'Room 102' and 'Bankrupt Revellers and the Crash'

Hooligan Art Dealer presents

'Room 102' and 'Bankrupt Revellers and the Crash'

Room 102 - Maria Rosa Kramer at Gallery Maison Bertaux, Soho (Upstairs Gallery)
George Orwell’s novel 1984 features ‘Room 101’, a horrific place in which a prisoner is subjected to his or her own worst nightmare, fear or phobia. Room102 is the complete opposite; a profoundly joyful space which examines ideas of connectiveness and happiness, a place of heightened sensation, a landscape of increased sensibility.
Maria Rosa Kramer explores 'the defined within the undefined' and vice versa, reflecting on contrasting emotional and rational spaces. By experimenting with unusual materials, such as tile spacers and bottle lids, Maria is looking beyond their traditional use, redefining their function and tapping into their inherent beauty.

Maria has been a fine artist for more than ten years and has extensively exhibited. Most recently she won a major public art competition for Didcot's city centre, which encompasses a 7 metre high stainless steel installation, currently being developed.
Maria studied oil painting at UCSB (University of Santa Barbara, California) and architecture at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and at UCL, University College London (DipUCL, March). Alongside her fine art work, she was a partner at Architecture and Design Studio Leitwerk for more than ten years and currently teaches architecture at Cardiff University.

Maria Rosa Kramer lives in Highgate, North London, and is married to comedian Mark Dolan with whom she has two children.

Bankrupt Revellers and the Crash – Julian Hughes-Watts and Rachel Levitas at Gallery Maison Bertaux, Soho (Basement Gallery)
Julian Hughes-Watts explores corporate logos being broken apart, abstracted, mashed-up and re-configured into new forms. There are hints of original brands and logos, but they’re buried under changes. References are made to the financial crisis of 2007; the large-scale casualties and its repercussions.

One aspect of the group works is the physical re-arrangement of the painted panels - shifted around rotated, linked and spaced apart. There is a play between each panel as a distinct element and the dialogue between parts within the group. The elements of flux and play in the multi-panel paintings have links to the shifting components in the traditional game of the 15-square puzzle and also to the repetitive patterns of decorative tiles.

Julian Hughes-Watts, born in Cardiff, Wales 1969, studied at the Royal Academy of Art, London and has been involved in computer games development, including working at Sony Computer Games Europe. Exhibitions include Graceland 2011; The Thing is the Thing, ASC Gallery 2011; Deptford X 2010; Dawnbreakers, John Hansard Gallery Southhampton 2010; Saxon and Schwartz Gallery London 2009.

Meanwhile, Rachel Levitas has developed a collection of paintings entitled the 'Urban Fox' series. In the 'Urban Fox' series these bold and beautiful opportunists slink into streets deserted by bankrupt revellers. These images are rapidly made; wet in wet, using techniques that record fleeting night visits. The foxes represent the rise of forces previously suppressed moving into the space left by a collapsing economy; creativity emerging and adapting and perhaps too something darker, fear of the future.

Rachel Levitas graduated from Camberwell School of Art with a BA in Fine Art. She went onto train in Advanced Printmaking at Central St Martins as well as a Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. With this wealth of academic experience Rachel has gone on to have a variety of exhibitions and art shows, including a solo show in Blackheath. She also has experience as a Graphic Designer, Tutor and Printmaking Technician.

'Room 102' and 'Bankrupt Revellers and the Crash' opens Friday 5th October at Gallery Maison Bertaux
Room 102: Upstairs Gallery
Bankrupt Revellers and the Crash: Basement Gallery

Tania Wade, Hooligan Art Dealer

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