Art Around The Child Art Auction

Two Michael Thompson portraits from a 2010 ​Keep A Child Alive​

“I Am African” campaign to provide anti- retroviral medicine to HIV+ children are featured, of the charity’s global Ambassador Iman, and her late husband David Bowie see here. Another highlight of the exhibition is Rob and Nick Carter’s ‘Paint Pigment Photograph’ from their Cibachrome series of unique action photos inspired by the Hindu festival of Holi, capturing paint pigment spontaneously thrown in the air.

Many of the artists have created new work especially for Arms Around the Child, or donated work that fits perfectly with the theme of ‘Home is Where the Heart is”. The exhibition features artworks in several media including sculpture such as Alastair Mackie’s ‘Untitled (heart)’, 2007, a sculpture of a heart created from a modified wasp nest. Mackie re-pulped a single wasp nest and cast it into a mould taken from an anatomical model of a human heart. ‘Untitled (heart)’, is the only remaining artist proof, the others from the edition are in the Damien Hirst, David Roberts and Wellcome Collections.

The exhibition features unique artworks in a variety of media including; Neon: Rebecca Mason’s ‘Fragile’ created using a selection of her friends’ baby scans; Taxidermy: Hannah Matthews’ tortoise with a light housed inside its shell; Jewelry:Andrew Logan’s Ganesha brooch; highly collectable drawings, paintings, prints, collage, and screen- prints by artists and designers including; Zandra Rhodes, who has donated a screen-print of Ayers Rock; Beatrice Brown (from her recent exhibition at Gallery 46); Ann-Marie James, Jamie Reid, anarachist-artist famous for the Sex Pistols ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ album artwork; and surrealist Nancy Fouts. Pure Evil has donated an artwork aptly named ‘EU Break-Up Nightmare,Romulo Celdran has created a hyperreal drawing of a red heart-shaped lollipop; and Diego Fortunato has given an abstract wall piece.

Ben Summer is donating a large-scale artwork created in collaboration with children at an Arms Around the Child home in West Africa, and Paul Broomfield is exhibiting some of his hand-crafted taxidermy birds housed in bejewelled cabinets alongside colorful paintings created by children during an art workshop he hosted at an Arms Around the Child home in Jaipur.