The Other Art Fair, London

A couple of weeks ago, I got an invite to The Other Art Fair- stupidly, I didn’t read it thoroughly and only realised yesterday that I could have gone to the Preview …oopsy daisy. Luckily, the tickets were complimentary for the whole weekend, so on this windy, sunny day we headed over to Baker Street to Ambika P3 for this year’s exhibition.

The Other Art Fair started three years ago and is a chance for artists to showcase their work independently- selling directly to visitors. It’s had a lot of support from well known contemporary artists like Tracey Emin- in fact she had a few prints and sculptures on sale starting at £50. I especially loved Helaina Sharpley’s work- she made beautiful wirework pictures- I completely fell in love with this Parisian scene:

You can just about see the wire popping out on the canvas and the pretty shadows that cast over the work. Sadly, the only piece I could afford had already been sold. I’ll be keeping an eye for her at future showings! This year at the fair, they were offering Taxidermy classes…my friends know my feelings over taxidermy, bleurgh. I popped my head into the class anyway, to see what was going on.

There was a table set out with all the tools and bits…someone in front of me was blow drying something and as I peered over her shoulder to see,  I realised she was drying a floppy white mouse, that was very much dead…just like the ones I used to keep as pets as a kid, ARGH! I had to leave.

 

Another artist whose work I really liked was Luca Indraccolo; again, way out of my budget but I liked the perspective all the paintings shared. There was also an audio installation as you walked down into the gallery- I think I would have been brave enough to give it a go, had I not spied a couple of people taking selfies with the unsuspecting blindfolded participants!

After a quick drink at the bar, we went back to the artists whose work we were interested in and bought a few new pieces for the house!

I picked Lene Bladbjerg’s Pole Dancing print and Robin chose her YES NO print- we got these unframed as they’re a little bit cheaper that way.

Robin has been obsessed with the Japanese ‘Great Wave of Kanagawa’ artwork by Hokusai, and when he saw this Storm In a Tea Cup print from Orson Kartt, I knew it was coming home with us. As this was the last print of this size, Orson let us take this framed one for the same price as an unframed one.

The last day of the fair is tomorrow (Sunday) and tickets are only £6. It’s good fun! We didn’t go intending to buy anything but there were definitely a few things we fell for. The Ambika P3 gallery is just across the road from Baker Street station, next to the University of Westminster campus. You can buy tickets on the door, or online here.