Jed Smith, thus far.

A 'Dinner with Jed Smith' is a new idea of ours to use our gallery space as a 'pop-up restaurant' on the 8th and 9th of June!

Spaces are limited and the first night is over half-booked, please book and pay a deposit soon.

Jed is offering a 'prix fixe' 3 course menu which will be prepared and served in the gallery.
It will cost £30 per head, feel free to bring your own alcohol for after your meal. There will be appropriate drinks served with the meal too.

Please book via an RSVP to brook@factoryroadgallery.net

If you have any questions, please ask!

Below are the reasons that we asked Jed to create a menu for the gallery:

We first met Jed in a record store in 2006 (he was very enthusiastic about new music and still is). When Sarah had a show on in London later that year and we needed some food doing for the opening reception. A friend pulled a team together, who unbeknown to us included that record store boy...

Jed's enthusiasm for food and music had such a positive impact on us that we knew he'd be our man for food at the next show, New York 2007. Full of enthusiasm, maturity, energy and skill, he hid any nerves with aplomb, creating beautiful platters of colour and joy from local sources on an 'inventive' budget. The Manhattanites devoured them.

Jed later returned to Leicester with grand ambitions, writing directly to Pierre Gagnaire (holder of 3 Michelin stars in Paris and many others around the world) with a little Inkymole magic on the envelope. He was put forward for a job at Sketch in London and remained there, working his way up through the ranks before leaving in 2010.

He hailed a unicorn back to New York to focus on eating his way through the city, whilst also searching for the perfect place to work. A chance meeting in a speakeasy with David Chang gave Jed the opportunity to ask him for a job. There and then, he was offered a chance to flex his skills. Within days, those skills had got him the job at Momofuku.

In 2012 Jed got back on his curly-horn'd steed to head north to Montreal to work with a friend at the Sugar Shack for an intense 3 months, under the watchful eye of Martin Picard (Au Pied de Cochon). He participated in the production of the area's renowned and precious maple syrup and cooked an obscene amount of animals, vegetables, grains and minerals.

Now he's back in the UK, walking his dog (Barker - star of the flyerl) amongst borage flowers and along the prom at Felixstowe, watering geraniums, feeding chickens and creating heron traps with his grandad, while he concocts his menu for Factoryroad Gallery's pop-up restaurant.

After this event and a family wedding he returns to Canada, but Toronto this time for the opening of David Chang's new restaurant. We hope he'll return, but it's a big world and Jed wants not just a big bite, but a little taste of just about as many of its delights as he can possibly manage.

As consultant and go-to for anything edible at all our weird and wonderful events for the past five years, we continue to engage with Jed's skills and infectious enthusiasm, and hope that by doing so has played a part in his continuing evolution as a culinary artist. We greatly anticipate his next move.

DJ Food and Henry Flint

Factoryroad Gallery are ridiculously excited to announce our new show!

Flint and Food: An exhibition of artwork from DJ Food’s new album ‘The Search Engine’, and Henry Flint’s book ‘Broadcast’, originally shown at Pure Evil, London, now brought to the Midlands by
Factoryroad Gallery.

Original comic art, drawings, limited edition prints, moving image, photography, vinyl and...food!

As usual there'll be locally-brewed ale by Church End Brewery, themed food by Jed Smith and things to buy.

DJ Food (aka Strictly Kev aka Kevin Foakes) is not only a friend but a musical favourite whom we've known and admired since 1996. Something of a role model for Factoryroad, his role in the evolution of one of the most important independent record labels, Ninja Tune, and the musical genres it nurtured cannot be underestimated. His career has evolved steadily along a rich and productive path, and is interwoven with many other significant artists and genres. He is also recognised for his contribution to the evolution of digital scratch technology and expanding the possibilities of turntablism, as well as being responsible for the majority of Ninja Tune's artwork and visual direction.

Henry Flint is a long established comic artist who came to prominence on 2000AD, drawing Judge Dredd. Kev has been a fan and collector of his artwork for years and finally achieved his ambition to work with him when he collaborated on his most recent album as DJ Food, 'The Search Engine', released in January this year. You'll see Judge Dredd making an honorary appearance below (in pictures from the original show at Pure Evil) and his comic book work has the writhing, muscly appearance you'd associate with big superheroes wielding massive weapons and snarling metal-headed foes. Tiny details, massive explosions, lip-curling grimaces and alien skins are all rendered in juicy blank ink, spontaneous yet minutely rendered.

Kev will be joining us for an ale on the night.

Opening night attendance is strictly via an RSVP to: gallery@factoryroad.net
Please let us know you're coming!

You can read about Henry Flint here:
http://henryflint.wordpress.com/

and DJ Food here:
http://www.djfood.org

Opening night Friday 1st June 2012
Show open until Friday 15th June (viewing welcome at any time, but by appointment - please email us to check we will be able to show you around!)

Press enquiries: brook@factoryroadgallery.net
PDF flyer downloadable here: http://inkymole.com/download/Flint&Food_Factoryroad.pdf     

Loft sale!

The gallery space is a bit of a multi-tasker you know. When it's not showing our favourites from our own picture collection, or being used as a spontaneous display area by the likes of Lily it is home to an industrial-looking wood-burner with a magnetic glow of its own and a couple of very dark sculptures by Strangedolls.

We also recently had a Loft Sale which wasn't in our loft - in fact we took things out of our loft room and put on a fete-style sale with cakes and cups of tea, and invited whoever fancied a rummage to come and have one. We have recently had to address the cold hard truth of our enormous vinyl, CD and book collection; fact is, we've either played them all, read them all or have duplicates, and space was needed for our new living space which used to be our working space. (If you're still with me, well done).

So we opened the doors at ten in our shopkeeper aprons and enjoyed a steady stream of the familiar and unfamiliar faces as they juggled hardbacks, icing and 12"s. Many things found new homes, to our great satisfaction - the Stylophone complete with packaging and instruction manual is now being played again by Andy;  the slide projector is back in action courtesy of Andy's mate (and a couple of Leigh's shirts); the students at the local art college now have their own mini-lending-library of design, illustration and type books, and Sara is finally drawing in those square sketchbooks I bought but could never get along with, because they're square.

Additionally we were visited by the enthusiastic Kerry and Colin from Leeds, two locally-based creatives who had no idea we lived where we did - who just happened to spot a Tweet about the sale. They then just happened to find themselves in our high street, and were amazed to find we were ten minutes from them. They too left with cake in their bellies, advice, some semblance (we think!) of a creative community within a mile of them, and a stack of type books.

There was joy to be had listening to Matt K emitting the kinds of audiophilic sounds of ecstasy only heard in certain kinds of films, as he unearthed track after track he'd either wanted but never bought, missed out on, or never found. He left with a fulsome bag of joy which he was still weeping over when he posted this picture on Facebook, once kids were in bed and headphones were on:

Anyway. We enjoyed ourselves and we think other people did too. Nice to have such an adaptable space, and cake tins sufficient to make 36 buns at once.

Seeing in the New Year!

Seeing in the New Year this year, Inkymole roped in some more volunteers for finger daubing and stop-frame experiments.
Enjoy

Inkymole's Happy New Year! from Sarah Coleman Inkymole on Vimeo.

Christmas time!

The Factoryroad Gallery didn't sit still for Christmas, it came alive with the finger daubings of a gaudy greetings card!
Enjoy the video:

Merry Christmas from Inkymole! from Sarah Coleman Inkymole on Vimeo.

Adventures with Dick.

Question: What have all these photographs got in common?Is it:
a) they all have human beings in them?
b) they all seem to have been taken in front of some kind of drawing?
or is it
c) they all show ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE SMILES?

The answer is ALL of the above, but eleven million points if you guessed C, because that is the right answer!

Yep. When we asked Richard Hogg to come and play in the gallery space, we hadn't bargained for the swooping great lift in our spirits he would bring with him. Or the special animals packed in his magic Google case. Or his skills with unprompted tea-making. Nor did we see the massive onion rings and pink fairy armadillo cakes coming.

From the moment he swept in through the door in a red cardy laced with autumn chill and a Dulux colour chart you wanted to eat, we knew we'd made a good decision. A week in the Factoryroad/Inkymole studios not only produced a magical wall painting which grew drawing-by-drawing plucked daily from the environs, it brought walls full of much-purchased prints and unprecedented smiling from every human who crossed the threshold. Richard's work, who many will be familiar with, has the ability to distil an occurrence, a thought, a scenario, with the delicious simplicity of a man who sees right through the flimflam and into the essence of something...and then draws it for you with love and care. It's childlike in its directness, but not childish. But his work can make you feel five again, and light on your toes.

They say every day's a school day, and during the week we were allowed to look into his sketchbooks and his toolboxes, and bits of his brain. We all had our work to get on with of course, so every pause to YouTube a newly-discovered animal (a list is provided at the bottom) or put on a record was chastened by a feeling that 'we need to get on', but we needn't have worried; the work flowed, in a surprisingly grown-up kind of way. We even stopped for lunch every day, boiled sweets and only played Richard's game a bit.

The opening night was full of people sipping the ale, the specially-requested Corona'n'lime, and eventually once the beer took hold, the cups of hot pumpkin soup and fresh-made bread. And they couldn't stop smiling. Even the walls were smiling. Everyone played nicely on Hohokum, Richard's game (which to the annoyance of the children the next day CAN'T be downloaded anywhere yet!) and no-one Hogged the controller.

We can't really say a lot more other than the technicals at the bottom, as we think the pictures speak for themselves. Which is after all what every illustrator really hopes for, isn't it? 

A full gallery of images from the opening night can be seen here: http://gallery.me.com/inkymole#100021

And one from the next day's pumpkin-carving too: http://gallery.me.com/inkymole#100028
Scroll down for more, after the smiley photos. Taken by Michelle Campbell and Inkymole.

 

 

http://www.h099.com

Richard designed these special teat owls for us, which you can buy in the Factoryroad shop:
http://www.factoryroad.bigcartel.com/product/richard-hogg-tea-towel

And here are some animals about which you will spend the rest of your day thinking, 'how did I not know about these before?'
- Axelotl
- Pangolin
- Pink Fairy Armadillo

Herculean thanks to Grimsby Fishery, Leicester.

Our next show is by

www.h099.com
Opening night Friday 21st October, from 6.30pm.

Richard will be taking over the wall space of Factoryroad Gallery with his brushes and paints!

Richard is an artist and designer who also makes videogames such as Poto and Cabenga, Frobisher Says and Hohokum. Originally from Leicestershire, this will be the first time he is showing his work in the town since his A-level exhibition (he got a B). He currently lives in Crystal Palace, South London. Richard used to be a part of the notorious design company Airside. He is also in the band Satan's Cock.

And if we are very fortunate, he may also be wowing us with his world-famous pumpkin carving skills.
His work is sprightly and charming, and never fails to plaster a smile on our faces!

RSVP please - since this is a working studio as well as a gallery space, we need you to let us know if you're coming. Thanks!