Imagine Gallery

The last few days have been spent preparing advertisements and getting invitations to the printers for our coming exhibitions. Things always have to be prepared so far in advance I tend not to take it seriously until I get a call from a magazine saying "if we don't have it by tomorrow you've lost the space".

Something which tends to focus my thoughts a little.

Well, today the printer delivered a box full of invitations for our coming exhibition so it made me feel that I was a little in front, as a result I decided to stop work on the design for an advert that I have been struggling on [they want it next week but the exhibition isn't until June] and get on with something more enjoyable.

I decided that I would spend the day "hunting" for artists/sculptors for our 'ALICE' exhibition.

I was spurred on to do this by a letter that I received this morning,

it was from a Bulgarian artist called 

'Iassen Ghiuselev'.

He is responsible for the fantastic illustrations used in a 2004 publication of

Alice in Wonderland

The book has become something of a cult and second hand copies are selling for up to £300.

What is unique about this book is that all of the illustrations are from one

painting. The original is very large and is painted on a wooden panel, the different scenes

all merge together, the pages of the book are made from different segments of the painting.

It really is a work of great beauty.

He has more recently produced another painting which is of

Alice Through the Looking Glass,

which will be published this year, along with a beautiful calendar.

Well as I have said many a time, "the greater the artist the nicer the person".

Iassen is giving us the original painting from Alice

to show in the exhibition.

Also he is supplying a large signed print from the second novel,

the original is being used for the book launch otherwise he told me that could also have had that. I explain just how excited I am about this.

The painting that I so admire and have looked at in books and online

will be here in our gallery, where I will be able to look at it and marvel at  it on a daily basis.

All I can say is "WOW".

My day didn't bring me any new 'Alice' sculptors but it has produced a couple of good

leads that I will pursue tomorrow [before I go back to the advert].

Another good thing that came from the searching is that I "stumbled" upon the work of an

artist named 'David Inshaw'.

Some of you may remember or know of the television series last year by David Dimbleby

called 'A Portrait of Britain'.

It showed the history of English art, the locations and the history of the artists who produced

it, every famous English artist was represented, but only two living artists were,

David Inshaw

was one of them. Yes, you've guessed it!

We will be having some of his work in the near future, if I wasn't already excited then

that would have made my day.

The First picture is 'Alice Through the Looking Glass', plus some details.

A detail from 'Alice' and two of Inshaws paintings.