Hastings exhibition welcomes a "punk Picasso"

“Two years ago I was an unknown, naive artist who showed some daubs and mixed media nonsense at 1000 Postcards in Hastings. I may still be unknown, but now I'm smart enough to round up some proper artists to take part in the Rip It Up exhibition in The Mews. It used to be St Andrews Market and now it's reborn as a something smarty, arty and edgy called The Mews.

“I knew of Susan Diamond for years, hard not to as Susan continues to turn heads and cause a stir on the international and local art scene, her large acrylic works, oozing attitude and spitting sparks, the bold strokes made with, gold, fluorescent and silver paint. I always think of a punk Picasso when I look at her alien figures, strange cityscapes and sensual, eye-popping pop art. I think it's why her work is hung in galleries and homes around the world, but I wanted more. So I passed a bookshop in St Leonards and some mixed media work that more arrested than caught my eye. I thought we have to have this and I managed to get hold of the artist, Anna Bachene. Anna is an intense artist, I mean she's nice and I recently described her work as decorative and decadent. Anna always has at least three works in progress on any one day.

“I saw the work of Richard Heslop on a well-known social networking site and we were Friends before this show was planned, but I asked him to take part and he said yes. This was a nice surprise as Richard is a busy guy.

"He's as likely to be cutting you a new music video as he is hand crafting some weirdly provocative photo montage.

"Peter Quinnell is an apparently effortless polymath who actually works very hard. From pin-sharp graphic design that matches a brief tighter than a budgie-smuggler to multi-metaphorical collages and outrageously literal boxed sets.

"Then there's me. I am still Shane O'Leary and still representing as Using Glue and I'm still cross, amazed, alarmed and hopeful in unequal measures and I may be better, or worse, or, even worse, unchanged. I hope that people will come to see our work, a collective work and to quote Freddie Mercury, the one vision that is Rip It Up at The Mews this August.”

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