And the exhibition is open – Cultivate presents Three x Three (Part Five) – an online art exhibition featuring Melike, Mark Burrell and Sofia Martins Gray. here’s the link

This, we do believe, is the twenty-third carefully curated on-line show from Cultivate and something like 178th Cultivate exhibition or event in the now eleven year evolving history of Cultivate (Cultivate turned eleven at the start of this September). Three x Three (Part Five) is an invitation extended to three artists, Melike, Mark Burrell and Sofia Martins Gray to exhibit together, the show is once again curated by Cultivate founders Emma Harvey and Sean Worrall. These Three x Three shows are about artists sharing spaces, artists who we think might compliment each other, or who maybe contradict each other, who may or may not be comfortable bedfellows. These shows are about cross pollination, about space and time shared, about three artists who are currently exciting us.

The first four Three x Three shows happened during our Vyner Street period, a wall each handed over to an artist in our almost triangular shaped East London corner space, artists such as Ben Fenton, My Dog Sighs, Paula MacArthur, Charlie McFarley, the much missed Ish Sahotay and quite a few more. The last Three x Three show happened in 2013, the reviving of the format is well overdue, and yes, with Cultivate now being nomadic  this fifth show along with the next ones will be happening on-line.

We like on-line shows, we like that they reach out beyond our London bubble, that artists and viewers from all over the land and indeed the globe can take part in our shows, that we can include artists from North Wales or West Yorkshire or Brazil or San Francisco or Manchester as well as artists from Hackney or Camberwell, we like being more than just a London thing. We intend a full season of Cultivate on-line shows this Autumn and Winter.

The Artists… 

Melike is based in Istanbul, Turkey (originally born in Samsun in 1980), if I remember correctly, another artist told her about Cultivate and she got in touch, or was it us who made first contact with her having seen something on a social media feed? I really can’t remember now, I do know she has been a regular participant in our shows for a couple of years or more now. I really do like her work, her movement, her attitude to it all. It is the movement that stitches it all together, her drawing, her painting, her photography or often the rather intriguing combination of all three in one piece. We like her consistent commitment, her choreographic objectivity, her sense of performance, her style, her adventure. Adventure is something i think she shares with the other two artists in this show.

Mark Burrell – “In order to understand the world around me, sometimes I need to focus on a small bit of it”. Mark is from Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England, Once again we like his adventure, his movement, his energy and yes, his artistic commitment, we particularly like his sense of materials, his thoughtful combinations. 

“Mark strives for an economy of means, the attempt to do the most with the least. He is highly sensitive in his use of material. Substances are often used spectacularly. Mark seeks to make the ordinary extraordinary. I consider Mark’s sensitivity, sense of self-discipline and contemplativeness to distinguish him as an artist.” (Tim Sayer)

Sofia Martins Gray has been exhibiting with us both physically and on-line for a number of years now. First and foremost I consider the London-based Portuguese artist to be a very painterly painter. I love the way she paints with her cameras, with her Polaroids, I love her textures, her sense of drama, I rather like her mystery, I like that she once said in an interview with us for Organ, when asked about her work practice, that she worked both “spontaneously and not spontaneously.  It depends on the intensity of the image”. Sofia’s work certainly is intense, as is her excellent (art-rock) band Starsha Lee. Sofia is one of my favourite painters.

and so, Cultivate presents Three x Three (Part Five) – an online art exhibition featuring Melike, Mark Burrell and Sofia Martins Gray. here’s the link