Already almost a month ago, last December, Lithuanian artist Eglė Jauncems was showing her new work at the Sunday Salon hosted by the Oakley Road Project Space.
Sunday Salon presents the exhibitions in a relaxing setting – brunch and snacks are provided while sitting back on the sofa and listening to DJ sets. Music as the key creative component is very important for one of the Sunday Salon initiators, Eglė Jauncems herself. Before starting off as a visual artist Eglė Jauncems was a musician and a DJ – she used to play in different bars and even corporate events and earn from her musical endeavours.
The only requirement when selecting the work for the Sunday Salon was the size and the novelty of the work: the artwork had to be no larger than 50×50 inches and it should represent artist’s most current practice.
Eglė sees the ambience of the event as a key thing that needs to be in tune with her perception of perfect day, or, rather, the perfect weekend day. She prefers to organise events that are different from the usual chatter and silence infused social choreography usually experienced at exhibitions openings in East London : entering into the gallery, rushing to look briefly at the works, grabbing a cold bottle with lukewarm beer, and then talking with many people you would like to possibly avoid and chatting too eagerly with those you wanted to meet. But (sic) please don’t speak too loud if you haven’t just read the excerpts of Heiddegger, Merleau-Ponty, or have never seen dismagazine in your eyes.
Oakley road’s Sunday Salon seems is very relaxed and sits a bit too comfortable in the beautiful De Beauvoir Town. It might be because of it’s picturesque location – De Beauvoir Town is a district which belongs to the London Borough of Hackney and borders Dalston, although it has more villas and looks posh rather than shabby in general. Apart from its location maybe it’s hard to be serious about Sunday Salon because of it’s the pleasures it offers: Sunday art audience here is provided dignified weekend leisure time with drinks and snacks. At the same time, Sunday Salon offers the kind of playfulness where a relaxed atmosphere gives time and space to discuss the work in a super relaxed Sunday-like manner. The feeling ‘like at home or at the bar’ pervades the event and is both like visiting your friend on the weekend with no intention to get noticed, to get drunk, but simply to socialise while observing paintings.
Sunday Salon is an initiative started by a recent London Chelsea College of Arts graduate Tom Farthing. Sunday Salon was found in order to engage his peers, colleagues and course-mates from Ruskin Art School, Slade School of Art and Chelsea College of Art.
About project organisers:
Tom Farthing recently graduated from the MA course at Chelsea College of Art. Drawing and painting form the core of his practice. Recurring themes in his work are the relationships between people and places, and how identities and histories are constructed around them. Recent exhibitions include; S.I.T.E, the CCW alumni exhibition at Chelsea College of Art, Westall/Sorrell in association with FAD Contemporary at the Strata Art Fair, Saatchi Gallery and Sunday Salon.
Eglė Jauncems is a Lithuanian born artist currently living and working in London. After Chinese studies at Vilnius and Taipei Universities Eglė has moved to London where she gained her second BA degree in weaving at Chelsea College of Art and Design. Working in such mediums as painting, sculpture, performance and installation Eglė sees her practice as multidisciplinary exchanges and transitions between subjects of loss and longing. Her work has been featured in Multiplied and Offline Art fairs, Young Textile Art Triennial 2013, Menier Gallery and John Latham’s Flat Time House. She is currently in collaboration with Necole Schmitz and OTSO films.
(From left to right) Ollie Rafferty, “Blu-tack painting IV “, oil and Blu-tack on canvas, 69×55, 2013; Lindsay Mapes, “Closure”, mixed media on panel, 40×20, 2013; Tom Farthing, “A Sad King”, oil on canvas, 26×31, 2013
Sunday Salon
Photographs by Eglė Jaucems and Max Creasy
