ASC Brixton Open Studios - 10th & 11th December 2021

One of our favourite initiatives at The Net Gallery over the last eighteen months has been our series of virtual studio tours. Providing unique behind-the-scenes access to some of the most exciting contemporary artists working today, the tours are a fascinating way to step inside the artists’ day-to-day environments, enabling audiences to explore where and how they work.

By a happy coincidence, a number of the tours we’ve produced have been for artists based at the ASC studios building on Stockwell Road in Brixton. This Friday and Saturday, visitors have the opportunity to physically enter a selection of studios on the site as part of ASC’s Open Studios event. The building will be open today (Friday 10th December) from 6 – 9pm for the opening event, and tomorrow (Saturday 11th December) from 12 – 5pm.

Ahead of the opening, we caught up with three ASC Britxton-based artists whose studios we’ve previously scanned to find out what they’ll have on show.

Hynek Martinec

During the Open Studios this weekend, Martinec will be showing three large oil paintings that all reference his interest in shaving foam as a substance to explore through his work. Talking about this interest in 2018, in connection to his exhibition ‘Voyage to Iceland’ at the National Gallery Prague, Martinec said: “The thick white foam in my pictures is my interpretation of vanitas. Beautiful flowers wither away and die in a couple of days and the foam does the same. Full of life at the beginning, after of a couple of days it slowly fades away until it disappears. I think that foam epitomizes today’s digital time where everything is somewhat liquid and constantly changing. Whoever touches the foam may impress s different shape, making it ungraspable until it melts and dies.”

*Citizen* (2020) by Hynek Martinec. Oil on canvas. 100 x 100 cm.

You can view a virtual tour of Hynek Martinec’s studio, scanned and produced by The Net Gallery, here.

You can learn more about Martinec and his practice via his ANV profile.

James Rogers

“For the open studios, I’m very much using it as an opportunity to invite people into a more intimate part of the artistic process – only so much can be communicated and shown at a white walled private view. Sometimes it’s important for conversations to happen visually, to watch the machines being fired up, watch the wet porcelain being extruded, or the copper dissolve as it is being etched into acid.

“I’m very excited to be using this intimate event as not only a means of providing a sort of soft launch for some of my new largest to date cobalt blue etchings, but also as a means to show some of the much larger sculptures I’ve been working on over the last year – I’m currently in the middle of a really exciting 1.4m tall ballerina.” James Rogers

You can view a virtual tour of James Rogers’ studio, here.

You can learn more about Rogers and his practice via his ANV profile.

Olly Fathers

“At the open studios, I’m showing a series of six wood veneer works. I wanted to use more minimal compositions on these pieces, experimenting with more subtle and considered arrangements suggesting movement and creating balance. Alongside them is a large piece made using the offcuts from that series. When making the veneer works I end up with a lot of offcuts. Looking through them I see an innocent, more natural beauty which I like to showcase in works like this. I will also be showing a range of new wood veneer works.

“It would be great to see anyone at the Open Studios and have the opportunity to give more insight into my practice.” Olly Fathers