the last two weeks have mostly been taken up with the art of curating (most of this strange year has so far), “and with good reason” she said, (And with good) Reason, a third and final on-line art exhibition brought to you by Cultivate during these strange locked-down virus-fearing times. When we first planned April’s #43Artists show, the first of what has now become a trilogy of on-line exhibitions, we had no idea that this Covid thing was coming and that our gallery doors would have to close with very very little warning – yes, we had planned an on-line show in April anyway, before what would have been more physical shows in May. Lockdown (and the financial fallout that has followed) had of course put a stop to all current physical shows (as well as future plans) and so one on-line exhibition quickly evolved and became three, this is the third.

This time we have 39 artists and two hundred (images of) pieces of art, once again the show is brought to you by Cultivate founders Emma Harvey and myself, Sean Worrall, this time we have selected, invited and including 37 of our fellow artists to show work along side some of our own pieces. Once again we have some names probably familiar to Cultivate regulars, we have some artists who have never been involved Cultivate shows before (this is our 156th show under the Cultivate banner), and we have some artists making their debuts with us, indeed some we’d not heard of less that a month ago (always exciting searching for new artists). And, yes, while looking at art on line can never ever be a serious substitute for exploring it in an actual physical gallery, there are some advantages in that we can give you those vital links and let you go explore beyond our exhibition, we can also feature the work of people from all over the world, rather than just work from those who can realistically get their work to us for a physical show here in London.

This bit is important, those links (and using them) are so vitally important and so this time, rather than actually tell you what you’re looking at in terms of a description, a tittle, a size, an indication of medium and such like we have done with the previous on-line shows, this time we’ve decided we’re deliberately just going to give you the name of the artist and then at the foot of the exhibition we’re going to give you the link to each of the artists in the hope that you will (please) go and find out more, that you will go and explore, maybe communicate, that you will go find out if their paintings are big, if they work in oil or id they paint with a Polaroid camera or make linoprints of Joan Jett or acrylic paints of fruit or if their installations go further than what you see on this page – what is Lidia Lidia’s art about? Who is Jessica Hill? how big or small are those wonderful Liz Griffiths pieces? This time we’ve decided to only give you the visual information and very little else besides that all important link and rather then labelling each piece in the traditional way, this time, with good reason, all you are going to get is the image, the name and the link, all about those links that take you further.

It has been exciting exploring all the art for these three shows, exploring the artist’s websites, exploring the responses to the open call element of these three shows (this time 14 of the 39 artists involved were via an open call), personally I’ve enjoyed that part of the lockdown that has been the hours and days putting together these three, we have no idea what the future holds right now for us as artists or indeed for us as the people who bring you Cultivate but if this is it (and we really hope it isn’t, a tiny bit of that emergency funding that Art Council England have been dishing out too so many others would have been helpful when we really really needed a lifeline), if this is the last Cultivate exhibition then I think these three on-line shows following on from the success of the Nothing is Square Part Two show over by Columbia Road here in East London back in March have been good strong positive notes to end it all on. .Do please explore the art and enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed putting it together, do hit some of those links and do watch this space with good reason. Thanks everyone, keep looking, keep creating, contact and switch the other, this thing will not blow over, hopefully there will be more cultivating, art is a force for good, it bring people together in the right way and right now we really need that  .

And please, don’t be looking at the art on one of those damn tiny phones, get it on the big screen like we intended it to be… click on an image to enlarge or to run the slide show.  I make no appologies for jsut showing shots of my part on this page, this website is mostly focused on my personal art and yes, I do consider Cultivate to be part of thar artistic statement, but if you do want to explore the art of the other 38 artists then here’s the link that takes you directly to the exhibition