What’s On

“My work is usually very political, but here I wanted to step away — towards the freedom of the margins.”  

Aidar Bekchintaev is a London-based multidisciplinary artist with a background in political science. His work - across drawing, painting, sculpture and digital media - examines power, control and the absurdity of authoritarian systems.

Marginalia turns from the centre to the edge. In medieval manuscripts, the margins were where the forbidden crept in: monks drew hybrid beasts, grotesques and obscene little scenes alongside the sacred text - the irrational and the violent escaping the authority of the main page. That tension is the artist's own subject. These works on paper, made in pencil, pastel, acrylic, pen - whatever the hand reached for - treat the off-hand and the unofficial as a method. Drawn at the edge of intention, they let a bestiary of the subconscious surface, where the comic and the menacing share the same line.

This is the latest exhibition by the artist, and his first in South London.

A free exhibition with proceeds from all sales going to the artist’s growth and funding public programmes in advancing and diversifying engagement in visual storytelling.

Opening times: West Norwood Picturehouse | West Norwood Cinema | Showtimes

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“I’m motivated by what makes us human, the human experience and the impact we have on each other, what we do or what we say and the paths and journeys these actions can take us on.”

Phil Price is a South London artist working across mediums and materials -  from screen printing and hand-cut stencils to spray paints and acrylics, then hand finishing with charcoal, chalks and pastels on pops of colour painted onto cardboard or OSB board.

He is constantly inspired by success through adversity and achievement against all the odds, themes he actively integrates into his work. As an Activities Manager for a charity working with young people and families impacted by complex illnesses and disabilities, he is daily confronted by challenge and adversity on psychological, social and emotional levels. And from these stories, which underpin his professional life, spring the themes, characters and modes of creation that bring his artistry to life and keep it grounded in human experience.

“To create origami-resin coated butterflies embellished with barbed wire... I believe that fine art does not need to be confined to canvas and paper.”

Ballerinas and Butterflies, an exhibition of his most recent work, is no exception. Through representations of these two different creatures through exciting, often non-traditional art mediums, he asks the viewer to bear witness to beauty in the everyday, realise the abrasive as a tool of necessary communication and re-consider at all times positive possibilities in human interactions with ourselves and everything around us.

A free exhibition with proceeds from all sales going to the artist’s growth and funding public programmes in advancing and diversifying engagement in visual storytelling.

Opening times: West Norwood Picturehouse | West Norwood Cinema | Showtimes

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Moving the Image. Animating from Imagination.

In this workshop, you will learn how to use a stationary camera and basic animation software to make films from charcoal drawings. This is an experience designed to grow skills in hand-drawn animation practice while enabling you to create original work that reflects your own culture and heritage - an artistic celebration of Black History Month.

This is a learning experience for all levels of animation and drawing ability, even complete beginners. Guidance is provided, and so are the materials. All you'll need to bring us your mobile phone, complete with the Stop Motion Studio app.

In partnership with Barnet Library Service and the London Borough of Barnet.

Free. Online booking essential.

Tickets from Barnet Libraries - COMING SOON

Come and learn erasure charcoal animation with artist and animator Leo Crane. Everything will be provided, you just need to bring your smart phone.

Part of the Brighton International Animation Festival.

Tickets and Information Coming Soon