grosvenor gallery

Contemporary visual artist Angeli Sowani speaks with Grosvenor Gallery director Charles Moore about her early life and career, as well as her recent research into some of the fascinating, forgotten stories of Commonwealth men and women who served in the two World Wars. Angeli has shown several times with Grosvenor Gallery and her current exhibition ‘Together’ runs from 15 – 30 September 2022. 

Grosvenor Gallery website

www.grosvenorgallery.com 

Angeli Sowani’s website

www.angelisowani.com

The Spy Princess, the story of Noor Inayat Khan

Instagram

@grosvenorgallery @alifeinart

Contact

art@grosvenorgallery.com

Zimbiri is a visual artist, born and raised in Bhutan. She currently works with traditional Bhutanese materials; ‘sa-tschen’ (earth paint) and ‘rhay-shing’ (hand-woven canvas). Her first exhibition ‘Faces', was held in 2015 and was the first female solo-exhibition ever held in Bhutan. The paintings in that show were variations of the three eyed ‘Mahayana Mask’, illustrating the metaphoric masks we wear and how we use them as a means of protection. Her recent work is a series of paintings that explore traditional Bhutanese techniques and imagery. 

Zimbiri’s first solo-show at Grosvenor Gallery runs from the 30 October - 20 November 2020. The exhibition features work from her ‘Tiger’ series, which she elaborates on in this episode. The show coincides with the East Asian element of Asian Art in London, which runs from 30 October – 6 November 2020.

There will be a zoom conversation between Zimbiri and Dr Zehra Jumabhoy on Friday 30 October at 12pm (UK). Get in touch with the gallery by email, art@grosvenorgallery.com, if you’d like to receive details of how to access this, or to the view the recording. You can follow the artist on Instagram, @zimbiri91, as well as follow @asianartinlondon.

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Olivia Fraser is a contemporary British artist, who for the last 30 years has lived in India. Olivia has immersed herself in Indian culture, seeking not just to paint Indian scenes, but to fully understand and appreciate the myriad of ways of seeing in this vast country, creating a hybrid aesthetic of East and West. In 2005 she studied traditional miniature painting in Jaipur, which transformed the way she worked and looked at the world around her. 

In this episode we talk about her inspirations, as well as the lasting impression the work of her ancestor, James Bailley Fraser, has left on her.

Olivia shares the range of sources she draws on in her work, and also ‘decodes’ one of her paintings for us, helping to reveal its secrets.

In 2019 Harper Collins published a book on her work, titled ‘The Journey Within’. This features nearly all the works painted by Olivia in the last thirty years. Copies of this are available from the gallery.

You can follow Olivia on Instagram @oliviafraserart. You can see some of the works mentioned in this episode, as well as the references mentioned by Olivia on our podcast and gallery Instagram pages @alifeinart and @grosvenorgallery. Olivia’s work can also be seen on our website www.grosvenorgallery.com. Olivia teaches miniature painting workshops in Jaipur once a year. Details of those classes are available on her website www.oliviafraser.com 

An exhibition of Olivia’s paintings will take place at Grosvenor Gallery at the beginning of August 2020. Please check our website, or email art@grosvenorgallery.com to receive details.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please do subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen. We’ll be back with another episode very soon. 

In this episode we speak to the internationally renowned artist Faiza Butt. We discuss the influences behind her stunningly detailed works, as well as issues that have been thrown up by the Coronavirus crisis. We talk about her ceramic work, a medium Faiza has a strong affiliation with, as well as the techniques used in her paintings, and how her experiences at the Slade School of Art changed her practice. We also discuss how life in London and the experiences of her children bleed into her work.

New paintings by Faiza are on display at Grosvenor Gallery from 11-26 June 2020, as part of the show ‘Form & Figure: Bodies of Art’, curated by Dr Zehra Jumabhoy, (in association with Canvas Gallery). The exhibition features the work of three figurative artists; Faiza Butt, Ali Kazim and Salman Toor. Their paintings explore the human form; probing ideas of the body, desire, masculinity and representations of alterity. Faiza also decodes the visuals used in her new works, which are partly based on childhood memories of bucolic gardens and fruit farms in Pakistan.

Follow @faizaaugust7 on Instagram, and see images of the work in the exhibition ‘Form & Figure’ at grosvenorgallery.com or @grosvenorgallery on Instagram. Older work by Faiza will be posted on @alifeinart. Faiza’s 2010 show ‘Pehlwan’, which is talked about in the episode is available on the Grosvenor Gallery website under 'past exhibitions'.

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British painter Elisabeth Deane’s love of Indian miniature painting was born from a trip to Shantiniketan in West Bengal in 2011. Inspired by the work of polymath Rabindranath Tagore, she went on to study under Rajasthani masters, and later at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in London. Her work is a mix of rigid geometry and flowing figurative work, drawing from sources as varied as Persian and Indian miniatures and folklore to Islamic geometry. Her first solo-show, 'Rhythmic Measures', was held at Grosvenor Gallery in December 2019.