The Club at Café Royal
22 September – 8 October 2015
Curated by Christian Furr
Save Wild Tigers partnered with the prestigious Club at Café Royal to present “Be Inspired” in 2015. It was our most ambitious exhibition of tiger themed artwork to date, and proved to be an unforgettable visual celebration of the wild tiger.
Curated by the wonderful Christian Furr, the exhibition featured an exciting array of tiger inspired artworks by high profile international artists. The event was designed to raise awareness and much needed funds for the plight of the wild tiger, using creativity to inspire visitors to help save this magnificent species from extinction.
All of the artworks were available for auction online, powered by Paddle8, the auction house for the 21st Century Collector.
The exhibition concluded at the Save Wild Tigers “BE INSPIRED” Gala Dinner at the Savoy Hotel, London, on 9th October in the live and silent auctions. All profits raised from the sale of the artworkss go to Save Wild Tigers for targeted tiger conservation projects.
THE ARTISTS
Chris Bracey/ Christian Furr
As the youngest artist to have ever been officially commissioned to paint the Queen in 1995, Christian has become a celebrated British artist boasting a diverse contemporary practice. In June 2004, the artist was presented with the AoC Gold Ward at the House of Commons, awarded to further education graduates for excellence in their chosen field. Christian has exhibited internationally, as well as in London in such venues as the Saatchi Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. He is on the council of the Chelsea Arts Club and has recently been appointed to the committee of the British Inspiration Awards.
As well as curating the exhibition and hand-selecting the artists, Christian Furr contributed "Tyger Tyger," a specially created 3D neon artwork with chrome tiger head sculpture attributed to his friend and collaborator, neon designer and collector Chris Bracey.
Dan Baldwin
British painter Dan Baldwin has been collected and exhibited nationally and internationally, with popular solo shows in London, New York, and Los Angeles. The artist has also presented at major art fairs internationally, in the U.K, Japan, and the United States including Miami Basel. Since 2005, Baldwin has expanded his painting practice to three-dimensions, using large-scale sculptural ceramic pots as an unconventional canvas. Baldwin’s work has been collected by numerous high-profile names including Chris Packham, Max Lousada, and Sir Ronald Cohen. The artist has a history of donating artwork to support charities as diverse as Teen Cancer and the Rainforest Foundation.
Dan created "TiGER", one of his iconic large-scale ceramic pots, painted with a unique tiger inspired design, especially for Save Wild Tigers.
Jacky Tsai
Jacky Tsai is a leading Chinese pop artist who brings an original style and inventive approach to traditional materials and craftsmanship, clashing Eastern and Western cultural references in the process. Tsai attempts to re-imagine the concept of beauty in an effort to make it relatable across cultures. The artist is known for his iconic floral skull creation that was used by fashion designer Alexander McQueen. Tsai works across various media, including sculpture, installation, and fashion. He has collaborated with luxury Chinese Brand Shanghai Tang to present an internationally acclaimed collection in 2014. Tsai has exhibited internationally in London, New York, Singapore, and Hong Kong and is represented by the prestigious Fine Art Society in the UK.
Jacky generously donated a limited edition screen print of “Flying Tiger 1943” (2015) to the exhibition.
Daisuke Sakaguchi
Artist and creative designer Daisuke Sakaguchi combines influences from his mixed Japanese and British heritage to present the unique aesthetic expressed in his work. Centrally focused on the concept of expressing identity through art, Daisuke draws on his background in jewellery design to produce unique artworks and accessories. The artist has worked with high profile brands including Comme des Garcons, Adidas, and Nike, and his jewellery has been showcased at London and Tokyo fashion week. Daisuke has undertaken a number of bespoke design commissions for clients including Elton John, David Furnish, Romeo and Brooklyn Beckham, Kelly Osbourne, Kelis, plus Vauxhall Motors and Selfridges London.
Daisuke created "Inazuma" for Save Wild Tigers, a tiger themed canvas in his unique recognisable style for the exhibition.
Shauna Richardson
Award winning British artist Shauna Richardson has developed an individual technique using crochet to sculpt realistic life-size animals. Her work has received much critical acclaim and has been exhibited internationally at many prestigious venues including Saatchi Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum London. In 2012, Shauna was commissioned by the London Olympic Games to create three 25ft Crochetdermy® lions that toured the UK in a mobile glass vehicle. She has received much national press coverage on TV, radio and in print.
Shauna is contributed a unique wall-mounted crochet tiger head, "Crochetdermy(R) Tiger" to the exhibition.
Lauren Baker
Lauren Baker, a British multidisciplinary artist who exhibits internationally, is a proud ambassador for Save wild Tigers. Her work explores the fragility of life, energy-fields, the after-life, and other dimensions. She’s created installations at The V&A and Tate Britain. Lauren is passionate about animals and conservation. The Crystal Tigress, a life-size tiger skull decorated with 52,000 crystals, was created for Save Wild Tigers and showcased in the exhibition THRIVE at The Sanderson in 2014.
Lauren created a beautiful hand-painted resin tiger skull, "Phantom Panthera" for Save Wild Tigers. It was unveiled in her solo show TRANSITION at the Club at the Ivy (1-7 August 2015).
Rose Corcoran
After living in Northern India for a period in 1990, artist Rose Corcoran established a deep respect for the wild tiger. The endangered status of these awesome animals became a passionate concern for the artist when she met renowned animal campaigner Valmik Thapar and toured native tiger habitat Ranthambor. Rose believes in art created for a purpose – in her case to highlight the magnificence and vitality of animals in the wild, alongside the terrifying fragility of their existence. The artist creates large-scale charcoal drawings that capture the movement and energy of the beasts she depicts. Rose has exhibited internationally in a dedicated effort to secure a future for her animal subjects in their natural habitat.
Rose contributed a stunning original charcoal tiger drawing, "Resting Sumatran" to “Be Inspired”.
Otto Schade
Chilean-born Otto Schade is a highly talented contemporary urban artist based in London. Schade is known for his surreal and at times abstract figurative paintings, drawings, and high-impact street art. The artist has developed a unique and recognisable graphic style involving twisting, interwoven “ribbons” that depict his subjects. Otto has been exhibiting internationally in Europe, South America, and the United States since 1996.
Otto created the beautiful “Tiger Butterfly” painting using spray paint on canvas for Save Wild Tigers.
John Gledhill
http://www.artgallerydesign.co.uk/John_Gledhill/
London-based John Gledhill is a noted artist with a varied practice that includes drawing, lino printing, and painting. Gledhill was a prize winning student at the Royal Academy Schools in London. The artist uses bold colours and simple figures to present insightful social commentary about life in London in his graphic contemporary artworks. Gledhill also has a pronounced interest in conservation, a print of his painting The Last Elephant is now in the collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
John contributed his awesome large-scale painting “The Last Tiger”, part of a series of large-scale canvasses that draw attention to the plight of various endangered animals, to the exhibition.
Julia Wager
Julia Wager's natural portrayals of horses maintain a basic realism with poetic composition. She is an established artist and acute observer of the animal, its anatomy, movement and spirit. Her love and understanding of the horse is personified in her sculpture. It is this, and her sympathy and tenderness towards the animal that has brought her name to the fore within contemporary animalier sculpture.
Julia stepped outside of her equine comfort zone to present a bronze tiger sculpture, "Fera Tigris" for “Be Inspired”
Claire Milner
Claire Milner has created art for celebrities, large corporations and advertising agencies. Her portrait of Marilyn created with 65,000 Swarovski crystals is in the private collection of Rihanna and is featured on the official website of The Estate of Marilyn Monroe. Her artworks are held in private collections around the world and have been displayed in museum exhibitions in the UK. Her work has been chosen for five collections with Saatchi Art and has been published worldwide. Endangered species and our impact on the planet is the subject closest to Claire’s heart and the primary focus of her work in order to raise awareness of the intolerable rate at which animal species are becoming extinct at the hands of man.
Claire contributed her wonderful painting "Burning Bright", featuring 32,000 Swarovski crystal elements to represent 10x the number of tigers left in the wild.
Misha Masek
Misha Masek is an International award-winning photographer with numerous sold out exhibitions in Canada, Europe and Asia. Her "Idea of Nature" photography series was voted the Must See exhibition at the Scotiabank Photography Festival in Toronto, as well as being featured in several magazines in Malaysia. She has been experimenting with Fine Art Metal prints for 9 years and is in the forefront of this innovative technology. Her infused Metal Prints have a brilliant luminescence and an industrial chic appeal. Misha is an avid traveller, adventurous risk-taker, naturalistic observer, wildlife enthusiast and passionate artist.
Misha contributed a gorgeous Fine Art Metal Print of a Bengal tiger captured in a rare sighting on a recent trip to India.
Pandemonia
Pandemonia is the creation of an anonymous London-based fine artist. Existing on the dividing line between reality and myth, Pandemonia was born in 2007. Pandemonia is a critical reflection and, as such, an intervention upon ideas of celebrity and femininity. She is a pointed manifestation of how these ideas intersect with mass media, social media, and the marketability of desire. The art of Pandemonia herself is that of a constructed figure placed in the landscape of media, fashion and art events that has instigated the media response by feeding back to the media its own language, imagery and ideals. Pandemonia’s art is not only cross-media (sculpture, digital art, photography, and performance), but also cross-generational as she ties the earliest moments of Pop Art to the most current worlds of celebrity, fashion and contemporary art, creating an arc and evolution which continues its ongoing exploration.
Pandemonia created a unique drawing, "Tiger Crossing", especially for Save Wild Tigers.
