The British Art Fair

A swarm of tweed jackets, large price tags and gentle lah-dee-dah’s of polite conversations greeted me as I stepped hesitantly, (brushing the cat hairs off my jumper) into the opulent world of the British Art Fair.

Held at The Royal College of Art, the fair was organised by fine art gallery owner, Caroline Wiseman, also author of play ‘The Leonardo Question’. The latter re-lives and parodies the world of Modern Art through short sketches featuring major artists including Picasso and Duchamp, through to Pollack, Warhol and finally, Hirst and Emin.

Book aside, The British Art fair displayed a host of London galleries and after meeting and greeting Caroline, she kindly gave me a signed copy of her play and sent me on my merry way to explore the exhibition, which had paintings peppered upon the walls of two floors.

I’ll put my hands up now and admit that traditional fine art isn’t really my thing, but nevertheless there were definitely some more contemporary works that stood out, most especially Anna Gillespie’s Antony Gormley-like sculptures (see last image above). These depicted human forms in various poses made entirely of beech-nut casings. Turns out Gillespie trained as a stone mason in Bath before travelling to Italy to study with the sculptor and master carver Nigel Konstam.

Also from Bath was artist Nathan Ford, whose large scale portraits (also above) were extremely impactful. Ford focuses on identity and longing within his works and uses large, manic brush stokes to create emotive portraits that appear un-finished in quality but completely gripping.

The British Art Fair is a definite 'must' for all avid fine-art collectors with cash to spare, although perhaps the Affordable Art Fair might be more my style.