De con-struc-tion

L o c a l G a l l e r y

StolenspaceGallery

Stolenspace Gallery is an independant gallery exhibiting work that is labelled or considered to be ‘Underground Art’, ‘Street Art’ or Urban Art’. All of their artists are influenced and draw inspriration from the subcultures that are pre-vailing in our society. Stolenspace expresses this energy and spirit of our enviroment which have been ignored or turned a blind a eye by museums and other galleries. The gallery opened in 2005, giving a new platform to the artist of this sub-culture, mainly representing atrists exclusively in the UK. Stolenspace deals with sales that are of both in nature primary and secondary and also exhibits abroad with galleries in Hong Kong, Melbourne, Los Angeles, San Fransisco and New York.

Location

Dray WalkThe Old Truman Brewery91 Brick LaneLondonE1 6QLUnited Kingdom

The Gallery is a fifteen minute walk from Liverpool Street Underground Station and a five minute walk from Shoreditch High Street Overground Station. The Gallery is located off Brick Lane in one of London’s finest art cultur-al hotspot. Brick Lane is the home to not only urban art, being prevailed around every street corner, but to vintage and designer clothes, restaurants, boutiques and studios. A new era of designer shopping, ‘Box Park’, has found its way into East London being located next to Shoereditch High Street Overground Station. The micro mall also referred to as the pop up mall is made from 60 shipping containers, packed and stacked and clad in bright, stripped-back wood to create an “urban aesthetic” (their phrase). The containers are tempo-rary homes to a range of international brands.

Dray Walk

The Dray walk is a small street hidden in East London, Brick Lane. The tiny street brings the area to life by proudly expressing its compliments to the surrounding culture, boasting the huge flagship store ‘Rough Trade East’ a variant of the original Rough Trade music/record store in West London. At the end of the street your eye catches a glimpse of the Black and yellow sign of Stolenspace Gallery. The colours of caution standing out, bright and bold, hard to be missed and aslo elavated on to a step as art work being placed on a plimth

Exterior

A huge yellow banner with black writing and black logo of the gallery can be seen on side of the gallery building informing people of the gallery’s existence and that they are in the correct location. Another sign is placed outside by the ramp acting as route guidance if the banner is not noticed than the sign is. The huge banner is a very good method of visual aid for the gallery as it is very unlikly to go unnoticed by anyone walking pass. The banner can be seen from a distance thus acting as an invitation inviting people to the gallery. The black and yellow colour use for the signs and banner is very effective as these are caution colours used when road works are carried out. Therefore these signs are very good at attracting people’s attention.

The graffiti on the wall and shutter of the building next to the gallery compliments the art work the gallery exhibits due to the graffiti is also a form of street art. The gallery has a huge window, which allows you to view the main wall of the exhibition from the outside. The two windows also acts like frames when art work of the exhibition is viewed from the outside. The windows does not display any inofrmation of the gallery such as opening times. it does however have the gallery’s name printed on the window. This to is another way of reinforcing the position or location in the area and culture. The entrance of the gallery is located at the back of the building. The entrance being located at the back of the building allows a couple of cars

to be parked and also easier when loading and unloading vehicles for or after an exhibition. The space also prevents congestion when people are standing outside on an event day or exhibition due to a positive outcome. An installation created from road signs is placed outside of the gallery reinforcing their beliefs and passion of urban art the gallery posseses proudly. The gallery also provides disability facilities. One of the facility is that the gallery has a ramp which

leads to the enterance and not steps. Also this is a benefit when transfering artwork from a vehicle to the gallery making it easy and efficient. The gallery sign on top of the door is made as the signs of old American theaters with letters hanging off or missing. The sign displays the gallery’s name the exhibition they are currently holding. This also implies the gallery sign is an art form itself. It can further be said that the sign informs the audience/visitor that an exhibition is like a theatre production

where the viewer has to observe and feel the presence not only of the artwork but also of the artist. The audience has to let themselves be indulged and immersed into the art culture to appreciate the art. The theatre sign reminds you of an aban-doned theatre similar to the inception of gallery, as it was brewery, which was than converted into a gallery. This notion can be expressed further to say that the art the gallery is abandoned and overlooked by other art galleries or museums or is not considered to be

a form of art.

Interior

The Exterior looks as if the place is abandoned but the inside of the gallery is well-organized, good use of space and carefully choreographed exhibition. The interior of the gallery is set up in a manner that the gallery itself is treated as a canvas. All the artwork are hung to the wall and carefully positioned with equal space in between the wall. Majority of the artwork was framed. The description of the art piece; title and the artist name is written on the paper and than stuck on the wall underneath the art work. The main wall features the main

exhibits of the exhibition and the large sized art work. The right wall of the gallery displays small/medium scale art work. The information/assistance desk is place in front of wall next to the window. On the same wall in between the space of the desk and the left wall an installation is hung. The assistance desk is made of glass, similar to a jewelry shop desk, exhib-iting creative objects . A small round table is placed against the window on the left of the entrance next to the information desk, which has visuals available for the visitor to take informing them of future events/exhibitions.

http://www.stolenspace.com/