Thursday, 20th June 2013

Model sculpted live at launch of Calken Gallery

Monday, 23rd April 2012

Calken Gallery is an independent contemporary art gallery, established by Callum Kennedy in collaboration with a small group of highly talented and experienced artists led by Landseer prize winning sculptor Michael Talbot and and 2012 Olympic artist Jeremy Houghton.

The gallery is launching on the 25th April, and sculptor Michael Talbot will be creating an on-the-spot half-size sculpture of a live model in the window of the gallery between the 18th and 25th April (from 11am - 3pm). The idea is to encourage local residents and passers by to come in and interact with the artist as the art itself is created.

Part of the raison d'être of the gallery is to make the world of art collecting and investing more accessible and less intimidating to the general public, and this is going to be a great opportunity for passes by to see how these amazing sculptures are made and to engage with the artist and the art.

Calken sculptor Michael Talbot is creating from scratch a live half-size sculpture with the model semi-nude in the gallery window. This is in advance of the gallery launch and to establish the gallery as a cultural hub where the passerby can engage and interact with the artists and art.

It is extremely unusual a) for an artist to agree to do this in public - laying bare the creative process for all and sundry to interact with, and b) for their to be a practically naked model in the window of a Kensington Church Street gallery, being sculpted on the spot.

The sculpture will be called CORTIGIANA (an italian word meaning courtier and referring to the ruler's mistress, or a well-educated and independent woman of loose morals…), and is based on Veronica Franco a famous 16th Century courtesan. Quoted as saying "I wish it were not a sin to have liked it so"

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