people you need to explore like an unbridled traveller, without the burden of history and veiled hierarchies.
Hot oil, re-fried over and over, glows like gold.
Like specimens at the Hunterian museum, they expand like diseases, a collection of cadavers, artefacts soft and soaking.
Great affliction precedes enlightenment. Highly caloric food bears the traces of less prosperous times, and can explain how the material conditions of existence have a significant effect on our choices. Deep frying is a ritualistic purging, originating from missionaries in Portugal who used it as a way to fulfil fasting and abstinence rules around the ember days, Quattuor Tempora. It travelled to the port of Nagasaki and detonated as a street food that later climbed from fish mongers to haute cuisine, fried food is part of a collective effervescence. Resplendent, silvered heat simmers, it is roasting, blazing in sterling brilliance the movement of foil drones.
As our experience is increasingly isolated, mechanized, how estranged are we or how much closer do we want to come to the enchantment of matter, of material alchemy and the soulful and imperfect work of the human hand?
The heat. A well greased riot. A sizzling break down of superstition and grandeur laid to waste. A ruptured floodgate through which everything can flow.
galabell.co.uk
@galabelll
photo by Graham Fudger
GOOD VIBRATIONS by LUAP
- no longer on view
Multidisciplinary artist Paul Robinson, who works under the name LUAP, paints and photographs landscapes dominated by the surreal figure of a giant Pink Bear.
LUAP carries his adult-size Pink Bear suit and professional equipment to the ends of the Earth, having visited every continent except Antarctica. The Pink Bear acts as his alter ego, muse and model, his escape, and a bridge to dealing with difficult issues.
The photographs he brings home acts as a bouncing-board for the next step of his creative process. By employing different mediums and techniques he tackles issues of mental health, the climate and ecological emergency, and isolation head-on.
LUAP wants to share his difficult journey with mental health in the hope that he can inspire others not to feel so alone and to seek help when help is needed.
His work also supports CALM, a charity which runs a suicide helpline.
Some days I am the strong tree, nothing can move me. I am invincible.
Some days I am the old tree that has shed all its leaves. I am vulnerable
Some days I am the lone tree standing in solitude. I am surviving.
Some days I have been overgrown by all that surrounds me.
Overwhelmed I suffocate.
Most days I am never the tree that I want to be.
I am, however, a tree.
luapstudios.co.uk
@luap
thecalmzone.net
------
This installation is part of HIGH STREET WINDOWS, a series of visual art commissions by Kensington and Chelsea
Council.
Produced by Kensington + Chelsea Art Week, a creative placemaking organisation behind the annual KCAW Public Art
Trail, a series of thought-provoking installations and murals strategically placed across Kensington and Chelsea to interact with the public in unique and unusual ways.
Find out more about the HIGH STREET WINDOWS project, including current and forthcoming locations, exclusive content and information about the artists:
kcaw.co.uk
@kcawlondon
Multidisciplinary artist Paul Robinson, who works under the name LUAP, paints and photographs landscapes dominated by the surreal figure of a giant Pink Bear.
LUAP carries his adult-size Pink Bear suit and professional equipment to the ends of the Earth, having visited every continent except Antarctica. The Pink Bear acts as his alter ego, muse and model, his escape, and a bridge to dealing with difficult issues.
The photographs he brings home acts as a bouncing-board for the next step of his creative process. By employing different mediums and techniques he tackles issues of mental health, the climate and ecological emergency, and isolation head-on.
LUAP wants to share his difficult journey with mental health in the hope that he can inspire others not to feel so alone and to seek help when help is needed.
His work also supports CALM, a charity which runs a suicide helpline.
Some days I am the strong tree, nothing can move me. I am invincible.
Some days I am the old tree that has shed all its leaves. I am vulnerable
Some days I am the lone tree standing in solitude. I am surviving.
Some days I have been overgrown by all that surrounds me.
Overwhelmed I suffocate.
Most days I am never the tree that I want to be.
I am, however, a tree.
luapstudios.co.uk
@luap
thecalmzone.net
------
This installation is part of HIGH STREET WINDOWS, a series of visual art commissions by Kensington and Chelsea
Council.
Produced by Kensington + Chelsea Art Week, a creative placemaking organisation behind the annual KCAW Public Art
Trail, a series of thought-provoking installations and murals strategically placed across Kensington and Chelsea to interact with the public in unique and unusual ways.
Find out more about the HIGH STREET WINDOWS project, including current and forthcoming locations, exclusive content and information about the artists:
kcaw.co.uk
@kcawlondon
GOOD VIBRATIONS by LUAP
- no longer on view
The latest in the series of vibrant public art installations overtaking Kensington + Chelsea’s empty retail spaces has been unveiled in March 2021. The next of the High Street Windows is presented by London-based artist LUAP, who transforms the All Saints storefront in Notting Hill.
Commissioned by The Kensington and Chelsea Council and presented by the organisers of Kensington + Chelsea Art Week, the High Street Windows project is a set of visual art interventions taking place in empty storefronts throughout the borough. The aim is to engage passers-by in a celebration of culture and creativity with empty stores turned into public artworks dealing with important current issues.
The commission titled ‘Good Vibrations’ is from multi-disciplinary artist Paul Robinson, known professionally as Luap. He has transformed the windows of the disused All Saints store on Westbourne Grove with a thought provoking piece that addresses issues around mental health and wellbeing.
LUAP wants to share his difficult personal experience with mental health in the hope that he can inspire others not to feel so alone and to seek help when help is needed.
His campaign also supports CALM, the mental health charity which runs a suicide helpline.
An adult-size Pink Bear features in almost all the work by LUAP; it acts as his alter ego, muse and model, his escape and a bridge to dealing with mental health issues. In ‘Good Vibrations’ the artist presents the Pink Bear standing alone in a forest.
“We then had another session where I visualised and drew the tree I wanted to be… And so I shed my negativity and embraced positivity. As my branches spread and my leaves sprouted, I grew a bridge to connection, enabled by nature. I hope this work will be able to help others to find solace. Hopefully, it brings some positive energy.”
The artist describes how nature inspired his recovery from adult loneliness and depression.”Initially, it all started with a single tree photographed in diverse environments, then superimposed on wallpaper invoked from my childhood. It reflected me and my mood. Drifting, guarded, isolated, a solitary tree in a forest surrounded by trees,” he continues “I have the feeling many of us feel like an isolated tree in a forest full of people. The pandemic has only served to expose this harsh truth ever more.”
Disconnected from people around him, in his younger years, LUAP was diagnosed with dissociative disorder. As he entered adulthood his depression deepened and with it the vast disconnect. Upon discovering Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) he was able to explore his mental health issues with a therapist; she turned on a different light when she asked him to draw a tree or three to represent emotions or people in his life, how he felt.
www.luapstudios.co.uk
The latest in the series of vibrant public art installations overtaking Kensington + Chelsea’s empty retail spaces has been unveiled in March 2021. The next of the High Street Windows is presented by London-based artist LUAP, who transforms the All Saints storefront in Notting Hill.
Commissioned by The Kensington and Chelsea Council and presented by the organisers of Kensington + Chelsea Art Week, the High Street Windows project is a set of visual art interventions taking place in empty storefronts throughout the borough. The aim is to engage passers-by in a celebration of culture and creativity with empty stores turned into public artworks dealing with important current issues.
The commission titled ‘Good Vibrations’ is from multi-disciplinary artist Paul Robinson, known professionally as Luap. He has transformed the windows of the disused All Saints store on Westbourne Grove with a thought provoking piece that addresses issues around mental health and wellbeing.
LUAP wants to share his difficult personal experience with mental health in the hope that he can inspire others not to feel so alone and to seek help when help is needed.
His campaign also supports CALM, the mental health charity which runs a suicide helpline.
An adult-size Pink Bear features in almost all the work by LUAP; it acts as his alter ego, muse and model, his escape and a bridge to dealing with mental health issues. In ‘Good Vibrations’ the artist presents the Pink Bear standing alone in a forest.
“We then had another session where I visualised and drew the tree I wanted to be… And so I shed my negativity and embraced positivity. As my branches spread and my leaves sprouted, I grew a bridge to connection, enabled by nature. I hope this work will be able to help others to find solace. Hopefully, it brings some positive energy.”
The artist describes how nature inspired his recovery from adult loneliness and depression.”Initially, it all started with a single tree photographed in diverse environments, then superimposed on wallpaper invoked from my childhood. It reflected me and my mood. Drifting, guarded, isolated, a solitary tree in a forest surrounded by trees,” he continues “I have the feeling many of us feel like an isolated tree in a forest full of people. The pandemic has only served to expose this harsh truth ever more.”
Disconnected from people around him, in his younger years, LUAP was diagnosed with dissociative disorder. As he entered adulthood his depression deepened and with it the vast disconnect. Upon discovering Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) he was able to explore his mental health issues with a therapist; she turned on a different light when she asked him to draw a tree or three to represent emotions or people in his life, how he felt.
www.luapstudios.co.uk
Nocturne by Ian Kirkpatrick
– 193 Kensington High Street
“Nocturne” is a term coined by James Abbott McNeill Whistler to describe a painting evoking the magical spirit of night.
This artwork remixes local iconography from past and present into a dreamlike vision of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea at twilight.
Combining lost landmarks such as the Crystal Palace with mythological figures inspired by Whistler, Oscar Wilde, Francis Bacon, Charles Ricketts and Aubrey Beardsley, “Nocturne” is a reimagining of the borough’s famous gardens run amok by mischievous dinosaurs, sphinxes, satyrs and fairies.
Ian Kirkpatrick is a contemporary artist based in London. His work is inspired by the history of art and design, from ancient cave art and Greek amphorae, to graffiti and computer graphics.
Kirkpatrick creates his work digitally, using modular graphics that he arranges into narrative configurations, often in response to local heritage and contemporary global events. His art has been exhibited internationally, and has been commissioned for the London 2012 Olympic Games, the Tour de France, and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Kirkpatrick was one of the shortlisted artists from the KCAW20 Public Art Trail Open Call.
@iankirkpatrickartist
iankirkpatrick.ca
photo by Graham Fudger
“Nocturne” is a term coined by James Abbott McNeill Whistler to describe a painting evoking the magical spirit of night.
This artwork remixes local iconography from past and present into a dreamlike vision of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea at twilight.
Combining lost landmarks such as the Crystal Palace with mythological figures inspired by Whistler, Oscar Wilde, Francis Bacon, Charles Ricketts and Aubrey Beardsley, “Nocturne” is a reimagining of the borough’s famous gardens run amok by mischievous dinosaurs, sphinxes, satyrs and fairies.
Ian Kirkpatrick is a contemporary artist based in London. His work is inspired by the history of art and design, from ancient cave art and Greek amphorae, to graffiti and computer graphics.
Kirkpatrick creates his work digitally, using modular graphics that he arranges into narrative configurations, often in response to local heritage and contemporary global events. His art has been exhibited internationally, and has been commissioned for the London 2012 Olympic Games, the Tour de France, and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Kirkpatrick was one of the shortlisted artists from the KCAW20 Public Art Trail Open Call.
@iankirkpatrickartist
iankirkpatrick.ca
photo by Graham Fudger
Nocturne by Ian Kirkpatrick
– 193 Kensington High Street
“Nocturne” is a term coined by James Abbott McNeill Whistler to describe a painting evoking the magical spirit of night.
This artwork remixes local iconography from past and present into a dreamlike vision of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea at twilight.
Combining lost landmarks such as the Crystal Palace with mythological figures inspired by Whistler, Oscar Wilde, Francis Bacon, Charles Ricketts and Aubrey Beardsley, “Nocturne” is a reimagining of the borough’s famous gardens run amok by mischievous dinosaurs, sphinxes, satyrs and fairies.
Ian Kirkpatrick is a contemporary artist based in London. His work is inspired by the history of art and design, from ancient cave art and Greek amphorae, to graffiti and computer graphics.
Kirkpatrick creates his work digitally, using modular graphics that he arranges into narrative configurations, often in response to local heritage and contemporary global events. His art has been exhibited internationally, and has been commissioned for the London 2012 Olympic Games, the Tour de France, and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Kirkpatrick was one of the shortlisted artists from the KCAW20 Public Art Trail Open Call.
@iankirkpatrickartist
iankirkpatrick.ca
photo by Graham Fudger
“Nocturne” is a term coined by James Abbott McNeill Whistler to describe a painting evoking the magical spirit of night.
This artwork remixes local iconography from past and present into a dreamlike vision of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea at twilight.
Combining lost landmarks such as the Crystal Palace with mythological figures inspired by Whistler, Oscar Wilde, Francis Bacon, Charles Ricketts and Aubrey Beardsley, “Nocturne” is a reimagining of the borough’s famous gardens run amok by mischievous dinosaurs, sphinxes, satyrs and fairies.
Ian Kirkpatrick is a contemporary artist based in London. His work is inspired by the history of art and design, from ancient cave art and Greek amphorae, to graffiti and computer graphics.
Kirkpatrick creates his work digitally, using modular graphics that he arranges into narrative configurations, often in response to local heritage and contemporary global events. His art has been exhibited internationally, and has been commissioned for the London 2012 Olympic Games, the Tour de France, and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Kirkpatrick was one of the shortlisted artists from the KCAW20 Public Art Trail Open Call.
@iankirkpatrickartist
iankirkpatrick.ca
photo by Graham Fudger