Last night I went to the private view of Pick Me Up at Somerset House. Now in it's third year this is a showcase of the very best in contemporary graphic art and illustration from the UK. This year the show has more interactive and hands on activities than ever and and again has a huge range of prints for sale at some really reasonable prices. From the sprawling Peepshow Collective the Museum of Objects and Origins to the Pick Me Up selects, there was an enormous amount to see on a very busy evening.
It's great to see such a positive vibrant exhibition of work focusing largely on drawing and mark making at the heart of it. I was really interested to see the collaboration between friend and former colleague Richard Shed and the SoHo Warriors Football Club - an interaction between spatial/furniture design meets print and the outcome was not disappointing. Here Shed has created a bright green bench/desk ('pitch and stadium') installation for the prints to be displayed on, the result was a cacophony of colour and image in the surrounding folded cardboard structure.
I was also please to the project of two former UCA students there (one of them Lucy Sloss is a Foundation Diploma in Art & Design student from some years ago). Under the moniker Studio Mothership they are collaborating with People of Print to produce a series of limited edition woodblock prints designed specially for the show.
The show runs until the 22 March – 1 April 2012 Daily 11.00-20.00, late night Thursdays until 22.00