Event 23 Apr-21 May: Public & Private Gallery ‘Fiction Factory’ exhibition

The exhibition features works by Charlie Haydn Taylor, Poppy Faun, Elsbeth Shaw, Melissa Moore and Andy Warhol.

The exhibition opens from Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th April for the first of two preview days, then runs daily until Friday 21st May.

Emerging in the United Kingdom in the mid-1950s and pioneered by progressive artists such as Eduardo Paolozzi and Richard Hamilton, Pop Art wouldn’t be defined as a true movement until it moved across the pond in the ’60s. New York artists such as Andy Warhol went on to define an international phenomenon by creating works inspired by mass culture, everyday objects, and the cult of celebrity in a bid to blur the lines between high-art and low-culture.

With this exciting new wave of artists having focused their attention on themes that spoke of the mundanity of real life and of mass society, frequently incorporating commercial images – at a time when capitalism was exploding after war-time austerity – Pop Art would go on to become one of contemporary art’s most instantly-recognisable styles, finding its way into fashion and music scenes, before paving a path for younger artists who would grow up on a diet of consumerism and oversaturated popular culture.

Born in London in 1922, Richard Hamilton was an art visionary who had immersed himself in movies, television, magazines, and modern music—outlining ideals and introducing the perception of the artist as a consumer and contributor to mass culture. Despite Warhol going on to become Pop Art’s household name, credit should fall at Hamilton’s door for laying the foundations on which he would build his art empire. His1956 collage ‘Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’ was his first work in a fledgling genre to achieve truly iconic status.

Although their individual styles would vary, all Pop artists shared ground in their choice of the iconography of popular culture as fundamental to their work. Hamilton and Paolozzi rose to prominence with their meticulously layered collage work whilst Warhol’s preoccupation with the repetition of images such as early Coca-Cola bottles and Campbell’s soup tins where produced as if the work were a supermarket shelf.

I am pleased to have the classic Warhol image of Marilyn as the corner stone of this exhibition but the greatest pleasure in curating this show has come through being able to engage with and provide a platform for some immensely talented younger artists whose work has its roots firmly in the pop art tradition.

Charlie Haydn Taylor, Poppy Faun, Elsbeth Shaw and Melissa Moore all create digital images, collages and photography that feel very contemporary and highly relatable but the ideas contained within their works are clearly inspired by the pioneering British & American pop artists of the 1960’s.

In order to showcase their prodigious talents the gallery spaces have been transformed a fully immersive experience which we hope will add to your enjoyment of this bright, colourful, upbeat and ever so stylish exhibition.

Charlie Haydn Taylor

A vibrant undertaking of some of society’s most pressing issues, the work of Haydn Taylor uses the intimacy of home interior’s to discuss both personal human dilemmas as well as broader issues ranging from government surveillance to the effect of mental health on individual behaviour. A modernisation on the classic British pop art of the 1960’s, Haydn Taylor utilises key themes from well-known artworks to relate back to the central idea of each piece. This ranges from inclusion of Damien Hirst’s spot paintings as a reference to pharmaceutical use to Francis Bacon’s feature as a comment on the depicted figures’ struggles with their own human condition.

By combining the recognisable interiors with his own bold, block colours, Haydn Taylor has created his own world where the figures exist in such a way as to comment on the negative progression that has formed in parts of society. By collaging in figures who would have existed prior to many of the issues touched upon in the work, Haydn Taylor creates a visual paradox that comments on how we, in many ways, may have regressed as a society.

Having graduated from Goldsmiths University in 2018, Haydn Taylor has since exhibited in influential art cities from London to Florence and has picked up representation from a handful of galleries in the UK as well as Singapore. He is also slowly becoming an important name in the progression of contemporary art here in Jersey where he is currently based.

The main image shows the Private and Public Gallery installation of Charlie Haydn Taylor’s room titled ‘Illusional Reality’.

Poppy Faun

Poppy Faun is a collage artist and graphic designer from her home town of Brighton, UK. She uses unique 1960’s and 1970’s images spending her days searching through flea markets collecting idiosyncratic magazines and postcards then transfigures them into aesthetic perfection.

Much of her work seems to harbour a message of escapism. Her cut outs bare an image of floating through the cosmos, make something quite classic feel futuristic and otherworldly. Acknowledging these decades as a revolution for fashion and rock and roll, Poppy pines for the past.

As well as appreciating the charming grainy quality of 60 year old magazines, she deems this chapter in history as a time of purity where social media wasn’t present and life was simpler.

Throughout her work there is repeated imagery of materialistic possessions such as fancy cars and big houses. Symbolism like this really emphasizes the hilarity of our superficial world where, in her own words “space is just a glimpse above and so dramatically bigger than any tiny problem or materialistic item we urge to have”.

Poppy has worked on commissions for major brands all around the world from Playboy.com, Mytho Series, The Flamingo Hotel in California and to even having her artwork designed on Craft Beer cans as part of an artist collaboration in the UK for Crafted Cans. She has exhibited her work in Brighton, London and Milan. Some of her clients include Mike from Royal Blood and Louis Mellis, Film Writer from Sexy Beast. Poppy has also worked with many bands on cover releases including Egyptian Blue (UK), The Ferns (UK), FAIRE (France) and The Buttertones (US).

Elsbeth Shaw

Elsbeth Shaw paints, draws and creates using hundreds, often thousands of circles full of colour.

With a passion born from architectural precision and organic mark making and inspired by Artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Bridget Riley and Anni Albers, Elsbeth Shaw has created her own unique and vibrant narrative.

“Surrounded by Fashion, Architecture and Design from an early age it was inevitable that I would find my vocation within one of these disciplines. As it happens, I found myself taking all of them in many different forms. Fashion Buyer, Disney Employee, Event Organiser, Mother, Interior Architect, Furniture Designer and Agent.

I have honed my visual skills and worked towards my true path as an Artist. I cannot be more thrilled to be here now, to paint, to draw, to design, to produce, to explore. This new body of work has stemmed from my love for design and fashion; taking visual cues from art history and the brilliant works of Yayoi Kusama and Chuck Close,  combining their influences into a unique and original art form all of my own”.

Melissa Moore

Melissa Moore is an artist and Course Director at London College of Fashion, UAL. Her photographic work has been exhibited and published internationally. Melissa’s current series ‘Foris’ explores her interest in iconic urban trees.

She is involved in delivering a ‘Tree School’ in Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, in collaboration with Phytology, an artist led project exploring use, value, resilience and function of wildness within urban ecosystems.

She teaches a History and Theory course at the Architectural Association, investigating the treatment of trees in culture and in the street, and Melissa continues to research the global role of trees in art, literature, mythology, science, history and medicine, as well as in the built environment.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol (1928 –1987) was an internationally acclaimed American artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silk-screening, photography, film, and sculpture.

Some of his best known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental films Empire (1964) and Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67).

Visit the Gallery online or in-person

The exhibition is available online from Monday 19th April and can be viewed here.

The exhibition opens from Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th April for the first of two preview days, then runs daily until Friday 21st May.