Egoiste Gallery
Based in the legendary Afflecks, Egoiste is a small but impactful new voice. A well curated selection of artists has insured a loyal base of patrons. Their steady rise led to them being finalists of the Gallery of the Year 2018 category at the Northern Soul awards (hosted at the Manchester Cathedral). The gallery specialises in portraits and is reminiscent of Andy Warhol`s vision of POP Art, while also exhibiting traditional work.
Egoiste Gallery is owned and run by Andrew Courtenay and Baiba Auria and a small team of staff. Baiba Auria is a portrait artist living and working in Manchester. She is partially sighted from birth which intensified her fascination with images and colours. She is particularly interested in the human face and a lot of her work plays with the distortion of it while retaining recognisability. She works digitally and in oil, but has gained most acclaim through her unusual digital portraits of stars like David Bowie.
The future is indeed digital, as Egoiste also represents Manchester’s own world renowned digital artist Stanley Chow whose work can be found anywhere from our Metrolink to the New Yorker and The Guardian. He also specialises in portraits and has a very recognisable iconic style using a refined colour palette. His current exhibition is at The Great Northern-“10 Great Northerners”. Anyone familiar with modern art will be aware of Pure Evil (Charley Uzzell)- exhibited and loved worldwide, he is particularly famous for his teardrop portraits. Descended from Thomas More (author of “Utopia”, beheaded by Henry VIII), Charley is a true original. Egoiste have been stocking his limited editions and it is lovely to see an artist of his stature supporting small independent galleries.
The gallery also stocks official portraits of David Bowie which are licenced by his estate and created by Richard Miller. Not to be missed are Richards drawings of artists like Bowie and Nick Cave.
Mosaic art has always been loved in Manchester– there are some great examples on the external walls of Afflecks. Egoiste offers exclusive originals and prints of mosaic artist Leaky. Inspired by music, growing up loving Motown, Soul, The Beatles, Matthew creates evocative portraits. His works are often mixed media- the techniques used in graffiti street art and the more robust ceramic mosaics. This creates a very unusual effect which you can see on display at the gallery in a spellbinding portrait of Chris Cornell. Another great talent to mention is Egoiste`s latest acquisition John Soonaye. Based in Manchester, John has a keen eye for character and expression. His skilful and often topical drawings really capture the subjects and have been noticed by a host of celebrities like Seth Rogen and Ricky Gervais. To see works by these artists and others (Sonia Dalga , ClarkCrawford, Italian Liva Pakalne-Fenelli, Matt Hopper, Henry Martin, Dark Mark and more), visit them on the third floor at Afflecks.
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