Print Studio Exhibition

About John Phillips- Grove Groove graphics studio:

John Phillips was born in the year of 1968, during the Vietnam War (where a lot of students protested) and during the student demonstration in Paris. Due to his past experiences he didn’t think he would be employable and didn’t think he could hold down a proper job so he decided to open an art studio/ gallery. This was because he had a keen interest in arts from different cultures. He also decided to start up a graphics studio as he was influenced by thoughts, music and culture. His fascination about different cultures was due to how different cultures intertwine and the different languages that were spoken from all over the world.

Groove grove studio works for the charity and is committed to engage activities with the local area and for the less privileged. John runs projects in the local community to allow public of all statutes and class to take part and contribute their ideas to art. John is anti-hegemonic, meaning that he believes that everyone is equal and thus should be treated so.

 

The studio took up to 35years to become the place it is now and he would not like to have any more studios as he believes that the graphics studio would loose the unique effect that it brings to the community. The Groove grove studio was successful as its art pieces made sense to the local people as they were able to reflect the images to their own lives. This is what attracted John to create a graphics studio as the idea of images having an affect on people’s lives in similar and different ways was intriguing to him. Even though the graphics studio was successful, it still loses money from prints and buying art work but gains the money through charity and people buying their art to subsidies the costs.

Questions asked to John Phillips:

    What was the most expensive art piece that you brought?
  ‘’The most expensive art piece that the graphics studio holds costs £20.00.”
    Where do you usually obtain these art pieces
“The pieces are mostly brought from e-bay and are then placed onto the studio walls.”

If we were to take your i-pod. What sort of music genres would we find?

“You would find; reggae, folk, rock, calypso, classical music and ska. I’m interested in all sorts of music genres, to be honest.  But I prefer music that I could relate to and has a rhythm too as well.”

The different categories at graphics studio
· All you need is love.
· War in Babylonian (ideas of conflict).
· Sex, d rugs and rock n roll,
John stated that ‘Big mama’ Thorntan invented the name and idea of rock n roll.

References that John Phillips made:
· Collin (1950)- who had an insight into magic, culture, fashion etc. Collin was one of the many inspirations to John.
· Black Art Studio: Bob Marley with Lee Scratch both came up with reggae.
Their song “Catch a fire"ceased to be a reggae artist and became a national star.
· Drugs were a common thing that were taken by musical artists;
     -Jazz artists took heroine
     -Hippies took LSD, Ecstasy and Marijuana
· Beatle’s song. Played live in BBC studio, first time mass audience around 12 million people.
· “London Calling” sung by Freddie Madball
· Stravinksky- “The rite of Spring”- John stated that the image of the young girl dancing herself to death attracted him to the music.
· Caetano Veloso- “London, London” album. This was quite inspirational for John as he has a keen interest in culture and this album is about Veloso being lonely and miserable because he is away from his friends. He’s being pulled up from his roots.
· “Plastic Beach” by the Gorillas
· Be-Bop-Jazz orchestra- This was John’s favorite as the artist was quite weird as he believed that he was born on Saturn. He was an artist that influenced other artists with his work.
· The Art Movement- Tropicalismo. It was full of colour and vibrant and this attracted John so much as it represented the Brazilian culture.