"New Faces" Exhibition

22 January 2010

Recoat Gallery presents 'New Faces', a group show from leading and upcoming artists on the theme of modern character design.

Artwork by Conzo

Recoat start 2010 with a bang, bringing us a group show that includes a varied selection of artists, established names like the London based, prolific and well known illustrator Andrew Rae and Scottish graffiti artist Elph alongside new Glasgow School of Art graduate, Conzo and newly emerging graphic artist FiST. Also showing is Michigan based artist, Jon Macnair and South African painter, Theory One, both both of whom are exhibiting in the UK for the first time. Last but not least is the female street artist, Syrkus.

Character Design has become a genre in its own right within illustration graphic and street art over the last decade. Recoat have chosen a collection of artists that they feel represent different areas within this genre and highlight the importance and validity of this new area of design and development.

Andrew Rae

Andrew Rae is an illustrator, animator and member of the Illustration collective Peepshow. He started out in 1998 producing flyers for 333 club night Perverted Science in Shoreditch. His images can be seen on the BBC 3 show Monkey Dust for which he was Art Director and on the on-air identity, which he designed for MTV Asia. He's a regular contributor for US Esquire and the Guardian and has worked for many other clients. He currently lives and works in London and is represented in the USA by Bernstein and Andriulli.

Conzo

Conzo is a young Glasgow based artist, a recent graduate from Glasgow School of Art, freelance graphic designer and illustrator, exhibiting graphic artist and graffiti artist. A proud member of a generation brought up on TV, videogames; a daily intake of 'Ren and Stimpy', 'South Park' and 'Johnny Knoxville' have moulded him into the bizarre artist he is!

Conzo's work is commonly character based, focused on the unfortunate shaped, ugly and bad local people he has came across growing up in Glasgow. It is generally light hearted and comical. Since graduating he has already taken part in several exhibitions, created work for the newly emerged Cookie Restaurant and participated in many mural projects across Scotland. Conzo is also a major player in the Secret Wars phenomenon. He recently tied a pair of 6ft hand stitched Y-fronts to the top of a 30ft haunted tree in his local town. The essence of Conzo is "carry on, nonsense and reaction!"

ELPH ONE

ELPH is an illustrator, graphic designer, animator and graffiti artist who began his career aged twelve in Edinburgh. In 1994 he became a member of the Many Style Crew and in 1997 he started developing his world famous big nosed, "wino" characters that now float and stroll around our streets. ELPH has exhibited internationally, in Philadelphia and Berlin and in the U.K; London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow. He was selected by Analogue to produce one of their Running Amok publications, and was recently included in the Tristan Manco, "Street Sketchbook", published by Thames and Hudson. He's been featured in Skinnycap, Overspray and LIP magazines and was selected to take part in Banksy's, "The Cans Festival II" in 2008. ELPH is a prolific artist of great talent, well respected within the graffiti and illustration worlds. In addition, ELPH had his first solo exhibition at Recoat in February 2008. The exhibition sold out entirely.

FiST

FiST creates "enhanced-personality" portraits and characters, drawing on and exaggerating his experiences of textures, colours, shapes and patterns from anything from Star Wars toys, 2000AD, Marvel comics, and Fischer Price space ships from his childhood to his long-term association with recreational techno music and a general love of robots and space travel.

FiST utilizes Victorian photographs, reclaimed wood and paper with spray paint and radiograph pens to produce work that sits somewhere between the past and the future, but not quite the present.

Jon MacNair

Jon MacNair was born in Seoul, South Korea and grew up in the suburbs of Southeast Michigan where he developed a love for drawing at an early age. He attended the Maryland Institute College of Art, graduating in 2005 with a BFA in illustration. He currently resides in Michigan where he creates freelance illustration and fine art. Cities he has exhibited in include Portland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore and San Francisco. He works primarily in ink on paper, but also graphite, watercolor and mixed media. Drawing inspiration from medieval art, mythology, fairy tales and sci-fi/ fantasy films of the 60's and 70's. His work incorporates easily relatable human themes presented in fantastically unfamiliar realms.

This will be the first time Jon MacNair exhibits in the UK.

Syrkus

Syrkus, aka Amy Whiten, graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in 2004 in Illustration. She has worked as a freelance illustrator and mural artist since then, creating work for T in the Park, Hinterland Festival and numerous bars and clubs across Scotland with her artistic partner, Rekor. She creates odd, distorted, often comical characters, usually based on people due to her love of life-drawing.

Theory One

Dylan Jones aka Theory One was born in Cape Town in 1977. He lived a fairly normal, middle class existence in a suburb of the city, but on hitting the age of 16, he came to understand and believe that the political situation in his country was very wrong.

His artwork started to reflect this and he attended as many anti apartheid rallies as he could. In the 1994 he finished school and went to Advertising School to study commercial graphic design. He didn't draw for the next 5-6 years and focussed on his design career. He then became involved in graffiti and later migrated to street art where he became very active in and around Cape Town. His worked developed; he started working mainly with pen, paper and ink creating work that generally revolves around people he observes in real life. His work often carries intriguing narrative; "I am moved by the plight of the homeless, the down trodden, the outcasts and the rebels and their position in society."

This will be the first time Theory One exhibits in the UK.