CowParade Coming to Surrey Hills!

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World’s largest public art event is coming to Surrey!

Hundreds of brightly-coloured cows will decorate the hills, farms, towns, schools and popular landmarks across Surrey next year with the aim of sharing the beauty of the Surrey Hills and providing a massive boost to local businesses and community projects.

Internationally-celebrated artist, and Surrey Hills resident, Alexander Creswell has agreed to be patron of the CowParade. Find out more about Alexander’s work here.

Individuals, companies and schools will sponsor life-sized cows which they will decorate themselves or with the help of an artist. The cows will then be displayed around the county before being herded to the inaugural Surrey Hills Food, Drink and Music Festival next summer where they will be auctioned off. Those judged the pick of the bunch will go to auction at a glitzy ceremony held at a unique London location later in the year.

The cow owners can choose their own charity and the auction proceeds will be split between that and the Surrey Hills Trust Fund, a charity established to conserve and protect the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, leaving a legacy for generations to come. The fund supports local community projects and enterprise schemes that benefit and enhance the Surrey Hills landscape.

CowParade was born in Switzerland in 1998 and has been staged in more than 80 cities and towns worldwide. Over the years 3,000 cows have been decorated by more than 5,000 artists. CowParade New York had 450 cows and was seen worldwide by 45 million people. The highest-grossing cow was created by designer John Rocha for CowParade Dublin in 2003 – studded with thousands of pieces of Waterford Crystal it was auctioned for $146,000 – quite a lot of moo-lah indeed.

 

About CowParade

CowParade first took place in Chicago in 1999. Since then, these large scale projects have taken place in 79 locations across the world including New York, London, Mexico, Istanbul, Paris and Buenos Aires. Over 200 million people have seen the famous cows and over $30 million dollars raised for charitable organisations at the auctions which take place at the end of each cow parade.

See more about the international arts project at www.cowparade.com

 

About the Surrey Hills

The Surrey Hills is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, one of 38 nationally protected landscapes in England and Wales. The Hills stretch across a quarter of the county of Surrey and include the chalk slopes of the North Downs from Farnham in the west to Oxted in the east and extend south to the deeply wooded Greensand Hills which rise in Haslemere. The Surrey Hills offers some of South East England’s most beautiful and accessible countryside. Famous beauty spots include Box Hill, Leith Hill and the Devil’s Punch Bowl. You’ll discover an extensive footpath network, open commons, breathtaking views, attractive market towns and villages and much more.

The CowParade will not only help to raise awareness of this special landscape but also safeguard its future through donations to the Surrey Hills Trust Fund. For further information on the Surrey Hills please visit www.surreyhills.org.

CowParade SLO Announced at California Mid-State Fair

Moo’ve over.  San Luis Obispo County has been selected to host the CowParade™, the world’s largest and premier public art exhibit. The CowParade brings together arts, education, agriculture and tourism by sponsoring life-size acrylic cow sculptures that are painted, placed throughout the county, and then sold at auction to benefit local charities.

Artist Carol Paulsen

Artist Carol Paulsen

CowParade SLO officially launched at the California Mid-State Fair, Wednesday, July 22, 2015. The CowParade SLO exhibit in the fair’s Ponderosa Pavilion will showcase two life-size, 120-pound, acrylic sculptures painted and developed by Michelle Watson, a Cuesta College art student from Harmony, California, and Carol Paulsen, a seasoned artist whose work has appeared in public spaces throughout the county. Additionally, a sculpture by Randy Gilman entitled “Daisy’s Dream” from the 2000 CowParade exhibit in New York City will be featured. “Daisy” was originally exhibited at ground level adjacent to Grand Central Station, was seen by tens of thousands of people and was the most-photographed cow in the 500-cow New York event.

The CowParade calls on sponsors large and small to commission artists to create original works of art on blank acrylic cow “canvases” for display around the county. Artists range from the amateur and unknown to the professional and renowned. The herd will then be unleashed to graze in various high-traffic locations around the San Luis Obispo County from September 2016 to April 2017 for tourists and locals alike to enjoy. The mooving exhibit will culminate in a gala and auction, with net proceeds benefiting multiple local charities.

A variety of events are scheduled throughout the year to exhibit these works of art until they are auctioned off for charity in spring 2017.

Various levels of sponsorship are available ranging from sponsorship of a single cow to a herd of cows.

By participating in the CowParade, the Central Coast joins a worldwide movement that has spanned 80 major cities. Through the enthusiasm of the local community, its sponsors and artists, the CowParade has garnered incredible success and notoriety. CowParade SLO ambassadors will be present at the exhibit throughout the duration of the California Mid-State Fair to provide information about sponsorships, artist and charity sign-ups, and ideas for getting involved in the moovement!

To learn more about how you can get involved please visit www.cowparadeslo.com.

Contact:

Linda Parker Sanpei
Parker Sanpei
Linda@ParkerSanpei.com
(805) 543-2288 or (805) 550-9150

Renowned artist, Ai Weiwei creates cow in Paris

Ai Weiwei is one of China’s most prolific and provocative contemporary artists. Ai is best known for projects such as his collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron on the 2008 Beijing Olympic National Stadium, as well as his embrace of the Internet and social media as a platform for his activism. Despite his arrest and eighty-one-day detention in 2011, Ai has continued to create art that transcends dualities between East and West. His 12 gold-plated zodiac/animal heads sold at auction for $4.3 million this past year.

Ai’s incredible life-story is featured in the award-winning documentary, “Ai Weiwei, Never Sorry” and in extensive articles in The Telegraph and New Yorker, among other publications.

Ai created the Mapping Cow as part of CowParade Transhumance France 2015 (Paris Edition). Named by the Art Review as the “most powerful artist in the world”, Ai Weiwei has created many map paintings and works over the years, and his “Mapping Cow” is emblematic of his style.

Artist: AI WEIWEI

Artist: AI WEIWEI

Featuring Artiste Christian Gastaldi (Paris)

Cow: Affichage Sauvache
Artist: Christian Gastaldi
Hometown: Sete (France) and Paris (France)
Event: CowParade Transhumance France 2015 (Paris)

Artist Chri486478_4638158233788_973874847_nstian Gastaldi is painter and mixed media artist. Raised in Sete, France,  along the shores of the Mediterranean, Christian now makes his home in Paris, France.  His paintings borrow colors and texture  from used and torn posters, magazines and other paper items.  His recent  work has been dominated by the use of posters collected from illegal postings in Paris known as “affichage sauvache” (translated, “wild or savage display”).  He is attracted by the ‘humanity’ and fragility perceived in this material which has suffered the passing of time.  The artist aims to magnify them through a restored graphic harmony – an artistic redemption.

His cow, Afficage Sauvache (or wild cow display) is a composition of illegal postings from posters and other media from the streets of Paris. You can find her in Paris, France from June 20 through August 18, 2015 at the Jardin d’Acclimation. She will be sold at auction in the fall of 2015 for the benefit of Les Restaurants du Cœur. Learn more…

 

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Featuring Alice Laverty (Paris Event)

The magnificent A PORTÉE DE MAINS (“Fingertips”) by Alice Laverty shows off the artist at her finest and most playful, focusing on the form and features of the human hand and its fingertips.

About the Artist. Alice, born in 1983, lives and creates in Paris.  A graduate of the school of art and drawing, Emile Cohl in Lyon, she moved in 2013, in her first workshop. The same year, the house Dominique Stal at Drouot sold her first paintings and she received her official listing.

Playing on false classicism, Alice  seeks to gently strike the imagination, painting characters grappling with their emotions.  Her use of color represents various human emotions. Red, representing blood and heat, for example.  Her work is also replete with dual representation – In the flesh: the hardness of the blade immersed in the smoothness of the color of the oil. In the spirit: the background form of contrasts, subjects and actions, explicit and suggested.

She tries to say “emotion”  with minimal graphics means. The desired balance point is none other than the time the witness when he feels an emotion, and the artist believes that oil is the perfect substitute for it to embody humanity: sensual, inscrutable, brilliant.

In 2014, Alice participated in group exhibitions in Paris and Neuilly-sur-Seine (92). Her next exhibition will be held in June at the “Fabrica del Vapore” in Milan where she will present twenty small canvases, medium and large format. Visit Alice at www.alice-artworks.com.

The Making of A Portée de Mains (“Fingertips”)

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