Art for The Soul Art Exhibition and Benefit Online Silent Auction

Venue: Online
Starts: Wednesday, December 1, 2021
Ends: Friday, December 3, 2021
Address: Online
Location: London
Organiser: Laura I. Art Gallery CIC

Multi-Award Winning Laura I. Art Gallery is pleased to invite you to our last event of the year to celebrate the end of a successful year through a live online event that will result in raising money for a very special project to inspire and support children in need in a unique collaboration with Future Youth Zone Children center.

With twelve curated exhibitions and with over 50k people we reached out to and with over 2000 people that attended this year, we will culminate our program of events into a celebration of good art, talent, friendship and bring inspiration to young people from Barking and Dagenham.

The event Laura I. Art Gallery is hosting will take place online and will be accessible for all art lovers across the world. It will showcase one artwork piece by each of our talented artists that we represent. All attendees will be able to bid on their favorite piece and get the chance to take it home. The works will be presented in a virtual gallery-style format as well as through a private view that will take place over Zoom. This will allow bidders to view the pieces in their own time as well as surrounded by other works, as if to replicate an in person viewing. In the private view, our Gallery Direction, Laura Iosifescu, along with all of the artists will discuss each piece and give in depth background information if bidders express interest.

Our Benefit silent auction was organised not only to help emerging artists’ careers and give them a chance to become part of the market but also as a non-profit organization we aim to hand out 100 gift creative boxes before Christmas to 100 children and young people affected by poverty, abuse, neglect, life-limiting illness, and those who have additional needs from Barking and Dagenham. To ensure the children receive the gifts we have partnered up with Future Youth zone centre which was inaugurated by The Duke of Cambridge, Prince William with a community of over 5000 children.

We invite our supporters, stakeholders, and art lovers to bid on artworks and raise funds for this amazing project which is so much needed as Barking and Dagenham, where we are based, has got one of the highest rates of poverty and crime in London. Barking and Dagenham has the third highest poverty rate of all the boroughs in London with a child poverty rate of 37%. Similarly, 46% of 19 year olds in the area do not have any qualifications at all. We hope to bring creativity and excitement to these children and inspire them to push their creativity in all aspects of their life.

We would like to provide art packages for these kids which will include acrylic pens, canvas boards, glitter, cards, pompoms, and general craft materials. On top of this, we have tasked our artists with creating a drawing that the kids can colour in. We aim to put these all into one colouring book for each of the packages. With an environmental mindset, the books will be made using recycled and recyclable materials and the drawings will teach the children about important world causes and issues. Each of our artists play a significant role in their communities and explore different issues through their work. They hope to have a greater impact on the world, just as we do, therefore, we are all working together to provide this support for our gallery’s local community.

By bidding on a work you’ll be buying more than a beautiful artwork. You will be a social activist, improving many lives through Laura I. Art Gallery CIC’s work. So please, be generous. Help us provide inspiration and support for many vulnerable young people and their families at a critical time in their lives, after a critical moment in all our histories.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/art-for-the-soul-art-exhibition-and-benefit-online-silent-auction-tickets-213881293707

Laura Iosifescu

Laura is a professional artist and the founder of Laura I.Art Gallery.She currently lives and works in London. She developed her basic skills in traditional art during her time at the Fine Art High school in Romania but found herself reaching her full potential as a student in the Department of Fine Art at the University of East London. From there she went on to open her own local gallery where she is currently curating a series of exhibitions. As an artist, Laura is best known for her re-interpretation of the medium of paint as an aesthetic vehicle. Utilising self-designed machines and other unconventional techniques as tools to manipulate paint, she challenges the viewer by re-examining how paint can be transformed in her collection of wall mounted “living paintings” - flowerscapes with depth and colour introduced by her signature style.. The flower motifs are intended to represent and investigate an accumulation of life experiences and ideals to do with freedom and courage, life and death, identity and belief, which are channelled into her art through her three dimensional forms and colours. Eventually dissatisfaction with the format of wall mounted paintings, a feeling that the medium was imprisoned by the canvas, led to a series of experiments culminating in Laura’s revolutionary Blossom Escape, which transformed her flowerscapes into the real world in the form of a floral dress made entirely of paint. It has been recognized and highly praised by the press, and by well established professionals in the art world and was shown in an exhibition at Saatchi Gallery alongside work shown by artists such as Tracey Emin ,Marc Quinn, Gavin Turk, Idris Khan and Xavier Mascaro. She has displayed her work throughout the UK and in France and Portugal and in New Orleans and Los Angeles in the USA. Her work has been published in Landscape Art Review, La Dolce Vita magazine, HESA Inprint magazine, and in The State of Art vol 2 published by Bare Hill and there has been press coverage in the Financial Times, the Guardian and in the local press and on the web. Sixty per cent of Laura’s work is now in private collections around the world which makes her work a great investment. In 2016 Laura opened the first contemporary art gallery in Barking, Essex, an area which is now at the forefront of regeneration in East London. The gallery was inaugurated by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London and Darren Rodwell, the leader of the local Council. She is currently curating a series of exhibitions in her own space at the Gallery, including the highly successful Blessings of Life and Codes of Faith, and is embarking upon a series of art workshops. Laura Iosifescu is an idealistic young artist who believes in a world where beliefs and cultures no longer separate people but can be shared and celebrated. Her aim is to break down barriers, including those between artist and audience, and foster a collaborative and creative community in this part of London. With highly successful curatorial exhibitions and painting workshops in The Laura I. Gallery in Barking, Laura is truly inspired towards making this world a better place through art.