Internship at Howard Griffin Gallery (2015) 

 

Howard Griffin Gallery combines working with a group of artists from contemporary disciplines of street art with artists from more tangential public art backgrounds. The gallery has location in Shoreditch, London and in Downtown, Los Angeles.

 

In Summer 2015, I had an opportunity to work at the gallery, for two months, as a fulltime intern. The responsibilities for which I was assigned enabled me to work collaboratively with artists, curator, and marketing team. With the marketing team, I helped in compiling information and organize data. The role of the invigilator allowed me to develop presentation skill by giving information about exhibitions and artists to visitors. As an artist, co-working with the curator, Hannah Zafiropoulos, and two artists, Thierry Noir and Pablo Delgado, in setting up exhibitions - not only helped to develop technical skills but a helpful experience for my professional practice. 

 

The gallery specializes in turning the whole gallery space to create a cohere atmosphere to the artists’ works. In some shows, for example, Pablo Delgado’s recent exhibition “Open Tomorrow Morning”, created space affectively tells story and is a part of the artwork itself. Viewers are as well a part of the story. My practice is around aspects between I & we, and is developing in relation to living environments. The experience in organizing big space for the shows helps familiarize my understanding of space towards my artworks. 

 

I think Pablo’s works assimilate street art, narratives, and site responsive art in his miniature parallel world with random-mixed figures. His works play with public perception and is inspired by London’s life scenes. His work is typically seen of small-scale figures taking from mass media, with distinctive painted black shadows casting on the pavement. He usually adds some paint on the figures in minimal amount. At first glance, the scenes looks surreal by unrelated characters juxtaposed, yet each contains its own story when observe closer.