Artist of the Day

The quickest way to see emerging talent, in London this week

We know the feeling. A huge art exhibition comes out, you read the reviews, you hear people talking about it, you see posters up and stuff online, you peg it mentally in your diary and then…the weeks run  out and before you know it, you’ve missed it. It’s over. Or after two months,  it doesn’t seem like the hot ticket it once was. Well, how about a show this summer which is only on, in London, for a day?

During this and next week, weekdays only, Flowers gallery is hosting its regular event Artist of the Day, namely ten days where a well established artist curates a show by a less well known artist, and the pictures or sculptures are only up on the walls or in the room, for a day. Blink and you’ll miss it, basically. Of course, it’s a brilliant strategy. If something is only on for a day, you’ll make the effort to go and see it.

It’s the 25^th iteration of the rapid-fire scheme and Matthew Flowers, who runs the Flowers empire, explains why it is so successful. “Since 1983 we’ve shown 230 artists in AOTD,” he says. “It introduces artists to the public in an actual hang. So much more impactful than slides or digital images.” We walk around the first of this year’s clutch in his Cork Street gallery (there are also Flowers galleries and outlets in East London, New York and Hong Kong).  

It is Day One, and the AOTD is Bianca Raffaella, selected by none other than Dame Tracey Emin. They are both downstairs having a sandwich. “With delicate work such as Bianca’s, you have to see it in reality,” says Flowers. The work is gorgeous; large canvases of barely perceptible nudes in a painterly wash of creamy tones, alongside small intimate closeups of flowers.

Paintings by Bianca Raffaella

Raffaella, who is partially sighted, decided to become an artist even though she had been drilled to communicate in Braille. She now works out of Emin’s TKE Studios in Margate, founded for professional artists by Emin. TKE Studios summer show TEARS The Final Show, from this year’s clutch of artists, opens in Margate on June 30.

Bianca, Matt and Dame Tracey

We trundle downstairs. I congratulate Emin for becoming a Dame. “Thanks,” she says. “I’m the first Dame Tracey in the country.” She grins. “And probably the last.” Bianca looks extremely chuffed about being part of TKE Studios and the first AOTD of 2024. “We’ve already sold seven canvasses,” says Flowers. “And its only midday.” It is of course a brilliant way of refreshing a stable, as Flowers attests. “You have a list of artists, and they produce a show every two years. Its hard to change that, or bring new people in. This is a great way of shaking things up. And by asking artists to recommend artists you get a completely different view point.”

The first ever one was run by Matthew’s redoubtable and remarkable mother Angela at her first gallery in Tottenham Mews, central London. The first day showed work by Anthony Daley, selected by David Hepher. The next year saw Nicola Hicks, selected by Dame Elizabeth Frink. Selectors of the past have included Gavin Turk, Gilbert & George and Maggi Hambling.

As it’s the 25^th anniversary, there is a bit of a show downstairs of the AOTD archive, which now looks like a Greatest Hits of the last two decades in British art. The artists, who at the time were not well established,  include Flowers artists Lucy Jones and John Kirby (collected by Madonna) whose paintings sit alongside a Cathy de Monchaux sculpture, a wonderful photograph by Juno Calypso, seen below,  a piece by Nicola Hicks and Adam Dant’s We Found A Painting By Damien Hirst In a Skip. All, bar the Dant piece, are for sale, as is every show in AOTD.

This year’s selection is by Sir Frank Bowling RA, Barbara Walker RA amd Hughie O’Donoghue RA, among others. If you would like to go and have a look, but really cannot make it on a specific weekday, the week is represented by a Group Show on Saturdays. Although everything might have been sold; Matthew is a master of closing the sale. Indeed, he is so proficient at flogging the wonderful work held by his eponymous company that my previous husband once forced me to sign an agreement reading “I promise not to buy any more stuff from Matthew Flowers.” Which I ignored, and have done, for years, to great effect.

The Flowers house style is witty, beautiful, intellectual,  accessible and varied. Flowers artists are not pompous. They create work which is  wonderful to look at, (usually) domestically scaled and especially with the print portfolio, affordable. If you are in central London, and enjoy having a (fleeting) finger on the pulse of what is going on in the world of contemporary British art, wander into Artist Of The Day and take a look.