Exhibition by Steve Wright at Milagros- Mexican Gallery

London, United Kingdom, July 31, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Steve Wright uses the discarded objects of everyday life to create mosaics: milk bottle tops, broken dolls, dolls eyeballs, the contents of Christmas crackers, false teeth, pen lids, crockery, and the rich pickings of a car boot sale. Seemingly worthless ubiquitous objects are turned into jewels that become an integral part of the stories he tells. His interest is driven by the impromptu aesthetic qualities that they offer. Wright’s use of objects is Outsider Art. A Baroque Art for our times.

More is more. Forget about the minimalist graphics and the bare bones of conceptual art. Steve Wright has borrowed from the traditions of Folk Art and made it his own. An opera of colour and texture adorns the walls of his Art Gallery/home and garden. Each room is a richly embroidered tapestry interwoven with his stories. He has created his own Mexico in a quiet grey street in Dulwich. The house is bequeathed to the National Trust and open to visitors by appointment.

Wright is a versatile artist working in a broad range of materials across a range of disciplines. He has worked in print, hand painted silks, knitted fabrics and has designed stationary and greeting cards. His work is defined by colour, texture, pattern and story telling and is informed by the Folk Art Traditions of Haiti, Mexico, India and South America that have stimulated him. Other influences cited by Wright are disability, illness and imperfection. He is drawn to the spiritual, iconographic and religious significance of the Folk Art object.

Liberty, Harrods, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Conran have purchased his works. More recently Wright’s work appeared in Joseph where ten-foot figures clad in brightly coloured garb stood next to the somber suits of the well heeled. He has achieved international acclaim exporting his designs to France, Germany, Scandinavia, Japan, Australia and the USA. Public showings of his work include Solo exhibitions at Halle St, Pierre Paris 2003 and 2004 and as a contributor to Outsider Art Show in Valencia, 2005.His work has been written about in the World of Interiors, The Independent, The Observer, English Vogue, The New York Times, Country Living and Raw Vision. Of late Wright has been commissioned by the Arts Council to design and install mosaics in public spaces. Recent commissions are a mosaic in Bessemer School, East Dulwich; Bonnington Square, Vauxhall; Salisbury Arts Festival and the Kaleidoscope Centre, Catford.

It was a chance visit to Milagros that sowed the seed for the exhibition. Wright inspired by the Mexican Folk Art there immediately felt at home in the shop. As did the owners of Milagros Juliette Tuke and Tom Bloom when they visited his home on a cold day last February.

Wright describes his forthcoming exhibition as a diary. Using photos, words, and textiles to describe events that have had a profound influence on his life in the past three years. Honest and confrontational he will explore life through death. Referring back to Mexico in the words of Octavio Paz.

“…The Mexican in contrast is familiar with death, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it; it is one of his favourite toys and his most steadfast love…. Death is present in their fiestas, in their games, their loves and thoughts…. “From The “Labyrinth of Solitude” by Octavio Paz.

Milagros has traveled the length and breadth of Mexico for twenty years. Picking up and commissioning a wide range of folk art. Milagros exhibits an ever-changing collection in their shop. Currently they have glazed terracotta skeletons from Capula, Michocan displayed alongside functional pottery from the same village; tin retablos from Mexico City; trees of life from Metepec and Izucar De Metamores and wild figurative pottery from Ochomicho.

Milagros . 0207 613 0876. 61 Columbia Road, Shoreditch, London, E2 7RG.www.milagros.co.uk

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