NOBROW.

Last weekend it was time for one of my trips down to the “big smoke”, which seems to becoming more and more frequent (something I could get used to). I had a digital surf of the interweb to see what treats London had in store for me and stumbled across that Nobrow had a Ben Newman exhibition on beneath the shop. I’ve been a big fan of the Nobrow team for a good while and spoke to John Boam last year concerning my PDP aspect of the uni course so I thought it would only be polite to have a look. And I’m glad I did, even though it was MUCH smaller then I anticipated.

The upstairs section of Nobrow consists of a small shop crammed with zines, Prints, books, plush toys, stickers, tea towels! (Pretty much anything else you can think of that you can stick a print on). I think I was in the shop for a good hour or so browsing book after book when I know it was time to go downstairs when the friendly staff were looking at me as if to say, “Are you going to buy anything?”

The first thing that smacks you in the face you when you go downstairs is the amazing smell of screen-printing ink which I can’t get enough off. I honestly thought the gallery was going to be on a much larger scale but the quaint size of it gives a real feel for the work on show. MASKS is Ben Newman’s solo exhibition consisting of a set of brightly coloured prints as well as wooden mask interpretations. The exhibition is based around how Newman has looked at ceremonial masks in various countries and combined them with his interests in geometric shapes, folklore, strange creatures and colour theory. Newman (with the help of his father Colin) made the three-dimensional masks as a response to the prints and compliment each other really well.

Its not often you seen an artist experiment with dimensions out of their comfort zone but Newman has definitely hit the nail on the head here as they looked amazing.  The prints alone would have worked well as they are a typical example of how Newman manages to fuse bold shapes and bright colours to create his weird and wonderful creatures BUT along side the masks they really came to life. The masks oozed personality and charm, bringing the exhibition to life.

 Having not been to the Nobrow shop/gallery before I can confidently say I’ll definitely be making another visit next time I’m down.  They always seem to have something pretty cool going on so check out the website for events and publications.

Apologies for the bad phone photos.