Affordable Art Fair

Stacks of hula hoops outside, huge cerise bean bags inside, Pieminister pies in the cafe and an ice cream van made out of cardboard.

The Affordable Art Fair in Battersea Park this weekend is far from pretentious. Set up ten years ago, its aim is to be "approachable, affordable, interesting and fun and to show that you don't need a doctorate in fine art to buy it," according to its founder Will Ramsay.

But don't do as I did yesterday and spend three hours in one third of the place (there's so much to see and everyone is so friendly), leaving half an hour to scoot round the rest.

The stands inside a marquee, running from A-L, are occupied by galleries showing a healthy array of mixed media. While the gallery workers were informative (apart from one woman who couldn't tell me what type of music an artist listened to after making a beeline to tell me that was what made this artist so special - do your research love), what I found most interesting was talking to some of the artists who explained the concepts behind their work and their techniques.

I met the adorable Parisienne Aline Hercberg at Arlev Art gallery for instance who has been exhibiting at the AAF since it started. Her bright, colourful quartet of oil and metallic paintings "Planets" (above) caught my eye reminding me of giant smarties, some of them half eaten. "My inspiration was how we're damaging our world so while some of the planets are whole and beautiful, others are falling apart." So they're sad smarties after all.

Then there was Blackheath based sculptor Michael Speller  whose work I was drawn to when I saw this called "Squeeze".

Michael engagingly explained how most of his work contains very small text of say a poem which gives his elongated bronze figures their rough texture (check out his website above to see some of his stunning pieces.  "Squeeze" is different in that it's more conceptual. The sharks circling a UK composed of British coins are made out of Euros (my Northern Irish friend was miffed there was no sign of Ireland or the Channel Islands but let's not go there). Michael also kindly offered to give me a demo to show the difference between cold cast and foundry bronze. Bless! If only I'd had the time.

There were all sorts of other work that caught my eye, much of it witty and fun. Like these copper shoes by Triss Norman at the Interior Angle stand

Not to mention really punchy and strong screen prints at the Jealous stand (they were the ones who made the ice cream van, their stand had matching ice cream cones) and painter Alan Macdonald's imaginative take on the Old Masters, updating them with subversive humour.

 

Here's a colourful shot (I do like my bright colours) of pictures by Columbian photographer Willy Rojas (Villa del Arte galleries in Barcelona).

He photographs miniature figures next to every day objects creating funny and colourful pictures (like figures diving into an eye yolk or skating on a bowl of soup).

I also saw a few things I liked at the Rebecca Hossack gallery stand but it was so busy I could hardly get in. Managed this half shot of one of Phil Shaw's book prints (if you're fond of books you'll love his stuff).

And finally

I may not have bought any work but I did come home with my very own piece of art - a print of my favourite London bridge (Albert Bridge) which I made at one of Artichoke Print's ace workshops at the fair. Result! I think I have a long way to go before I'm exhibiting at the AAF though.

The blurb says that more than 22,000 people will visit the fair over the four days and the average cost of work sold is £700 (though I noticed some works going for a few thousand were available to buy on a 10 month interest free loan, hooray). The AAF is open until Sunday.