It seems that the trend for secret postcard shows in aid of worthy causes (as popularised by the Royal College of Art's RCA Secret) has been going from strength to strength. Already this year I've done a 'lodda work for charidee' (apologies to those too young to remember, or not British enough to get the Smashie and Nicey reference) and taken part in a few secret postcard exhibitions.
The latest one, that I've just made four large postcard-sized works for is the Oli Bennett Charitable Trust, whose Anonymous Art Fair, this year, takes place on Thursday 18th June. For full details on how to buy a work from the sale click here. As the work on sale is supposed to be anonymous, I can't yet show you what I created, so here's one of my pencil drawn postcards from a previous Oli Bennett show.
This year, for the first time, the Royal College of Art held two RCA Secrets; one at their Dyson exhibition space in Battersea, London, and a second one in Dubai, during Art Dubai, the leading international art fair in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Unfortunately I wasn't able check out RCA Secret Dubai myself but I did manage to lift an image of part of it from the Artslant article by Danna Lorch. Almost the same as going there – right? As the artists invited to take part in this year's RCA Secret were given the usual three postcards for the London show, and just one for the exhibition in Dubai, I'm guessing that the latter was a little smaller. Although, the chap who bought my Dubai piece (a bit of a 3D postcard this year – as you can see) emailed me to say that unlike the London show, where some people camp out days, if not weeks, beforehand, there didn't seem to be much of a queue when he arrived half an hour before the start of the sale. So, maybe if you're one of those RCA Secret regulars, desperate for a piece by one of your favorite artists, you should consider a Dubai holiday next year – one that coincides with Art Dubai. Just a thought!
Like the works that I did for both of this year's RCA Secret shows, the postcard that I made for the Welling School Secret Postcard Show (image below) was also based upon one of the many drawings that I developed to cover the surface of my latest sculpture, Tattooed Tumour Box; a piece that I've been working on for the best part of a year (on and off), and which I finally finished today. As soon as I get some descent photos of it I'll put them up on the blog.
