News Release (1-11-07)
Media Relations: contact Denise at the Total Marketing Network on 0044 (0) 1273 728 118 or 0044 (0)7802 582 842
Maverick, experimental sculptor Jamie McCartney has produced a sculpture to be auctioned for Macmillan Cancer Support, which is developing ‘skin cancer’ whilst on view in the window at Peter Jones, London. Alongside a skull by Damien Hirst and a decapitated cherubic head by Nicola Hicks, the sculpture could not be in better company.
Poignantly entitled “Wake Up (and smell the coffee)”, the experimental artist’s work is a lifesize figure of a beautiful woman, reclining on her side. Her richly tanned body basks in the sunshine in the South West facing window, seemingly oblivious to the damage being done to her skin. The sunlight is causing the surface of the sculpture to bubble and blister in a chilling parallel of the effect the sun can have on our bodies.
Sponsored by De’Longhi, leaders in premium coffee machines, the Macmillan De’Longhi Coffee Art Auction, has attracted donations by Britain’s leading artists. Together with Hirst and Hicks are works by Tracey Emin, Lord Richard Rogers, Sir Peter Blake, Gavin Turk and many others. These are now on view in the windows at Peter Jones on the Kings Road and John Lewis on Oxford Street. The auction, to be held on November 8th at the Arts Club in Mayfair, will raise thousands of pounds for the cancer charity.
Jamie has created this unique piece especially for the Macmillan auction, cast directly from a woman’s body in coffee beans and resin. Sensual, compelling and now excruciatingly poignant, it is typical of this artist whose star is rapidly rising.
An art critic in his own right, with his moniker of ‘Critical I’, Jamie also ruthlessly applies the same scrutiny to his own works. “I’m my harshest critic”, he says wearily, “If I don’t get it right you’ll never see it”. So the effect from the sun could have been fatal. Jamie is famous for chucking away his own work but not this time. “When I heard about the effect the sun was having on the sculpture I wasn’t at all surprised.” Jamie explains, “Although I did worry that the blemishes may deter cautious collectors until I saw them for myself.” Jamie quickly realized the power this blistering had. “It’s magnificent, I love it! What’s happening to her is almost biblical, like the sculptures of Jesus which bleed or the Madonnas, which weep, she has an important message for all of us.”
Crowds of passers-by are gathering to see this poignant piece, ominously displayed below a Hirst skull, before it is snapped up by a private collector at the auction on Thursday, 8th November. It may be viewed until this Friday in the window at Peter Jones and next week in the pre auction viewing at the Arts Club in Mayfair.
ends
For further information on the auction or to view all pieces please visit www.delonghi.co.uk
For information on how to bid for the pieces please phone 020 7343 3130.
For photographs or further information please call:
Studio phone: 01273 60 88 01 mobile: 07961 338 045
Or email jamie@jamiemccartney.com
Web: http://www.jamiemccartney.com/latest.html
31st October 2007
Artist Information and Statement
Jamie McCartney leaped to notoriety with his piece, “The Spice of Life”, a wall made up of eighty-four casts of male and female genitals in various states of arousal. The piece, now on permanent display at London’s Amora, won Jamie the international Erotic Signature sculpture prize and features in the book, The World’s Greatest Erotic Art of Today.
An accomplished artist, Jamie McCartney completed a degree in Experimental Art at the renowned Hartford Art School, the oldest art college in America. His degree and years working on feature films (his last was Casino Royale) have informed Jamie’s unique style of working. Never shy of controversy, he continues to explore the boundaries of what is possible and acceptable. His maverick approach is reflected in the range of sculptures he makes from his Brighton seafront studio.
In tandem with his outré body castings, Jamie’s latest works he describes as “a thrust into Neo Surrealism”. These new series, entitled ‘Sexidermy’ and ‘Objets d’Aft’, combine taxidermy, animal hides and objets trouvé with his unusual sculptural techniques. Using both verbal and visual puns to great effect his pieces are both whimsical and amusing but often have a sharp political or social comment embedded within. “It’s all about layers, you take from my work what you bring to it”, he enigmatically explains.
Other works this year include “Bug Art”, which involved strapping a canvas to the front of his car to collect insect splats, a series of messages and money in bottles thrown from a sailing boat into the mid Atlantic and “Lucky Strike”, a sculpture made from mousetraps and cigarettes, as a statement on addiction and the smoking ban.
Commenting on his ‘Wake up (and smell the coffee)’ Jamie says, “As an experimental sculptor, working in unusual media you have a dialogue with your materials, which you respond to. Chance actions caused by the combinations of materials inform the work as much as the intentions of the artist. It is working with weird stuff and the chance accidents like this which happen that keep my work exciting for me. I never know quite what will happen next”.
One never knows quite what Jamie will do next either. His latest prize was the Kyoto Award for the most eco friendly vehicle at the UK’s first Art Car Parade last month. His vehicle “Car-bon Miles” was an old East German Trabant converted, to pedal power. Using humour and wordplay to comment on important issues which affect us all, is one of Jamie’s trademarks.
On Macmillan Cancer Support Jamie says, “Of course they are a magnificent organization and one close to my heart as an artist. Many artists, particularly sculptors, sadly die from illnesses, including cancers caused by the materials they use. They do genuinely suffer for their art. For me this is a chance to make small contribution to the fight. For that reason alone I’m happy to repair the sun damage if the buyer would so wish.”