We Are…

…an art gallery that specialises in ‘art for the global village’: contemporary art that is relevant to the new world of online and offline space. Our Founding Directors share a love of printmaking and an academic interest in the artistic and philosophical revolution of print.  The work we curate is created in the midst of another revolution: the web revolution.  Art that can be simultaneously reproduced, that is interactive, that has something to say about our world of instantaneous connection, gratification and the new artisanal design and function that symbolises our age - and most importantly that passes our stringent aesthetic judgement - has a place in the Blue Rim World.

A bit more…

The invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century was like a jump-cable on the art and philosophy of the next few centuries. It changed the way people saw things and saw themselves. The renaissance, the reformation, the enlightenment are all directly attributable to the new ways of seeing the world through the new lens: the long, structured lines of print. Now, with the advent of the web, we are on the cusp of something similarly epochal. The lines become webs; the nature and role of art changes in this new, instantly-connected world, what the Canadian media guru Marshall Mcluhan called, ‘The Global Village.‘

Marshall Mcluhan is the discarnate deity of the Blue Rim World. His ideas of the tribal role of art in the electronic age, that, in a global village, ‘everyone is an artist,’ ask new questions and sets new challenges and poses ever stricter tests to the ‘professional’ artists of today.  Also, his guiding mantra, ‘the medium is the message,’ (and massage) sets up a series of challenges for contemporary art in an age of multimedia (multimedia being the web, the television, the felt tip pen, the plastic mould, the apple ipod, the dyson vacuum cleaner, distressed jeans… et cetera…)

From intricate drawings with crass marker pens on large, delicate sheets of muslin, to stunning experiments in eighteenth century Japanese woodblock prints, to beautifully crafted books of art for you to colour in, our art is eclectic but shares resonant characteristics: skill, craftsmanship, the dedication of an artisan, a certain interactivity, originality allied to function. It is art for the global village.

Our prints are all exclusive, signed, numbered and of limited edition. Our orginal art works are just that - originals. We do not sell reproductions of old art works. We curate shows online and offline and hold private viewings at selected times at our premises and online, to members.

In curating Art for the Global Village, and looking to exploit the new spaces and cultural interactions offered by the web, we provide a grounding for the new connection between artist and viewer. This, we believe, has the potential to be one of the most exciting developments in the visual art of our age.

More Info

Marshall Mcluhan, the Discarnate Deity of the Blue Rim World
The Global Village
Decent Essay on Print Culture and its Influence

Our Directors

Asheem Singh, Founding Director/CEO

As well as being an curator, Ash is a writer and authority on innovation and social enterprise. His writing reinterprets some of Marshall Mcluhan’s theories on the impact of print culture on the human consciousness in light of the web, and applies them to the worlds of politics, economics and art. A former aide to Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, he is a graduate of the school of law at the University of Oxford and the world-renowned Creative Writing MA at the UEA.

Petra Kwan, Founding Director/COO

Petra is an expert in printmaking, especially the graphic arts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She began her career working at the art publishing house, Phaidon Press, after which she has made printmaking her specialism while studying art history at the renowed Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Here she has encountered the theories of Eisenstein and Mcluhan. She is a graduate in modern languages at the University of Oxford and has worked in the British Museum’s Prints & Drawings department. Petra handles much of the Gallery’s liason work with artists, established and new.