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A CURATOR of contemporary art who debuted at the Old Fire Station Gallery in Henley last summer was so successful that he is launching a gallery in the town.
Spray in Friday Street officially opens at 6pm today (Friday) and all are welcome to go along for a drink.
The gallery is the brainchild of 25-year-old Sam Farlow, from Park Corner, near Nettlebed.
He says: “I will be there for a get-together to open the gallery and celebrate the artists and the gallery’s debut.
“This is a contemporary art gallery promoting the Montpellier street art movement, a celebration of the artists’ work.
“It will be a funky environment to show off their eclectic and diverse creativity. These are your raw, real deal, hard-working artists and they’ve all got a street studio story.
“I’m being supported by the Prince’s Trust to open this gallery so I’m very excited to collaborate with our neighbours and the Henley community and welcome everybody into the space.” Sam discovered the work of street and graffiti artists when he spent time in Montpellier, close to the Mediterranean in the south of France, during his university years.
He says: “I was quite shocked at how many people came to see this artwork, which was all very good. I was very surprised.”
He attended the Oratory School in Woodcote and then studied French and classics at the Royal Holloway University of London. For his third year, he went to the south of France.
“I studied in Montpellier for six or seven months just before the university that I was studying in got shut down because of covid, so I had to come back,” says Sam.
“But while I was there, I came across all this beautiful street art and graffiti.
“It sort of enhanced the beauty of the city, its architecture and its medieval walls.
“I just wanted to know more about the history and importance of the street art which adorned the city so I met these artists, who would paint in broad daylight or at night.
“I would meet them in their studios for a chat and because I was so impassioned, curious and fascinated by their creativity on the streets, I ended up doing a dissertation for my final year at university on their work.
“I looked at the importance of their work as a movement in Montpellier and their role as a movement globally.
“I took my passion to Exeter University to study a master’s in contemporary art curation and from there I had this vision to promote and showcase these artists who I’d created a rapport with and wanted to start a gallery.”
Sam was mentored by the Prince’s Trust. He spent six weeks at the Camden Art Centre in London and was mentored by experts with an internship at the Maddox Gallery in Mayfair and Westbourne Grove.
Now he is working with five artists from Montpellier, Olivier Secretan, known as Ose, Salamech, Sunra, Little Lewis and Oups.
“It’s a very carefully curated, reasonably small roster of artists who are now bursting on to the UK contemporary art scene with Spray Gallery,” says Sam.
“We have the pleasure of representing the likes of the iconic Sunra, breakout artist Little Lewis and showcasing the intricacies and fine details of the mind-blowing Ose.
“He currently focuses on rocks and studying them, spending hundreds of hours fine-tuning every fine detail, every nook and cranny of the caving of the rocks, and producing a chef d’oeuvre [masterpiece].
“We have a few surprises up our sleeves with these celebrated artists and Spray is looking forward to bringing their work into the homes of Henley residents.”
• Spray Gallery is at 2 Friday Street, Henley, open Monday to Friday, 11am to 5pm, and Saturday and Sunday, 11am to 4pm. For more information, visit
www.spraygallery.co.uk
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