A quick round up of some of the great art stuff going on this month – which can also be used as a handy guide to tasteful last minute Christmas presents.

Last weekend saw the Christmas Bazaar featuring Pure Evil, Mr Jago and a whole host of others. The line-up and events sounded amazing and, judging by the above image, it looked the dogs bits as well. Also happening this December is Pictures On Walls annual art-ghet-t0-together headlined this year by Evol with a supporting cast full of familiar names (will Bansky appear, the catalogue says not but history suggests yes), whilst Print Club have their excellent 12 Prints show going on. Meanwhile up north, illustrator Matt Sewell has been working as fast as a Hummingbird’s wings producing some brilliant work around birds (the feathered not the female kind).

If there’s something you want to get off your chest, then you might want to get down to Sickboy’s new installation, open this weekend.

The elusive Bristolian street-artist has taken over the Old Truman Brewery to garnish its walls with his latest imaginings, entitled ‘Heaven and Earth’, in conjunction with fellow artists such as D*Face, Eine and Paul Insect.

The work will include a ‘public confessional booth’, for visitors to admonish themselves of their sins. Sickboy will also be displaying confessions posted by members of the public on his website in the run up to the show, and we have it on his authority that there’s some pretty dodgy stuff.

In an interview he did with Bonafide last week, we couldn’t help but ask how he ended up with such a religious theme. He explained;
“I started off looking at old renaissance paintings, and looking at the signs and symbols in them, reappropriating them as my own…It’s not just to ram a load of Catholicism down your throat!” Let’s face it, it’ll probably make for a better Sunday than church.

Heaven and Hell will be open to the public from 4-6 November at The Old Truman Brewery. Open from 12-7 each day.

Will Coldwell

New Era have just announced the winner of their New Era Introducing competition. Tasked with the brief to re-imagine the standard 59FIFTY, entries for this competition turned the idea of a humble hat on its head. Notable contributions include a wooden fronted cap (on-trend folky, though you’d need some Ronseal to make it work in wet climes) and a cap riffing the image from The Smiths Meat is Murder LP. And of course the winners piece, an intricate and delicate piece that explores the story of the Queen of Sheba. A highly unique hat I think you’d agree. Congrats to the creator of the winning entry Lina Al-Amoudi, Lina receives kudos from fashionistas and a £10k bursary (whistles) to launch her creative career.

A touring exhibition kicks off in London this weekend at the Shoreditch Underground, Pedley Street. Check the dedicated website for further deets.

More exhibition news, this time a bit closer to home. From the 04 – 27 November 2011, Borough and Lane a new exhibition featuring works on paper by American artist Evan Hecox, will be held at Stolenspace, London.

I’ve been a big fan of Hecox’s since seeing his Beautiful Losers exhibition and his contributions to Arkitip. He’s reached the stage that few artists many to do – develop a style of work that is recognisable, popular and influential. Indeed a quick root around the office reveals magazines, CDs and even tees (it’s that kind of office) that feature his work. He’s worked with some of the great indies such as Chocolate Industries where his killer portraits for the Urban Renewal Programme matched the sounds of the releases, and been commissioned by major’s such as Adidas   and bitten – as all great styles are – by Coca-Cola. Hey his work has even been featured on pillow cases.

His own art practice has been flourishing as well. His works on cities are particularly strong and lend themselves to his abstract interpretations and clever use of shadow. His new show draws on his explorations of London town, a journey that took him through the back streets and little used passages and visits to the industrial heartlands and bustling thoroughfares. Likely to be a more nuanced and real view of the capital than a thousand tourist shots taken outside of Buckingham Palace.

Bonafide issue 04 star D*Face is holding his first solo exhibition in Australia during November. His new show takes places at the Metro Gallery, Melbourne, and will give our Antipodean cousins a chance to view work in the flesh by an artist who has made his name subverting popular culture and playing fast and loose with the trademark pop stylings of Litchenstein and Warhol.

The exhibition will launch on the 02 November and include his flutterdies and splutterflies work, original pieces, huge concrete spraycan sculptures (that will also be dotted around Melbourne city – try nabbing that Mr Street-Art reseller on eBay) and, according to the blurb, a new limited edition print.

Some big street-art exhibitions are penciled in before the end of 2011, including Triptease Revue from Paul Insect. Held at Post No Bills, California, graphic designer (he was one half of Insect with Luke Insect) turned street-artist, Paul Insect has been a piece of the furniture at POW for a long time. His Bullion show in 2007 made the headlines for boasting chomped on gold bars and for Damien Hirst – aping his friend Jay Jopling’s Super Market Sweep shopping technique – by buying the whole show.

I’ve been a big fan of Paul Insect since his Dead Rebels series and for prints like Who To Believe, his artwork for DJ Shadow and his street campaigns featuring science fiction-esque baby heads. However, compared to other luminaries in the scene, he’s been keeping a relatively low-profile, so hopefully Triptease Revue will prove more than a tantalising glimpse of one of the UK’s most technically adept and diverse contemporary artists.

Having stumbled across their playful Check Yo Self mirrors – a must for any rapper or wannabe rapper’s bathroom – released by CMYK Projects in parallel with the Anti-Social Networking exhibition, Black Book Gallery, all I have to say about Skewville is – believe the hype.

From their clever Wharol-esque Hype boxes to their pieces made out of found objects that speak a native street dialect through to their massive boomboxes on the sides of walls, Skewville aka twin brothers Ad Deville and Droo, have been making street insurrections for over a decade. You may also recognise them for their wooden kicks tossed over phone lines – mark making for the hooded generation.

Check the Factory Fresh Gallery and When Dogs Fly for further info.

Some great art interventions have been going down at the Studio Cromie curated FAME Festival, held in a quarter of the Italian town of Grottaglie.

Famous for being a hotbed of ceramic production, FAME see’s a motley crew of street-art’s reworking the architecture and look and feel of Grottaglie their own idiosyncratic ideas. I particularly like Brad Downey and Akay’s collaborative pieces – the deleted cars is a piece of light-hearted fun that succeeds in giving the town a surreal vibe – and of course it’s great to see Blu and Ericailcane doing their monster walls. Check out the FAME Festival blog for a flavour of what’s been going on.

Eric Haze, a street deity. Revered by fashion heads, graphic design addicts and graffiti bods. Artistically he’s been there, done that and no doubt you own one of his t-shirts.

His street work, which utilises bold street influenced typography and expressions, has semiotic value, and his graphic design production is pretty iconic too. Eric Haze is an artistic all-rounder, equally at home designing logos for hip-hop acts, collaborating on products with big brands or putting his distinctive mark on walls. His new exhibition, New Mathematics, catches the eye then because he’s hooked up with Known Gallery to go back to his fine art roots.

New Mathematics showcases a complex artistic language that draws on Haze’s graffiti writing past – quick hand movements and precision mark marking – whilst looking to the future by dispensing with some of the constraining structures of typography. The new fluid hand-styles are a florid expression of design, gesture and abstraction. The work is a new, organic urban language if you like.

New Mathematics, 17 September – 08 October.

Successful club nights often result in aspirations for bigger and better things. Many try, few succeed. One notable success story is Glasgow-based label LuckyMe, whose evolution from club night to label to artist collective has been glowingly acknowledged as representing ‘the true spirit of independent thinking’, and has been selected for the prestigious Beck’s Green Box Project. Becks recently commissioned 30 artists to create their own orginal piece of artwork for the project in cities across the world including London, Manchester, New York, LA, Milan and more. The project kicked off on the 4th July with Arne Quinze’s impressive 200 foot digital structure placed on top of the torch of the Statue of Liberty. The Beck’s Art Fund is now open to submissions. Go to Becks.com to submit your idea’

We caught up with Dominic Flannigan, artist producer and one of the LuckyMe co-founders to find out about the collective’s humble beginnings, Glasgow’s music scene and the design concept behind his Green Box submission.

You can find out more about fellow Glaswegian bass heads, and LuckyMe affiliates, the Numbers label, in the latest issue of Bonafide.

What’s your Green Box design looking like? Can you explain the concept behind it?

It’s looking good. Our logo is my ex girlfriends eye and we’ve used it and adapted it as a label on all our 12″ records. For the augmented reality work we’ve cast these labels in 3D onto large spheres of plastic and marble and glass, each representative of the music on the release. We’ve given them character too, with a varied sense of movement. As you walk around the Green Box on the street it changes to the next eye and next music from the release plays on your headphones. It’s a music player with personality.

Going back to the beginning, how did the art side of things become integrated after the success of the club night?

Well in the beginning our night was tiny. 75 people only, for years even. It was the most indulgent night on Earth putting on everything from all our Montreal signings to The Brainfeeder guys, to Warp artists and grime. It was great but the events side of the label has never been our priority. LuckyMe is known today for the sound that Hudson Mohawke, Rustie and Mike Slott are carving for hip-hop and modern dance music, we’re a record label first. The art side is born of us relating our friends from art school to our music and trying to use our family and friends to put out music with it’s own identity. With myself a designer as well as a musician it was always there.

How did Montreal natives Jacques Greene and Lunice become part of your label?

They toured over here early under different names and making different music. We were, from a very early date, on the same page. We were swapping Myspace love in 2007 / 2008. It was just a really exciting time and we were all the young guys using that technology to make collaborations and travel and tour. I think we relate to each other also cause neither Glasgow or Montreal were both the best kept secrets as far as cities of band and music culture. They both have a great local scene of various music but they have the absence of real music industry people. This means that different music can grow and cross pollinate there without people being snapped up by managers and middle men. We stay independent and exciting for longer in these sorta’ places.

How did your label find its niche releasing bassy house records?

Ha. We heard our guys making really great house music and asked to put them out. We’re the product of our tastes. We don’t A&R anything, we get our guys to give us large demos and pick our favourites. We don’t have to tell people to make changes to their music. We just sign great guys and then release what they do.

What is your process for designing record sleeves, does it start with the music or an idea?

It always starts with the music. 100% our design has been in direct response to the music. We are pretty high concept with our sleeves. 
They are either provocative of the atmosphere of the music or a direct visual metaphor to the title but we really go to town setting up photography for our sleeves. Whole weeks lost to get something right. I’m pretty synesthesiatic and I can’t stand it if the design associated to a piece of music is wrong. I can’t listen to something once it’s been cast wrong with a shit video or cover.

How important do you see the clothing side of your business? Is it just a natural evolution for you?

My partner at the label Martyn Flyn basically schooled me on streetwear in my early teens. He’s a dapper guy. It accidentally became a huge part of my life. I worked in fashion design for a couple of years after leaving arts school. It was a natural evolution for us. All we ever wanted to do with our label was make the products we were emphatic about.

How do you plan to expand LuckyMe in the future?

I can see the label growing, expanding. Not just cause  the couple of us running the business are really ambitious but cause our friends keep making better music. The arts projects are also so important to us, and it’s a pipe dream now to start moving into publishing or maybe find a physical space for our label. A gallery space that serves all the purposes we’d need – live shows, bar, salt beef bagels, coffee, fine books.

In your bio you describe Glasgow as being ‘one of the coolest, most innovative scenes for live music and fashion in the world’. Has it always been this way? Have things been changing at all recently?

As far as I know it’s always been this good. Maybe even better. I can’t even imagine what the first Optimo parties were like. We are the product of being into the Neptunes and backpack hip-hop, and going to see guys playing techno and electro. Or going to a bar on a Wednesday night and there is a beautiful girl singing on a stage with a synth, playing a roll of sellotape as percussion (true story). It’s a weird town. I don’t know how it got so brave. I got nothing to say it won’t keep producing amazing music. I think the scene is still very healthy cause for the most part people don’t know how cool they actually are.

Lev Harris

Lucky Me (UK) from Beck's Green Box Project on Vimeo.