From 21-24 April just after Easter, we are pleased to present a new series of paintings by Tom Farthing for Platform at the London Art Fair 2022, in the Business Design Centre, Islington, London, N1.
In this article we look at the curated area, Platform, at the London Art Fair 2022, the theme of music in contemporary art and our part in it.
Then we outline Tom Farthing's interpretation of the theme and the paintings he will include in Fairground Pop.
We also present a brief overview of Fairgrounds and their associated music in contemporary popular culture. This section shows how the sounds of the fair, alongside the rides, are used to heighten the combined senses of pleasure, excitement and even terror!
Finally, we take a look at Tom Farthing and his work to date as an emerging young artist, showing why he is uniquely suited to responding to this year's theme at Platform for LAF 2022.
A fully illustrated catalogue with all works & prices can be viewed here.
Platform at LAF 2022 - 'Music in Contemporary Art'
Each year the London Art Fair’s curated section Platform, features invited galleries presenting well-known, overlooked and emerging artists whose work aligns to a single distinct theme.
In 2022 Platform is curated by Candida Stevens, and will explore the theme of Music and its part in contemporary visual art. There will be ten galleries taking part in Platform, presenting one or more artists responding to the theme of music in contemporary art.
Candida Stevens says "Music has been inextricably linked to the fashions, expressions and entertainment of mankind since the beginning of time. Music and fine art have borrowed from each other for centuries through a combination of pure inspiration, collaborations and appropriation. Visual art and music are allied in the way their movements are titled and they share terms, like mood, tone, composition. Importantly they share a purpose, to inspire and provoke, both our minds and our mood."
We see music as a significant influence in the history of art: Gustav Klimt praised Schubert, Arnold Schoenberg was inspired by Wassily Kandinsky’s abstract forms, and Morton Feldman worked closely with Mark Rothko. It is affiliated with the rise of modernism and is an inseparable factor in the rise of Pop.
There is plenty of evidence that music and visual art have a long-standing connection and mutual endorsement, which is unsurprising. Across art forms and materials, artists working in various styles refer to the movement, rhythm and other elements of music. Even when visual art and music do not overtly influence one another, they can share abstract qualities without having direct communication.
Visual art and music share common cultural influences, including societal, political and technological. With contemporary craft and contemporary art increasingly occupying a shared space in both exhibitions and collections, Platform at London Art Fair 2022 looks at the range of music inspired visual art being made today.
See also our 2020 article 'Art and Music'.
In 'Fairground Pop' for Platform, Tom Farthing draws on images of Fairgrounds to produce a series of paintings, prints and ceramic sculptures, in bright Pop colours and style, to evoke the music and sounds that are inextricably imprinted on our memories, evoking a mix of emotions.
'Fairground Pop' by Tom Farthing
Tom Farthing has created a series of small, medium and large paintings, some screenprints and several associated ceramic sculptures. His source material is his own photographs.
Tom Farthing's paintings reference familiar imagery that we can all relate to and on seeing them we recall not just the feelings of excitement and nostalgia, but also the sounds of loud music on each ride.
One large painting, ‘Slide’ (see above) shows a bright colourful bouncy slide. The structure is striped reminiscent of a musical scale or chord. Although the bouncy slide completely fills the canvas, Tom Farthing includes several figures, he was “attracted by the relationship between the figures and the structure and how they are depicted”.
Stripes have appeared in Farthing’s works for some time now, starting with a similar ‘Circus’ series from 2019.
In this and the other paintings Farthing uses light brushstrokes with some washes, the bright bold colours are balanced not garish.
Variations I-VI, oil on linen 100 x 85 cm by Tom Farthing
Variations (see above) are a group of paintings which use the same source material but are each treated differently to create individual distinct compositions.
As with musical variations on a theme, certain elements are recognisable across all the works.
Some Variations are more abstracted than others, each could represent different times of day, or days.
Further works, hover over to see title/size or click to view as a slideshow:
In all of the works there is a tension between the excitement, absorbing, fantasy of being at the fairground that we all experience and the sense that something could go wrong – Are we really safe on the rides? Are the screams we hear in terror or joy? Does the music serve to heighten this tension and so add to the excitement?
Fairground Pop Ceramic Sculptures by Tom Farthing
A series of hand built constructions in glazed ceramic made by Tom Farthing.
These represent bouncy castles, a booth, a helter skelter as well as some more abstracted pieces inspired by the Fairground Pop works.
Fairground Pop Editions by Tom Farthing
Above: Variations Yellow, Black and Grey, screen prints each 50 x 70 cm.
Above: Fairground Pop Morning, Afternoon, Night, screen prints each 25 x 35 cm.
These six original prints have been created, printed and published by Tom Farthing in an edition of just 5 for his solo exhibition on our stand at the London Art Fair 2022.
View these and some earlier screen prints by Tom Farthing in our Editions Shop.
Fairgrounds and Music in Popular Contemporary Culture
The Fairground has often been used in contemporary (music) culture as a metaphor to evoke either memories or emotions (both pleasure or terror).
Since the late 1950's in the UK fairgrounds evolved to play contemporary popular music rather than the more traditional organ tunes.
The latter were used for many years and were designed to mimic the sounds of a band of musicians. It is then not surprising that with the advent of the wide use of vinyl/recorded pop music the old organs were replaced with the new electronic versions.
At the same time, Pop Art was evolving in the UK, from its roots in the USA. See our Blog post on 'Pop Art Editions', which explores the evolution of Pop Art in more detail.
Amongst the early artists that shaped the pop art movement were Edoardo Paolozzi, Peter Blake and Richard Hamilton in the UK, and Robert Rauschenberg & Jasper Johns among others in the United States.
Richard Hamilton famously said in 1957:
“Pop Art is: Popular (designed for a mass audience), Transient (short term solution), Expendable (easily-forgotten), Low cost, Mass produced, Young, Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, Big Business. . .This is just the beginning. . .“
The same could be said for the way fairgrounds in the UK developed music as well as the art that was painted on all available surfaces!
The combination of music, bright colours and movement envelop visitors into a fantasy world of excitement. As the National Fairground and Circus Archive, University of Sheffield states that:
“Music and lighting has always played a vital part on the fairground".
The music, lighting as well as bright colours combine to create a 'dream-state', whereby fairs allow a suspension of disbelief, enhanced further with the night-time atmosphere.
"Everything seems more electric and scintillating."
The Archive continues "The enraptured enclosure of the fair is maintained, but powerfully lit areas contrast with darker spots, and the passage around the network of rides and stalls becomes something of a magical adventure in itself.”
Fairground by Simply Red
'Fairground' by Simply Red was released in 1995, as the lead single from the Simply Red's fifth studio album “Life”. It topped the singles charts in the UK, Ireland and Italy. The music video was filmed at the “Blackpool Pleasure Beach” amusement park near the Fylde coast.
The song is fairly sentimental, and speaks of valuing friendship and enjoying their company at the 'fairground', see sample of the lyrics below:
Driving down an endless road
Taking friends or moving alone Pleasure at the fairground on the way
It's always friends that feel so good
Let's make amends like all good men should
Pleasure at the fairground on the way
Walk around, be free and roam
There's always someone leaving alone
Pleasure at the fairground on the way
Strangers on a Train, directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Hitchcock’s 1951 thriller, ‘Strangers on a Train’, uses the fairground sights and sounds to increase the tension between the two main characters.
The film uses the duality of two characters and mounting anxiety throughout between light & dark, good and evil, excitement & terror.
In the fairground scene, the two main figures are shown on a moving carousel, lights and loud music adds to the tense atmosphere.
Moreover, the director takes perverse pleasure in having the viewers believe that when Miriam is being murdered in the ‘Tunnel of Love’ that she is only screaming because her friend tries to flirt with her.
Further background to Fairgrounds, Pop Art and Pop Music
In 2017 Ian Trowell (Phd University of Sheffield) argues in "The Fairground Noise" that although travelling fairgrounds are a worldwide phenomenon, there are distinctive factors that give fairgrounds a unique national flavour.
In the UK this uniqueness, apart from the relatively short duration of events is the celebration of pop and dance music alongside the "iconographic excesses of celebrity, film, and cartoon culture."
Trowell continues "These factors combine to give the spatial, social, visual, olfactory, gustatory and acoustic features to the British fairground."
Ian Trowell is an independent writer who has published in the fields of punk and post-punk, fairground culture, fashion, photography and art. He has worked with the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield.
Trowell expanded on this theme in his 2018 article "Music Genre and Subcultural Artwork on the Post-war British Fairground". Here he looks at the development over time of the "intricate crossover between pop music and the British fairground.
It should also be noted that in his 2016 article "Collision, Collusion and Coincidence: Pop Art’s Fairground Parallel, Visual Culture in Britain", Ian Trowell looks at fairground art arguing that it is "dynamic and experimental", allowing it to break away from the restrictions of popular visual art.
See all of the Fairground Pop paintings on Tom Farthing's artist page here.
Tom Farthing
Tom Farthing studied at the Ruskin School then obtained an MA from Chelsea College of Art, in 2013.
His work is concerned with reimagining figurative painting in a contemporary context.
In 2017 he undertook a residency at NES in Iceland and in 2020 he completed a two year participation in the Turps Banana Studio Programme. This programme provides a dynamic structure of mentoring, peer-led learning as well as stimulating debate through discourse & practice.
For Fairground Pop, Tom Farthing refers back to his Projections Exhibition at Zimmer Stewart Gallery in 2015. Here he presented a series of paintings based on discarded Kodachrome slides found in a market in New York. This source material provided a glimpse into family life. Because Tom knew nothing about this particular family it freed him from the usual constraints associated with portrait painting from life.
In Projections Tom Farthing’s paintings & etchings were a response to the past, but also in projecting possible narratives and alternative realities for today. In a broader sense, these portraits and family scenes, are about identity, and in so Farthing is holding a mirror to society.
At the time Tom said “My work is engaged with painting the past at the same time as imagining a way forward for painting in the current fast-paced image-saturated world”.
Tom Farthing cites his influences as Alex Katz for his friends/family portraits as well as other American artists including Fairfield Porter and Richard Diebenkorn: those artists who worked between abstraction and figuration.
In terms of other influences Peter Doig and Michael Andrews as well as Alexander Calder’s circus sculpture.
VIP Tickets, Preview Invitations & Complimentary Tickets at London Art Fair
Please let us know if you would like to have some tickets and we will try to allocate tickets to you as requested. Email james@zimmerstewart.co.uk
In any event please put the dates of the Fair (20 to 24 April 2022) in your diary to see Tom Farthing’s Fairground Pop paintings.
London Art Fair opening times are:
21 April - 11am to 9pm
22 April - 11am to 7pm
23 April - 11am to 7pm
24 April - 11am to 5pm
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