​ABOUT THE WORK
Exhibition: 20th - 27th February 2020
Private View: 7 - 9pm 21st February
Artists: Tessa Brown David Casian Ertunc Cermarda Neda Changizi Venice Yi Ching Kes Eccleston Ghada El Ghor Rianna Ellington Sara Gurung Hazel Habte Charlotte Hannaford Chloe Harris Jimel Lopini Shequille Mandiangu Joss Munson
Elisabetta del Ponte & Polly Murphy Aleksandra Novakovic Alice O’Donnell Victoria Perloff Fatemeh Rahmedzfouli & Bahador Khodadadi Sunim Rai Jane Scobie Agatha Xavier Wang Yangchun Amira Zieba

ABOUT THE WORK at Islington Arts Factory runs from 20 – 27 February and showcases the work of fine artists from Middlesex University.   The exhibition brings together a diverse range of artistic processes in a curatorially cohesive form.  
 
The exhibition has been conceived by the group as one. In all 26 students, diverse in gender, age, race, culture and most importantly artistic life, have collaborated to develop a single curatorial vision that reflects the ever-changing melting pot we live in today.
 
ABOUT THE WORK has an intrinsic beauty both in the way media are approached and the themes it touches:  from paintings, photography and print pieces to ephemeral sculptures, mixed media, installations and performance: a feast for the eye, the ear and the heart.
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ABOUT THE WORK  themes include consumerism, geometry, body deformation, urban spaces and their evolution, the dichotomy control-abuse, marginalization and of course, the questions we are obliged to face, living as humans on this earth, with other species, in a time of great environmental challenge.
 
Through the process of collective curation, ABOUT THE WORK brings a new context to the individual students’ artistic process and work as one entity that is bigger than the sum of the artists.

MakeArt
Exhibition: 6th - 20th December 2019
Private View: 6pm - 8pm 6th December
Artist: MakeArt Students age 4 - 18
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Join us for MakeArt, the exciting annual showcase of children's artwork, created on Islington Arts Factory's MakeArt Programme by young artists aged 4 - 16 years old. This year the Mayor of Islington, Councillor Rakhia Ismail will declare the exhibition open for an assembled audience of family, friends and the public.
 
Discover The Big Top, a colourful collection of  painted cut outs, where you will encounter the ring master, a strong woman cat, acrobats, and an escaped elephant. Dive in to the 15ft long Let's go to the Beach painting, with jolly crabs, lobsters and a leaping whale, all created during IAF's  Summer Holiday Workshops. 
 
The ArtStart artists, aged 4 - 6 years old, have been focusing on environmental issues, creating aqua collages of the deep ocean and a large sculpture of a whale made from plastic bottles.
 
The MakeMoreArt teenage class have created an epic mixed media painting called Falling or Flying? which features tumbling, falling and flying figures, topped off with an avenging angel wielding a sword. The class explored facial expressions, creating a host of cackling, grimacing and eyebrow raising portraits.
 
What's in the Pond? you may well ask! Mr Frog, ducks, fishes and much more sit beneath the richly decorative  surfaces from the May Half Term Holiday Workshop. At Easter the children made Sheep sculptures, but these are no ordinary sheep...they're in a band!, reflecting the multi-arts environment that Islington Arts Factory provides.
 
Come down to the Allotment to see what's been growing in Tuesday MakeArt, where you will discover glorious glittering flowers, cool cucumbers and canny cruciferous vegetables, beautifully depicted with fine line pen on top of paint.
 
Discover the wilderness in sculptures inhabited by Jungle animals and insects by Clay Level 1 alongside slab built teapots and abstract stacking vessels by our teenage potters from Clay level 2.

This year IAF invited Hanover Primary School's art club to showcase their latest project Birds, Colour and Contrast as part of the show. Their luminous, carefully layered surfaces express the children's delight in both nature and colour.
 
Eleanor Pearce, Director of Art  says:
 
'We are delighted to welcome you to MakeArt this year! Islington Arts Factory gives Children's art equal standing to that of adults. This exhibition is a demonstration of the expansive imagination shown by the artists and the sheer joy in their depictions on a range of exciting themes. It's a riot of colour and there's something new to discover wherever you look.'
 
Islington Arts Factory's  team of artists are committed to passing on their skills and unlocking the creative potential in every child.
 
The MakeArt Programme is devised and delivered by artists Eleanor Pearce (Director of Art, MakeMoreArt and Holiday Workshops ), Tess Williams (Tuesday MakeArt), Josephine Sweeney (Thursday MakeArt and Holiday Workshops), Kayley Holderness (Clay Level 1 & 2)) Kiera Burton (ArtStart) and Jude Lacey (ArtStart). ​

​Cyan.rar
22nd Nov - 29th Nov
Private View 22nd November 7 - 9pm
Artists: Ko ‘Carol’ Huai-Ching, Youngha Kim, Aisling Browne, Natasha Moody, Roberto Di Vito, Ayshia Taskin, Rachel Innes

Specific colours have come to be imbued with symbols, meaning and histories while equally contributing, through their applications, to contemporary life. Therefore, for Cyan.rar, seven emerging artists coagulate to create work through the investigation of the colour cyan and the significance it has played in cultural, literacy, symbolic and internal topics.

The colour cyan is of a cosmopolitan greenish-blue tone and known by a variety of names; turquoise, electric blue, aqua and teal. The cyanic shade, induced through illumination, vividly expresses itself through the principal wavelength of between 490–520 nm (nanometres). A colour which captivatingly exists within a limonoid state amid green and blue hues. Along with magenta, black and yellow, cyan is included within the ‘primary colour’ schemata. The technical side of the colour cyan is its use, as an additive colour, within the RGB classification – a system which produces all colours viewed on a computer or television display. The naissance of cyan occurs through the mixture of equal amounts of green and blue light.

The Cyan.rar exhibition realises a congregation of artworks where participating artists grapple with concepts surrounding the colour cyan. The exhibition will host print-based, paintings and sculptural works exploring an array of subject matter from how the colour expressed in nature, culture and theology to the focus on the .rar aspect and the investigation of the subconscious mind through the excavation of layers ‘zipped’ within the human consciousness.

Glasses Broken
please buy my shit
1st - 15th November
Private View 1st November 7 - 9pm

​“Joaquin Ardiles has been hit in the face with a football and now he needs new glasses. All illustrations were made half blind, so please allow for discrepancies in quality. The work on show is a condensed summer through the blurry eyes of an idiot, from heartache to groin strain, it’s all on the walls on November 1st.”

 www.thekidbuu.com  ​Joaquin.ardiles@gmail.com

Intermissus Academy
1st Annual Show
1st - 15th November 2019
Private View: 1st November 7 -9pm
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Intermissus Academy formed in 2018 by a group of 10 artists all looking to present their work in context of its own formulation. Artists in Intermissus creating work are creating work that they need to create. The freedom of being part of this group is that they will be able to continue creating in context of artists making work in a similar vein, and not to row  backwards to seek success and a watered down version of what they create. 

For more info on Intermissus Academy check out their website;
 intermissusacademy.blogspot.com 

'God's in the Living Room'
 13th - 20th September 2019
Artist: Arizona Smith
Private View: 13th September 7 - 9pm

'God's in the Living Room' is a show born from dreams, an exploration of the subconscious through symbols, archetypes and magic. Using drawing and painting Arizona Smith creates snapshots of the psyche, the everyday connection to the divine and the pain and joy of being alive. 'Rooms and furniture are important in my work as they are in my life, they are filled with meaning, they are energy just like everything else - on a physics level. I have played with giving ordinary things emotional qualities which has reminded me of my childhood, where everything was magical and simple patterns in rugs or fabric could be totally transporting.' 

Arizona Smith is a self taught artist also training to be a transpersonal psychotherapist,
 www.arizonasmithart.com 
 instagram.com/arizonathecat

Summer Salon 2019
21st June - 12th July
Private View 21st June 2019
Curator; Eleanor Pearce
​Now in Its 12th year, the Summer Salon at Islington Arts Factory is inspired by the 18th Century French Salons, with floor to ceiling hanging, the Salon seeks to represent the broad variety of work happening today in Islington and beyond.
The submissions process is completely open, anyone can apply, whether you are a professional, or an emerging artist. We aim to represent artists from all backgrounds.

“The Summer Salon embodies Islington Arts Factory’s ethos of creating an atmosphere where everyone feels welcome to participate, providing a launch pad for local and emerging talent,” says Eleanor Pearce, IAF’s Art Director. “The idea for the show grew from French salons where people would meet to discuss the arts and exchange ideas.”.