Summer 2022

Although we haven’t totally escaped COVID, my life and work are developing a new balance in its wake. I remain busy with new projects and challenges but also working with the art and music collaborators who I’ve loved working with before. It definitely feels like a time to reconnect with drawing again. As I give exhibitions a break I have more energy and interest for those special hours sketching, exploring more personal themes, and trying to understand life after the pandemic.

Third Mural at Kingston University

Murals at Kingston University
Since my first mural went up at the School of Nursing at Kingston University in 2021 I have been commissioned to create two more. Working with Sally Richardson and Jo Low, we were able to build upon the success of the first mural to tackle more challenging nursing themes. The second mural shows the highs and lows of the profession. It tries to capture the real emotions of caring, with nurses involved not just in the physical labour of caring, but also the emotional side. The third, you can see above, represents the importance of collaborative communication, knowledge, empathy and awareness of ourselves, each other and those we care for.

Shirley Smart and Demi Garcia Sabat

Album Art
It’s been an absolute pleasure to reconnect with musicians and their music again. Something I really missed during the pandemic. Over the past 12 months I’ve created album covers for the likes of the Lydian Collective, Laura Zakian, Louise Balkwill and the Mailmen, and more to come. I worked on a trilogy of albums for the brilliant Shirley Smart and Demi Garcia Sabat. It was a real challenge to work on albums of improvised compositions, and I had to create a new visual vocabulary to do it. I broke down each players sounds into shapes and attributed colours to them. Then I just played with the shapes, a bit like those Fuzzy Felt sets we had as children.

Fabian Faltin and SJ Fowler

Publishing
Illustrating and publishing for the family firm Sampson Low hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down. I continue to work with Museum of Walking and Andrew Stuck, the Potcake chapbooks and Robin Helweg-Larsen, the RC Sherriff and the Elmbridge Literary Competition. One of the most surprising and expansive collaborations I have is with the poet SJ Fowler. He has kept me busy over the first half of 2022 with debut publications for students at Writers’ Kingston, 2 new publications for the Poem Brut series, and a new anthology for the European Poetry Festival. I was lucky enough to attend some of the launches and sketch the poets.

Radio
Natalie and I continue to broadcast on Radio Nope every Sunday with our Vinyl Thread show. Listen 5pm UK time, Sundays at http://www.radionope.com/. We’re currently getting together our 76th episode, this one is all about Shades of Black, something I’ve been interested in as an artist. I’m working toward another series of The All Vinyl A to Z of Africa, hopefully Radio Nope will broadcast that at the end of the year, or it will go out on SOAS Radio again.

France
After missing out on my yearly visit to the South of France, Natalie and I returned this summer. It was a really special moment for me. I swam most days in the municipal pool in Limoux, but more importantly sketched every day.

Summer/Autumn 2021

What Do Nurses Do All Day mural
I have been incredibly fortunate during our various lockdowns here in the UK. Interesting projects and commissions have continued to be part of my artistic life. My biggest artwork to date has recently been installed at Kingston University in the School of Nursing on the Kingston Hill site.

The artwork was commissioned by Sally Richardson and Jo Low during the Covid-19 pandemic. This challenging period of history gave witness to health care professionals caring for their patients and families whilst working in ways never seen before on the frontline. Professional teams from all disciplines, specialities and age groups came together to protect the NHS and the health of the public. With over 120 individual drawings the artwork shows the diversity of the nursing role, the compassion, resilience and excellence in nursing care and the strength of multi professional team working to deliver family centred-individualised patient care.

I have been commissioned to create a second mural, so watch this space!

Radio
In the past year I’ve really enjoyed broadcasting the radio shows The All Vinyl A to Z of Africa, The Interloper’s Guide and Vinyl Joblottin‘. So I was chuffed to be given the opportunity to start my own weekly show on Radio Nope earlier this year. And even better I get to do it with my wife, Natalie. Revolving around the joblots I buy at auction The Vinyl Thread has a different theme each week but always full of wonderful vinyl. Listen to us every week on Sundays, 12 noon EST or 5pm UK time on Radio Nope. We’re usually there an hour early in the radio chat box for DJ Deb’s Hit it and Split!

Album Art
Without gigs to go to, my live music sketching has taken a back seat and I haven’t created as much album art as usual. Quality over quantity perhaps. Keep an ear out for the new album from Archie the Goldfish with their new EP, ‘Water & Light’, out on Funkiwala Records. It’s been a pleasure to renew my association with the London folk noir band Firefay with Tales of Monsters and Fairies on the Woodford Halse label.

Urban Bonsai – Alban Low

Exhibitions
Although the Art of Caring came to a close due to COVID I’m still committed to our inclusive art exhibitions with Dean Reddick and Bryan Benge at CollectConnect. Led by Dean we organised a small group show for this year’s Urban Tree Festival called Urban Bonsais: Real and Imagined. Have a look on the CC website. http://www.collectconnect.blogspot.com/
I make a return to Barbara Dougan’s street art exhibition Groving in August 2021. A fabulous exhibition of 5cm x 5cm art on the streets of Bury St Edmunds.

Books and Publishing
A steady stream of book covers and book publishing has punctuated the past 9 months or so. It’s been a pleasure to support the Elmbridge Literary Competition. This year I had 11 covers to create for mostly young authors. As always keep an eye out for our latest Potcake Chapbooks series under the guidance of editor and poet Robin Helweg-Larsen. And the ongoing work of SJ Fowler at the Writers Centre Kingston & the new Poem Brut series.

Winter 2020/2021

Radio Waves
I feel lucky that art has given me a lifeline during this COVID year, although I’ve had to adapt a little in my approach. Usually I spend my nights in the jazz clubs or working with the team at the World in London radio where I sketch musicians. Without these opportunities I turned to creating my own radio programmes during lockdown under the supportive guidance of my A World in London friends.

I started by creating 12 episodes of the All Vinyl A to Z of Africa that were originally broadcast on SOAS Radio. The programme then made its US radio debut on Radio Nope this Autumn. The aim of the programme was to buy and share a vinyl record from each of the 61 African countries or territories.

I missed working with other creative people during lockdown so I also collaborated on The Interloper’s Guide with Kevin Acott and Harvey Wells. We made several episodes, travelling to different locations around the world, sharing music and stories. An episode dedicated to Peckham was selected for the EMERGENT VISION exhibition in October.

During lockdown I’ve missed those random discoveries and adventures. So I began buying unusual joblots of vinyl at auction. Never quite knowing what to expect I spin these records into mini radio programmes, each one based on a theme. Vinyl Joblottin’ has been one of my lifelines, I’ve currently made 23 episodes and I imagine will keep buying and sorting these wonderful gems for years to come.
Many of my radio programmes can be found on Mixcloud.

I started lockdown by drawing a series of slightly disturbing ink sketches. I worked with the author Carole Bulewski on a number of eerie podcasts that you can hear here – Tales of Confinement.

EYOT – 557799

Album Art
The current restrictions have been incredibly tough on the musicians I normally work with but they have still been able to release new music. I’ve been working on many album covers throughout the year starting with with Chris Rand’s new label Lunaria, first on his new Gathering album and then a duo project with Tom Remon & Jim Mullen. Possibly the biggest release has been EYOT’s new album 557799 on Ropeadope Records, it has garnered positive press from around the world. Also on Ropeadope was the release of a debut album from Archie the Goldfish, a new project from trumpeter Graeme Flowers and guitarist Chris Bestwick. Long time collaborator Juan Maria Solare released Satie: Gymnopédie No. 1 and the wonderful Shirley Smart teamed up with James Arben for a lockdown release of improvisations for cello and saxophone called Entanglement. Look out for a very fresh release by The James Patrick Gavin Trio, Live @ The Welsh Chapel features the stunning work of James Patrick Gavin, Tim Fairhall and Adrian Lever. Finally I penned artwork for Pharoah S Russell and Ruby Barker (Walk in the Park, 2020). Pharoah was the first person to ask me to create album artwork more than ten years ago, and I’ve not looked back with around 70 covers to my name.

Dear World Project exhibition

Exhibitions
Many exhibitions have been cancelled or gone online. This has included this year’s Art of Caring. Before the first big lockdown I participated in the Dear World Project exhibition, working with the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuro-imaging. We have been quieter than normal at CollectConnect with only Dean Reddick’s Sentinel Trees being able to break out into the physical realm. Once again I teamed up with the innovative Barbara Dougan at Grove for the Groving street art exhibition in Bury St Edmunds. What a treat it was to see such creative art on the streets once again, all with the theme of Silver Spoon. Although Being Human 2020 also went online we managed to exhibit over 100 magnetic artwork on the QMUL campus in Mile End, organised by Harvey Wells.

Books and Publishing
I have been busier than ever publishing books with our family publishing firm Sampson Low. These have included our brilliant Potcake Chapbooks series under the guidance of editor and poet Robin Helweg-Larsen. One of my most fruitful and fulfilling collaborations is with SJ Fowler and the Writers Centre Kingston & the European Poetry Festival and this year I worked on some really outstanding publications including Crowfinger (above). In December 2020 we held a special Sampson Low poetry celebration at the Kingston Quaker Centre. As an illustrator (rather than a publisher) I’ve worked with author Carole Bulewski on her new trilogy that kicked off with THE PIPER AND THE FAIRY.

Spring 2020

It has been a complicated six months balancing life’s ups and downs while keeping my my art activities moving forward. One of the newest developments has been my work with St George’s Hospital Charity. In October 2019 I spent 3 days at St George’s Hospital working with patients (and poets) for National Poetry Day, and then with actors for the annual St George’s Hospital Micro Panto in December. In 2020 I’ll be working with patients in neuro-rehab.

Health and mental health has long been a theme of my work and this February I’ll be part of an amazing exhibition at the Stour Space, Hackney Wick, E3 2PA from 20th February to 3rd March. I have been working with the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuro-imaging for some time now and the Dear World Project exhibition is my opportunity to work with research about mental health diagnosis, and the use of labels associated with feelings and emotions.

The Art of Caring 2019 ended it’s 3 month run at St Pancras Hospital with another insightful film from Anna Bowman in October, view it HERE. This year, 2020, we are needed more than ever to show support for Nurses, Midwives, Carers, and the NHS. We are looking for artwork that demonstrates your passion for Care and/or Caring. Your artwork will be exhibited as part of a worldwide celebration of the World Health Organisation designating 2020 as the ‘Year of the Nurse and Midwife.’ Our theme for entries this year is ‘Ingredients for a Healthy Life’. Follow the instructions via the link to take part.

I’ve been lucky with collaborations over the years, with my most prolific partnership being with Harvey Wells (Senior Lecturer in Medical Education, Barts and the London School of Medicine).  We exhibited together at the Tate Modern (June 2019) and also at the Humanising Medicine exhibition (November 2019) at Barts Pathology Museum.

This year has kicked off with a rush of exciting album covers and imminent releases. I’ve been working on album artwork for Kelvin Christiane (Dreams May Come), Aaron Liddard, Chris Rand’s Gathering, Fabrice Quentin. One album that has been released in the last few days and is a departure from my usual Jazz fare is from Goldbringer (see image).

What If exhibition (Here I am with the artist Debbie Chessell)

CollectConnect had an active year and we had our big exhibitions the Art of Caring and Love Tokens and Bad Pennies. Amongst these we started trialling smaller shows, that included two or three artists. This gave us an opportunity to experiment and be more nimble with placements and selections. As you probably know all already we try and exhibit outdoors, in public places , leaving the work to be collected by artlovers or swept away by the weather, animals or street cleaners. What If was our first trial, and included myself, Bryan Benge and the young artist Sam Tout. We exhibited posters at Tolworth Railway Station and imagined future/alternative worlds. The Tolcake Heroes exhibition was with Dean Reddick and Sam Tout. We wrote poems that were engraved on brass effect plaques and placed on benches along Tolworth Broadway. The plaques celebrated personalities from Tolworth and the excellent cakes you can eat in the local shops. Our final CollectConnect trial exhibition was Impossipebble with both Bryan, Dean and myself. Art was created using pebbles and placed out in public places in Devon and Somerset.

Amongst the commissions and exhibitions I have continued my research into musicians from the 1930s. The project was inspired by my ongoing connection with the radio programme A World In London on Resonance FM with DJ Ritu. Every week I spend at the radio station sketching musicians and it always opens my eyes to London’s rich musical flavours.

So over the past year I have taken my two original 1930s handbooks of musician’s addresses and pounded the streets to find the homes of banjo players and clarinettists alike.  I’ve documented these journeys in little chapbooks and made films with my wife Natalie along the way. So far we have walked around Richmond, Twickenham, Whitton, Tufnell Park, Barnes, Mortlake, East Sheen, Hammersmith, Victoria and Pimlico. I’m currently researching the areas of Crouch End, Highgate and Lewisham. I’ve loved discovering the music through the old shellac records and learning about the musical history of our city.

Summer 2019

Exhibiting / Tate Modern / eMotion

Yesterday I installed a new artwork at the Tate Modern in London, UK. eMotion is an interactive artwork that I have created alongside longtime collaborators Harvey Wells and Kevin Acott. Throughout our lives we are making transitions: moving emotionally, spiritually, socially, physically. We adjust from being ‘healthy’ to being ‘ill’, from ‘independence’ to ‘dependence’ and back again. This project highlights the joys and fear of impermanence, of the changes that occur every second, minute and hour of our lives. It embraces movement as normal, as part of the flow of life – something that should neither be resisted nor forced.

You can see/experience it from 11-16 June 2019, 12-5pm daily as part of the Ideas in Motion exhibition. More information here – https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/tate-exchange/workshop/ideas-motion-borders-bodies-and-universe

From January to May my time is consumed by the Art of Caring exhibition at St George’s Hospital. I’ve been organising this exhibition for 5 years now and it still delights and surprises with its varied and insightful work. It ends on the 14th June and will now travel to St Pancras Hospital (Launch Party 18th July) under the care of curators Peter Herbert and Elaine Harper-Gay.

I was able to put some of my work into other group exhibitions this year. Size Matters was part of the Fringe Arts Bath festival and included some of my miniature cigarette worlds. It was also an opportunity to escape London for a few days, where I took some time out to do some drawing (see left) near Stroud. It has been a demanding 18 months with some sad and difficult periods in my personal life. I realise that I will need to take some more time out to draw in the future months. Love Tokens and Bad Pennies was a real success on the streets of London with the other CollectConnect artists. It really is my preferred way to exhibit, directly on the streets and engaging with a sometimes unsuspecting audience. It has been such an exciting format that we are teaming up with Barbara Dougan at Grove to run a new street art exhibition and trail that will run through Bury St Edmunds in August 2019. http://www.groveprojects.org/groving.html

Out and About

I had a fabulous day in May drawing at the Urban Tree Festival in London. As their festival artist I was given free rein to delve into a number of talks and activities. My favourite drawing was of the Thai Trees session in Lloyd Park just near Angel (right).

I am still devoted to sketching on the radio programme A World in London every Wednesday on Resonance FM. I have been drawing the bands/musicians who perform on the show for nearly 3 years now. I love the excitement of capturing the live performance and value the friendships I’ve nurtured with DJ Ritu, Norman Druker, Sophie Darling, Patrick Bernard, Lucas Keen (and Sophia Gaetani Morris)

One of the personal projects that has really taken off in the past 6 months is discovering and celebrating the lives of London’s Musicians from the 1930s. I’m interested in where they lived, their music, and what the stories of their lives reveals about the time. I’ve published two books 1930s Musicians of Richmond and Twickenham and 1930s Musicians of Twickenham and Whitton. I’m currently working on a third one around Tufnell Park that includes musicians Frank Deniz, Fela Sowande and Leslie ‘Jiver’ Hutchinson. Natalie very kindly accompanies on my walks as I track down some of the houses where the musicians lived.

Album and Book Art

Georgia Mancio and Kate Williams’ new album Finding Home has been launched and very well received by critics and audiences alike (below). My artwork has also been featured on Laura Zakian’s new album Minor Moments and Canadian trumpeter Gabriel Mark Hasselbach’s latest release Radio Gold. Three worlds collided for me recently when I illustrated A World in London colleague Sophie Darling’s new chapbook Darling’s Global Record Labels through our publishers Sampson Low.

Winter / Spring 2019

Being Human, Bloomsbury, Brut and Bury St Edmunds

I finished off 2018 with a hectic schedule of commissioned works, walks and residencies. Kevin Acott and I spent a brilliant week with Barbara Dougan at Grove Projects creating new work. It was a precious opportunity for us both, not only was it a rare chance to work uninterrupted for 6 days but we created new and unexpected work that we presented in a exhibition in Bury St Edmunds. We started the week by creating two new chapbooks Limey and Trial and Error which were published and in bookstores like Waterstones within 5 days. The second half of our week was spent exploring Bury St Edmunds and writing songs after we stumbled across the story of Nick Cave’s time spent in the East Anglian town, and also a fun trip to the Hoo Ha Record Club one evening.

In November we took some of our work and performed it at Rich Mix in London as part of the Poem Brut series run by SJ Fowler.

I worked on a really interesting collaboration with The Rutledge Lab, at the Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, inviting the public to talk about their perceptions of mental health and explore how this interacts with approaches taken by researchers and clinicians. Dear World Project was an installation featuring a post box where members of the public anonymously sent postcards about their own mental wellbeing which was then be organised at a sorting office. Scientists were on hand to discuss how we use symptom categories and diagnostic labels in neuroscience and psychiatric research.

In recognition and celebration of the 70th anniversary of the NHS, I worked in partnership with Prof Harvey Wells and curator Richard Meunier to discover the traces of East London’s medical history. We created a guide map commissioned by Queen Mary University of London that reveals the hidden relics of the hospitals that existed prior to the inception of the NHS. The map links together the Queen Mary sites that exist today: St Bartholomew’s Hospital founded in 1123 which is the oldest hospital in England to have provided continuous care for patients on the same site, The Royal London Hospital founded in 1740 which was once the largest general hospital in the country and where Joseph Merrick the Elephant Man was treated and Queen Mary’s Mile End campus which is situated next to Mile End Hospital. We launched the map at the Royal London Hospital Museum and created a video of the walk.

Before the NHS: A walk through East London’s medical past from Alban Low on Vimeo.

Love Tokens and Bad Pennies / The Art of Caring

I’m involved in two exhibition this Spring. During the Valentine month the artists and writers from CollectConnect explore the flip-sided theme of Love Tokens and Bad Pennies with an exhibition of 34 miniature sculptures. These objects are placed in public places (#unsettledgallery), helping us to remember those who we hold dear – or cast off those who we would rather forget. Every day throughout February we feature one of these tokens/pennies. A writer will also use the art as inspiration to create something new and fresh. Find out more HERE.

I was interviewed about the exhibition by Andrew Stuck for the Talking Walking podcast. Listen here – https://www.talkingwalking.net/alban-low-talking-walking/

We’ve got an open call to artists for this year’s Art of Caring. Now in its 5th year The Art of Caring is needed more than ever to show support for Nurses, Carers, and the NHS. This is your chance to exhibit an artwork that demonstrates your passion for this theme. If this is your first time then check out Anna Bowman’s documentary film about last year’s exhibition HERE.

Album Covers and Books

I’m currently working on the album artwork for Georgia Mancio and Kate Williams new release. Also a new Juan Maria Solare album of Erik Satie compositions. For only the second time in my career my artwork will grace a new vinyl release, this time a 7″ sleeve for the new single from Firefay.

My album art appeared on the latest release from Momentum and one of my live sketches featured on the cover of Al Shields’ latest EP.

Chapbooks are still a passion for me and our publishing company Sampson Low. As the year turned from 2018 to 2019 I worked on a fabulous new series from Robin Helweg-Larsen in the Bahamas. The “Potcake Chapbook” series is named for the dogs of the Bahamas and the Caribbean – strays that live off the burnt scrapings of cooking pots. The poems in the series are a mixed bunch – but the potcake of our logo wears a bow tie to show that he and all the poems are formal. These poems are memorable in part because they rhyme and scan, as all truly memorable poetry does. We subscribe to the use of form, no matter how formless the times in which we live.

I’ve also illustrated a new chapbook from Emily Wooden, and 10 chapbooks as part of the Elmbridge Literary Competition.

Coming Up

This summer I’ll be exhibiting in the new Blavatnik Building at the Tate Modern from 10th to 16th June. Working with Harvey Wells and Kevin Acott, we’re creating a new interactive version of the Relationship Map we published for Mental Health Awareness week a few years ago.

 

Summer/Autumn 2018

I have just got back from two weeks with the family in Limoux and Cambieure (France), and at last I can find some time to tell you about what I’ve been doing over the past six months, and also what the future has to offer. France is always a time to take stock and I enjoy drawing for myself. I start off will charcoal drawings and then re-draw in ink to create more direct images. I’ve become a rather disinterested photographer and these drawings help me remember the evocative moments I experience, and are often triggers for new ideas and future themes.

Small World Futures, Grove Residency and Poem Brut
Last year I spent a week in France with Bill Mudge and Kevin Acott. This time inspired me to work on some new ideas with Kevin and also to try and carve out more time to escape London. In June we performed together at the Crouch End Festival in the Intimate Space at St Mary’s Church Tower. We also worked on a fabulous exhibition together called Small World Futures. It was the highlight of my Spring, featuring 16 artists who had created new miniature future worlds. We exhibited on the streets around London Bridge and asked writers to create words to describe these worlds. It was such a success we published a small book (£3.70 + P&P) which you can buy HERE.

Small World Future – Alban Low (and Kevin Acott)

Kevin and I wanted more time to work through some of the Small World Future ideas and we applied for an artist’s residency at Grove in Bury St Edmunds. We were lucky to be awarded this opportunity and are taking up residency from 17-22 September to produce some new work together. We will publish a book during this week as well as explore some ideas about film and film noir. #EastAngliaNoir
There will be a short exhibition of the work on the 22nd September at Grove.
We’ll also be showcasing some of the work for a London audience at Rich Mix on 10th November 2018 (7pm, Free Entry) as part of the progressive Poem Brut night.

The Small World Futures exhibition has travelled to Aabenraa in Denmark where it has caused quite a stir at Eskild Beck’s gallery space. It will have a new life at the Gallery Nexus in Denmark during the Autumn of 2018.

The next CollectConnect exhibition will probably be a Money/Banknote/Coin/Currency themed show. We will put out a call in the Autumn.

Art of Caring
Once again the Art of Caring exhibition had a huge impact on my life. As you probably know we have been running it with CollectConnect for four years now, and have exhibited over 1000 artworks in hospitals and public spaces. It is really hard work but I think it is needed in our community. Since starting as a fulltime artist in 2000 I’ve seen many ‘Open’ art exhibitions disappear completely, the majority of those that remain take advantage of artists by charging them for submission and even have the audacity to reject their work once they have pocketed the entry fee. The Art of Caring has its flaws but it is a beacon for many artists and remains a totally inclusive exhibition (no submission fee, no rejection, exhibited in a public place with free entry).

Art of Caring at St Pancras Hospital

The title for this year’s Art of Caring exhibition was Health is a Human Right, inspired by the 2018 International Nurses’ Day theme. We started at St George’s Hospital, London in May, and we were also asked to put on a special exhibition to celebrate 70 years of the NHS in July. We published a colouring chapbook for this special occasion. More info HERE.

The Art of Caring culminated with the wonderful exhibition at St Pancras Hospital (19th July – 18th October 2018), with singing, dancing and a fine array of original artwork. Long may this exhibition continue, it is now established as a unique exhibition in the Arts Calendar.

Community Festivals
This year has seen me get involved with more collaborators and reach new audiences by working with the universities at Kingston, St Georges, Queen Mary, and UCL.

I started with the Festival of Communities at Stepney Green Park where I created a life-size Operation game with Harvey Wells at Queen Mary University London.

Over the next few months I’ll be collaborating with the Max Planck Centre and UCL at the Bloomsbury Festival (17-21 October). In November I’ll be creating a walking map with Harvey again for the Being Human Festival.

Album Art and Jazz
It has been a quieter few months for me with the album art but one album that particularly stands out is Pete Lee’s debut album, The Velvet Rage, on Ubuntu Music. I’ve also been lucky enough to create covers for Ornate – Terry Emm and Two – Tumultuous Tenors.

I’ve been experimenting with a new style in my gig sketches (see right, Geoff Berner). It’s been another brilliant few months as artist-in-resident on the radio show A World in London with DJ Ritu. I love going in every Wednesday and drawing the musicians as they perform. I was even lucky enough to be interviewed when I launched by London Violins chapbook and exhibition. You can listen to me chatting with violinists Alice Barron and Richard Jones by following this link… http://artofjazz.blogspot.com/2018/06/london-violins-world-in-london-with-dj.html

 

Winter 2018

Exhibitions
Christmas is behind me now and I’m busy preparing for two exhibitions, Small World Futures and The Art of Caring. Small World Futures will be a reasonably small group show, with around 15 artists exhibiting miniature worlds on the streets of London. Dean Reddick and I have been cultivating niches, railings, nooks and crannies around London Bridge in the past few months. We’ll be placing the worlds throughout February (1st-28th), photographing them and posting them on the CollectConnect blog. Members of the public will be able to view the worlds in situ, and even take them hope if they wish. We have also invited several writers to create poems, short stories and creative responses to the worlds. I’ll create a specific page here on my website in the next few weeks, as I’ve become fascinated by this kind of dystopian vision. Inspired by both by Brexit and the tragedy at Grenfell.

Our Small World Futures exhibition will then go onto Aabenraa in Denmark where Eskild Beck will be having his own miniature dioramic exhibition in May and June.

The Art of Caring is now in its fourth year and I’m incredibly proud of what we do to support Carers, Nurses and the NHS. It would be wonderful if you could get involved. As always we’re totally inclusive, so there are no excuses, just do it. The International Council of Nurses have come up with a powerful theme this year, so I hope that ‘Health is a Human Right’ will inspire. All the details are HERE. The exhibition will be displayed along a corridor in the Atkinson Morley Wing at St George’s Hospital, Tooting in May 2018.

The exhibition will be moving onto St Pancras Hospital later in the year, July to September. So keep an eye out. We always have a good party with Peter Herbert.

Jazz
In November this year I performed at the London Jazz Festival for the first time. Alongside the Stefanos Tsourelis Trio I sketched live on stage, using spirit ink and 6 huge canvases. It was an amazing night, one I don’t think I’ll ever forget. I’ve been sketching musicians for nearly 10 years now, and this was such an exhilarating night at a packed out Bull’s Head, Barnes.

I’m still busy sketching on the radio at A World In London at Resonance FM nearly every week, as well as plenty of gigs around London. Have a look at http://artofjazz.blogspot.co.uk/

I’m currently working on 3 album covers, for the Balagan Cafe Band, pianist Pete Lee, and for Sam Leak who is about to release an album with Dan Tepfer.

Books and Maps
In the past few weeks I’ve been lucky enough to have illustrated Sarah Hobbs’ new book Two Hills. This is a new collaboration for me, with a poet who is a young exciting prospect. http://www.sarahhobbspoetry.co.uk/

I’ve also worked on my wife Natalie’s new chapbook, School Run. It really is worth a read. We launched it by having a bed-in, John and Yoko style. Buy it HERE.

Don’t forget my Walton-on-Thames Literary Walking Map is now available too. As the weather gets better in 2018, find a nice day and take stroll around Walton, discovering its hidden treasures. Elmbridge Council commissioned me to create it and it was one of my favourite jobs of 2017.

It is an A3 fold out map with a double page information sheet from Elmbridge Museum that reveals Walton’s literary connections with William Thackeray, Dirk Bogarde, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Jerome Kern, Julian Sturgis, Samuel Ireland, Matteo Sedazzari, Anne Cummings and many more. Follow the 60-90 minute circular walk and visit literary sites of interest in Walton-on-Thames, including The Swan pub, Walton Bridge, Nettlefold Studio, Walton Library, Ashley Park , St Mary’s Church and The Old Manor House.

 

 

 

Autumn 2017

Over the past year I’ve been struggling to establish my own work amongst the commissions and illustrations I create for other people. I have enjoyed working with other people for many years but slowly the themes that interest me have been buried under a busy schedule of album covers and organising group exhibitions for ConnectCollect. I knew I needed to make a change and I feel I’ve now turned the page on a new chapter. I started in June this year with a trip away to my studio in Cambieure and little house in Limoux with Kevin Acott (writer) and Bill Mudge (photographer/musician).

Reversing the Spectator
Kevin, Bill and I spent a week together in the South Of France during the June heatwave of 2017. We didn’t have a plan about what we wanted to do, what we might create together. I slowly filled my sketchbook with vignettes of village life. Bill, suffering under the relentless sun, retreated to the night-time streets of Limoux and Cambieure, photographing the midnight cats and silent buildings. While Kevin worked on a set of short stories that had been inspired by his travels through the USA, Greenland and now France.
On the 14th June 2017 we walked from the Petite Rue du Palais to the cemetery in Rue Saint-François in Limoux. It was a pilgrimage to visit the grave of Madame Mongin, a neighbour who had died the previous year. Starting at Madame Mongin’s former home we wandered through the largely deserted streets of Limoux. Slowly we were separated along the sun-bleached route, eventually meeting once again at the cemetery.
Reversing the Spectator is a 16 page chapbook published by our family company Sampson Low and features my drawings and Kevin Acott’s words. Buy it HERE for £2.60 (+£1.20 P&P).

Exhibitions
The Art of Caring has once again proved a huge success, first gracing the walls of St George’s Hospital in Tooting and then transferring to St Pancras Hospital for a 3 month run (closes 19th October 2017). We have exhibited 330 artworks in both locations. I exhibited a piece in the Droitwich Mail Art exhibition during August 2017, curated by Tamara Jelača. Here are a few more exhibitions that are just about to happen and I’m involved in….

Far Out  (2 Sept – 1 Oct 2017) at the Galleri Nexus, Tinglev, Denmark. An exhibition of science fiction inspired artwork by international artists including a performance by Brut Interstellar. I’ve created a huge wall of imagined worlds that can be coloured-in by visitors to the exhibition.

Off the Record (1 – 30 Sept 2017) at The Quarry Theatre, Bedford, MK40 2NN. It is an exhibition of imagined album covers as part of the Conscia Jazz Festival. I have created two pieces for the exhibition, including one cover of one-line drawings from a night sketching at Kansas Smitty’s during the summer. https://www.conscia.org

51Zero Festival (27 Oct – 2 Nov 2017) where my silent film Aspic will be screened alongside live music, sound art on the launch night, 27th October 2017 in Rochester Cathedral crypt, Kent, ME1 1SX. And also with recorded sound in Rochester Cathedral crypt and in the Main Chamber, Guildhall Museum, Rochester, Kent, ME1 1PY from the 28th October to the 2nd November. Aspic was inspired by a short residency at the TANE house on the Isle of Wight. https://www.51zero.org

Album Art
Over the past few months I’ve been working on album cover work for Andy Fleet, Stefanos Tsourelis and the Balagan Café Band. All these groups/musicians will be releasing their albums in the next few months. A sketch of mine also features in a new release, Transitions by the Julian Costello Quartet.

Instagram
I have established a new way of working since coming back from France this summer. I try and complete a drawing in the morning before switching to emails and other contact with gallery and artists. So excuse me if I’m slower than usual to respond to you. I also try and get this drawing onto Instagram, you can find me at https://www.instagram.com/albanart/ I’m often inspired by the things I see around me, especially the strange happening in Suburbia or London’s unusual inhabitants.

Summer 2017

As ever it’s been a busy and varied 6 months looking after my own work and organising exhibition for other artists. The Art of Jazz exhibition at the Robert Phillips Gallery in Walton-on-Thames (January 2017) was a real success with a good number of visitors and a fabulous launch night with the Stefanos Tsourelis Trio. Thank you to everyone who came and for those who bought some of the original sketches to take home.

Samuel Eagles’ SPIRIT – Ask, Seek, Knock

Album Art
Album covers still play a large role in every working day and there seems to be no end to the varied projects I’m getting involved in. Recently I’ve finished work for Samuel Eagles’ SPIRIT, New York Standards Quartet, Yana, Collective X and George Colligan. In the next few weeks I’ve got an interesting new project by Juan Maria Solare called Sombras Blancas (White Shadows) and then something really new to me from the Balagan Cafe Band.

The Art of Caring
In May 2017 we opened the Art of Caring 2017 exhibition at St George’s Hospital. It had an immediate and favourable response from patients and staff at the hospital as they walked past our display of postcards and haiku pill bottles.  330 artworks from 150+ artists and authors is hard work to organise but worth every minute when you consider the Carers, Nurses, NHS and patients who need our support. We also had a important visitor, Jane Cummings, who is the Chief Nurse at NHS England. She viewed the whole exhibition and enjoyed the diversity on the work.

Chapbooks
Several of these little 16 pages gems have been published since the turn of the year and they continue be well received. They include Colouring Walls by Stella Tripp, Christina’s Moon by Jill Hedges, Altogether Elsewhere by Jazzman John Robert Clarke, Theatre of Rages by Francesca Albini, Villiers Path by Lucy Furlong, 5 chapbooks from Debbie Chessell in a new series for the Confronting Rape Culture group and another new series for Kevin Acott as he travels round the world in pursuit of the poet inspiration.
I recently did an interview for Sphinx Poetry and Pamphlet Review website – Read about it here.

CUBE Live Performance
In March I performed at the Shaw Gallery in Croydon with Bill Mudge on keyboard and sound effects. We were contained within a 2 meter square paper cube. Cut off from the audience I created a drawn narrative using spirit ink that leached from the inside of the box to the outside. This gave the appearance that the drawings were coming from an invisible hand. As I drew Bill created improvised sounds and we spent a particularly surreal 40 minutes engrossed in a game of cat and mouse with the gallery visitors. If you would like to see what it looked like we’ve made a film. Watch it HERE

A World In London
I still sketch every week at live venues, getting out to gigs and finding new music and performers is part of London’s charm. I spend most Wednesday’s at Resonance FM in Borough where they transmit A World In London with DJ Ritu. It’s been one of the highlights of my year so far, each week I discover new musicans, new music and wonderfully varied cultures. You can see all my sketches on the Art of Jazz blog.

Stepping Out
There are several interesting projects on the horizon. I’ve been commissioned to create a Walking Literary Map of Walton-on-Thames for the Elmbridge Literary Festival in November 2017, which has meant several enjoyable trips to Walton, scouting out nuggets of interest and meeting people from the local area. I’m hoping to be part of a Science Fiction exhibition in Denmark called Far Out in September, organised by Eskild Beck. I’m in the early stages of organising a Secret Art Sale for the Charley Paige Trust that will be at Squires Gallery in Shepperton in September 2017.

AL.