As a part of my everyday job, I know a lot about art fairs, but I don’t attend very often (read: never). In these days the Frieze Art Fair is taking place in London (14-17 October 2015), and I enjoyed myself in choosing my favorite artists between those with the most affordable, which are obviously not so much affordable, and declared prices, as lately they think it’s more elegant not to say (poor them).

Well, the surprise has been that I’m really satisfied by my choice!

Under 5k pounds: Peter McDonald

I want my paintings to be enjoyed by as many people as possible. One way I do this is to paint people and situations that I come across in my daily life, things that everyone can relate to. I often get a lot of ideas on the journey to my studio – from being on the bus and looking down at the street to seeing hairdressers or people playing snooker … Inspiration could come from anywhere – a photo in the newspaper, the tone of someone’s voice on the bus, seeing a certain colour on a billboard. Seeing, hearing, feeling – all this gives you a way into some sort of vision.

da una dichiarazione del 2009 su The Guardian

Under 20k pounds: Tim Braden

The small abstract compositions on card are in fact fragments of interiors: the corner of a room, the hem of a curtain, or the edge of a rug. In the larger paintings Braden goes a step further and zooms in on a specific element or detail in such a way that they lose context and contours and become unrecognizable, literally non-figurative. Even though some of these paintings are quite large, Braden considers them ‘studies’ or ‘research paintings’. They are explorations of colour, of isolated forms in a flat plane, of the effect on the retina of the juxtaposition of pure colours – but not in a dry, scientific sense, for that matter Braden paints with too much flair and virtuosity. His new series of abstract paintings can rather be seen as a celebration of the freedom of paint on canvas.

da un testo di Nina Folkersma per la mostra Making Abstract Paintings, Juliette Jongma, Amsterdam 2013