Top Drawer, autumn 2014

We're packing our bags and heading off to London this September, for the Top Drawer trade show at Olympia exhibition centre. You'll find us on stand N37.

Sarah Andreacchio, and Muxxi have both created new everyday, and Christmas ranges for us, which will be launched at the show.

Opening times
Sunday 14 Sept - Tuesday 16 Sept: 9.30am - 6.00pm

Tom Frost: The Wild Collection

Yorkshire Sculpture Park presents a solo exhibition of work by illustrator Tom Frost.  

The Wild Collection opens in YSP’s Garden Gallery on 21st June.

Frost’s beautifully evocative and nostalgic work reflects the young artist’s passionate interest in vintage art and memorabilia – including old matchboxes, tin toys, folk art and children’s books – and often features familiar animals such as pelicans, owls and foxes.

For The Wild Collection, Frost has taken inspiration from YSP’s varied wildlife and historic landscape to create charming new works. Using YSP’s bees and their honey; the Park’s infamous sheep and Highland cattle; along with butterflies, fish, leaves and beetles, Tom has created limited edition screen prints, marquetry and wooden toys.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park
21st June – 7th September 2014

Lizzy Stewart: Hard Wood and Heavy Water exhibition

Lizzy Stewart has her first London solo exhibition opening this week, at DreamBags JaguarShoes.

The venue will be transformed into an immersive graphic novel:

 "Hard Wood and Heavy Water is an elegant visual poem, a tale woven together through object and history; incorporating a network of rope festoons, small sculptures and props (from toys to tea pots and trinkets), native heathers and herbs centre pieces…it’s make believe setting is a silent sea cove, within which two houses, separated by a stretch of water are each represented on either side of the exhibition space, North and the South, divided by tide and rock." 

The exhibition is open from 31st January – 16th March 2014,
DreamBagsJaguarShoes 32-34 Kingsland Road, London E2 8DA

The Imagined Brand Mini Expo

Nicholas John Frith has a solo exhibition opening at Lion Street Store in Rye, East Sussex this friday. 'The Imagined Brand Mini Expo' will showcase a series of illustrated at typographical works depicting fictitious products, packaging and signage, and is open until 3rd September.

We have a set of Christmas cards designed by Nicholas launching very shortly too. You may have seen a glimpse of them previewed on our Facebook page. If you didn't here's a couple of them...

East London Comics & Arts Festival

Ben Newman and Tom Frost and some of our other friends, are amongst the artists exhibiting at the East London Comic and Arts Festival next weekend. Organinsed by London comics publisher Nobrow, ELCAF will be taking place at The Village Underground, Shoreditch on Sunday 17th June.

In addition to the multitude of stalls selling comics, zines, artwork and other goodies, there will be talks, seminars and workshop, topped off with live music in the evening.
For further information, visit www.elcaf.co.uk

'Print' exhibition in Bath

Tom Frost's screen prints are in increasingly high demand. If you're looking to pick some up for your walls, head on over to Bath, where he has some of his work included in the exhibition 'Print' at the Rostra gallery.

He will be showing alongside such talented artists as the wonderful Bjorn Rune Lie,  and Sir Peter Blake.

Opens Saturday 5th May, FFI
http://www.rostragallery.co.uk

Tom Cops exhibition

Folks in Bristol will have an oppourtunity to see some of the photographs from Tom Cops 'Midwest' book exhibited at Cafe Grounded in Bedminster from 5th February until 25th March.


On the opening night, Tom's bluegrass band My Two Tom's will be performing live from 7.30pm.

The book documents the 2010 tour his band made around the American Midwest, supporting the acclaimed Minnesotan blues musician Charlie Parr. The images capture moments, people and places of small town USA.

Cafe Grounded, 66-68 Bedminster Parade, Bedminster, BS5 9HT

A Meditation on the Graveyards on the North

We're delighted that acclaimed blues musician Charlie Parr has written the foreword to our forthcoming “Midwest” photo book by Tom Cops.

Here's a brief extract:

"It's called The Big Empty up there, the northwest corner of Minnesota, and it's mostly true, but it's a beautiful landscape of pine forests, giving way to farms and little towns set in the prairies vastness....We played a show south of Livingston, at a hot springs saloon and had a good soak. Our B&B was located on land that had been the stronghold of a radical militia separatist reactionary right-wing Christian group.

Tom and I found a hill with an icon at the top, Mary I think, tall and laden with plastic flowers, surrounded by a couple park benches and a ring of little crosses. Tom photographed the place. I sat wondering what was buried underneath that hill, slightly scared of the place. The whole compound seemed a graveyard, but Mary wasn't the epicentre, the ominous gray pill-box that housed the machine gun was the marker that drew you in. "

The book will be launched on 27th October with an exhibition at the Here Gallery in Bristol, and also coincides with a two night residency from Charlie Parr at nearby Cube Microplex on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th November.

Tom Cops - Midwest, exhibition & book launch

Midwest is the first solo exhibition from photographer, musician and artist Tom Cops, showing medium format photographs of people and places in the American Midwest.

To accompany the exhibition, Betty & Dupree will be publishing a collection of these photographs, also titled Midwest. The book also includes a foreword by acclaimed Minnesotan blues musician Charlie Parr and watercolour chapter pages by Jerwood Drawing Prize nominated artist Aaron Sewards.


In August 2010, Tom travelled around the American Midwest for three weeks with his band My Two Toms playing as many inappropriate venues as possible. During the tour he attempted to photograph everyone he met, as well as the places he passed through. Looking for odd details in the landscape, his colour photographs tell the story of the small towns of Montana, Minnesota, North & South Dakota, Colorado and Wyoming, while his black & white portraits tell us about the people that live there.

"Tom led the people outside, one by one, to take a photo. He stopped them all; middle-aged bartenders, tourists, punk rockers, hippies, very old and very young, me, my mom, my daughter, my wife, my son, all of us got stopped in time by Tom’s camera, a kind of living graveyard." – Charlie Parr

The exhibition will take place at the Here Gallery in Bristol, UK.
108 Stokes Croft, BS1 3RU.

Preview; Thursday 27th October, 7.00 - 9.00pm.
The exhibition continues until 19th November, and also coincides with a two night residency from Charlie Parr at nearby Cube Microplex on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th November.

www.tomcops.com

London Design Festival

Ben Newman's work was recently featured as Pic of the Week in the Guardian Guide



He will be exhibiting these prints, alongside other new work as part of London Design Festival in September

Looking for Trouble

Betty and Dupree collaborators Gemma Correll and Lizzy Stewart are amongst the artists featured in this group exhibtion curated by Amy Blackwell. Opening on July 2nd at the Malt Cross Gallery in Nottingham, the first day of Looking for Trouble will also feature a selection of artists books and zines available for purchase.


The exhibtion continues until 16th July.
Malt Cross Gallery, 16 St James St, Nottingham, NG1 6FG