Meet the Artist - Keith Frake

Meet artist Keith Frake in the surrounds of his new 2020 series, Between Heaven and Hell.

Presenting a series of works completed in the last two years, artist Keith Frake joins Artizan for a showcase of dark, mixed media works in this exhibition and will be visiting the gallery to answer questions and discuss the work.

 Join us for a coffee and a conversation.  

TIME SLOTS 

Slot 1 - Wednesday 2nd, 12:00-13:00 (10 tickets) 

Slot 2 - Wednesday 2nd, 13:00-14:00 (10 tickets) 

Slot 3 - Friday 4th, 12:00-13:00 (10 tickets) 

Slot 4 - Friday 4th, 13:00-14:00 (10 tickets) 

// Between Heaven and Hell // 

Having studied Fine Art at Newcastle and the Royal College of Art in London during the 1970s, Frake has previously been known for his work in film, video and performance art, exhibiting works at festivals and galleries internationally. Today, he returns to this success as a desire to paint and draw again has grown over time.    

A journey of rediscovery has seen a range of influences combine to inform his new work; the writings of Franz Kafka and Robert Walser, the poetry of Georg Trakl, the Book of Revelations, the films and writings of Andrei Tarkovsky. A visit to the National Gallery of Scotland saw the discovery of a small work by the expressionist painter Chaim Soutine, Le Mas Passe-Temps, Ceret 1920-21. This would go on to become a pivotal image in informing Frake’s new works, attracted to its swirling foray of thickly applied paint, darkness, distorted trees, and buildings.  

These allusions resonate through a series that is dark in tone. A heavy bitumen base forms the substrate for most pieces from which, a process of removal, often competed over many days, reveals common motifs and themes through sanding, inscribing, and peeling techniques. Angels, trees, ladders, mountains and tiny stick figures are revealed in negative against this thick, textural layer, emerging from darkness or perhaps immersed in it.  

// Also Exhibiting - The Art Thief // 

Have you ever dreamt of having your very favourite works of art on your wall? Few of us could afford that, even if they did come up at auction. It really wouldn’t do to steal them either, so Anna Grayson has re-made them into original contemporary pieces, with appropriate updates.   

Anna has been with Artizan right from the start and we have watched her collection of photographic re-makes of famous works of art grow over the years, from the first one, ‘The Arnolfini Marriage’ after van Eyck to her most recent, ‘Self-Isolating’ after Millais’ Marianna, produced during COVID-19.   

Anna has been described as a kind of photographic art thief, re-making famous works of art but adding and updating them with a modern contemporary twist and although she started making them for her own pleasure and a desire to create the illusion of a room full of stolen art, the prints have now become collector items and can be found hanging around the World from New York to New Zealand.   Widely exhibited including twice at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, in 2014 and in 2018 where her work was selected to be shown by Grayson Perry in his famous Yellow Gallery, her work has also been shown at the South West Academy in Exeter and the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol. Anna is currently working towards a major solo show at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter when they are able to re-open.   

For this exhibition, the team at Artizan, with Anna, have selected some of their favourites, including some which are homages to living artists. Anna’s work has been exhibited alongside some of these artists work at the Royal Academy in London.