Last night, all roads led to the opening of ‘A Colourful Life’ at Tent London in Hanbury Street, just off Brick Lane. One of the most enticing offerings during this year’s frenzied London Design Festival, this event showcased three new works from the genius that is Ian Wright.

Having known Ian Wright aka Wrighty since the early Eighties, when we both contributed to the NME (where he famously did a portrait of Grand Master Flash drawn with salt! White Lines… seen?) and having had the pleasure of commissioning him to do numerous pieces for Straight No Chaser (Art Ensemble of Chicago, Joe Claussell, J Dilla…) I was most keen to see what he had conjured up for this creative collaboration between himself, design agency Blast and Keaycolour Paper.

As Keaykolour’s “Artistic Ambassador” he follows up on previous pieces where he’s innovated with Hama beads, buttons (badges) and bottles of eye liner. This time round he has created eye popping multi layered images crafted from cut, torn, folded or sculpted paper. He confirms his commitment to re-using/re-cycling and continues to give us an insight into his undying passion for music, film, street styles and fashion.

Along with recreating his favourite boom box in 2D and embossed with numerous references he delivers the connected images of a vinyl record and its sleeve. From a distance they are thoroughly convincing but up close they reveal a stack of musical memories from Tommy Steele’s ‘Little White Bull’ to the Pretty Things’ ‘Rosalyn’ to Otis Leavill. You need to spend a little time to take it all in but I was fully engaged in a journey that pretty much mirrored my own!

One wall is dominated by a piece constructed from cones of coloured paper that further the artist’s obsession with the phenomenon that was Jimi Hendrix. Somewhere in Ian’s memory banks resides an image of Hendrix – once seen but not forgotten – and it’s that which continues to inspire his effort to capture the man’s spirit.

Jini Hendrix: A work in progress...

Unfortunately it’s only on today, tomorrow and Sunday 25th. So, if you’re in the manor don’t miss it.

Opening times: 11- 5pm
Venue: Shop 25
Old Truman Brewery
Hanbury Street
London E1 6QR

http://www.blast.co.uk/colourfullife
http://www.mrianwright.co.uk

Nice to see some faces in the house: Swifty, Chris Long, Edwin Pouncey aka Savage Pencil, Karen (NME), Kingsley Davis, Mitch et al