Brightons Arty: Alison Krog

Out Of This World

We’ve been dreaming up Brighton’s Arty adventures since 2009. Some more successful than others (don’t mention the North Laine map in front of the Dane!). And while it’s always a delight when new artists want to support our latest brainwave and enter the Arty fold, we’ll always be grateful to those people who took a leap of faith right from the start. It’s also fascinating to see how their creativity keeps evolving over time.

One such artist is Patrick O’Donnell, of Phoenix Studio renown. When we first interviewed Patrick back in 2010, he’d renounced landscapes for a remarkable portraiture series ‘You Make Me Gay’, celebrating icons from Abba’s Frida to Dempsey’s Makepeace and a cheeky mini-series ‘Hands-free’ dedicated to those who can

‘multi-task with a fag on the go’. (Yes Barack, we mean you!). So where next? Well, as you’ll see from Patrick’s awesome entry in Art in Brighton 2015, he’s completely spaced out. In his current body of work – the Origins series – Patrick responds to the images beamed down from the Hubble Telescope. And with a nod to post-war Abstract Expressionism and its European counterpart Tachisme, the paintings begin life on the floor with loose applications of thinned medium as new celestial images reveal themselves in the painting process. Flippin’ fantastic!

You can see Patrick’s work at a new exhibition at the Hop Gallery Lewes – ‘Four’ – alongside Susan Evans’ sky, land and seascapes; the sumptuous paintings of June Frickleton; and Adrian Walker’s unworldly, mysterious oil paintings. Expect emotions to run high.
Don’t miss: Talented architect and illustrator Amalia Sanchez de la Blanca (aka Linescapes) is having her first solo exhibition at the Friese-Green Gallery in the Brighton Media Centre, Middle Street, 23 to 29 March. Look forward to prints of Brighton and large-scale drawings of iconic UK buildings.
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