Remember when the lead character Robert Neville played by Will mooches about. Hunting the barren and devoid of any life land for food and is so desperate for company he emulates human interaction with shop mannequins?
And by night when the vampire-esque mutated survivors of the epidemic emerge from their daytime hiding places and roam the land howling and destroying what is left of life, he locks himself away in his bathroom clutching a gun and listening to the chilling screams of untold horror from outside?
Yep. Not too far from the truth at all.
Without the daily lectures and classes to attend and the non refundable tenancy running on for another month, the surviving students of university halls have become fairly nocturnal and the campus has become deceivingly quiet in the daytime.
As the sun sets all hell breaks loose as loud bass, screaming, cheering and general insipid party noises last well into the night.
As much as I enjoy this mind numbingly bore of an existence, I do at times feel my mind crying out for more stimulation during the daylight hours.
If it hadn’t been for my discovery of http://www.hookedblog.co.uk/ some months ago, my cravings for visual stimulation would definitely still be unanswered.
Hookedblog set up in 2005 promotes all art affiliated with the street art scene, mostly highlighting exhibitions happening around the London town, it’s one of my favourite websites and always helps out with suggested activities for those pesky stagnant moments in life.
I already knew I wanted to take a trip back to Stelladore to pay a visit for the eagerly anticipated solo show from I-lib ‘As Teardrops Fall’.
But I discovered on the blog that only a few streets down in Shoreditch was an exhibition at the Pure Evil gallery; MyMo- Junkyard.
So I began my gallery crawl here.
I confess my knowledge on this artist is little, a quick sweep of Google didn’t prove helpful either but I know Mymo is female and the name stands for my monsters; check out her lively website here.
I really did enjoy the show, colourful, playful and imaginative uses of a wide range of media.
One tiny criticism? The flyer I had picked up promised drawings, paintings and lots of junk.
I felt like this was only half heartedly delivered, as you can see from my photographs, at times the exhibition was even on the minimalistic side of things.
Pure Evil gallery isn’t huge so it wasn’t like there was a question of having too much space.
It just struck me as a bit ironic as I saw more examples of junkyard outside the gallery rather than within it, especially in the run down location of Shoreditch.
Maybe it was a question of health and safety but I would have loved it if the show transformed the room into a literal dump, it would have been a nice change from the usual clean and sterile interior of galleries.
That's obviously a small complaint and aside from that, i want to re emphasise my love for this show and i would definitely recommend my London friends to pay it a visit. It runs until the 21st of June.
Second stop was the I-Lib- As Teardrops Fall show at Stelladore.
I thought the exhibition was beautiful.
I-Lib (stands for I lurk in bushes) uses fine pens to create dainty, whimsical, forlorn and Victorian looking characters.
Imagine a gothic version of wind in the willows perhaps?
I will definitely keep an eye out for this up and coming artist.
The exhibition finishes on this Saturday.
My third and final stop was at one of my favourite gallery spaces in London, StolenSpace in Bricklane.Currently Californian artist Jeff Soto is exhibiting here with his show; The Inland Empire.
Twenty new wood paintings based upon the region Soto is based in. His home is in Riverside which is situated just east of Los Angeles is being hit by the current economy crisis hard, with the employment rate as low as 12%.
Although global issues are common in Jeff soto’s work, the sombre subject of his work never seems obvious as his paintings are so colourful and are often filled with rainbows, flowers and wings.
Clearly inspired by popular culture such as science fiction and graffiti, his work is beautifully abstract and at times eerie and surreal.
If you pop along to his show (runs till the 7th June) don’t miss the huge piece on the wall in the Old Truman Brewery just metres away from the gallery, apparently there are more street paintings around London so I’m going to keep my peepers open!
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