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Grae J. Wall – Sambucca @ Nambucca and other stories
Jerome Fogarty-Young – My Cartoon Life

A combined exhibition

My own contributions follow on very much from my last few exhibitions at The Old Town Hall and The Railway in Tulse Hill. Some are straight from camera to print whilst others are digitally manipulated. The overall connection is the weird wonderful and sometimes vaguely warped characters that inhabit my Trashville life.

This year Trashville has expanded to encompass both a micro-label and a regular London night at Nambucca, a venue that has seen the likes of The Arctic Monkeys and The Holloways tread its boards, and some of the shots are from this club night, whilst others are from the various other nights I promote and visit. My inspirations remain Warhol’s Factory, Punk fanzine culture, cafe-capturing photo-couture and a touch of Vegas go-go.

My nephew Jerome is not much of a writer, though he has taught himself a number of useful words for googling purposes. He is also a minimalist when it comes to conversation, sticking pretty much to single important words on an occasional basis. As such I’ll try and give you an idea of who he is and where his ideas come from.

Jerome is a 13 year old resident of St Albans who lives with his mum and his sister. Jerome is autistic and attends Watling View School in St. Albans. Jerome has loved cartoons for as long as I can remember, starting off with Noddy and Rupert the Bear and moving on to Disney and Super Mario Brothers. Jerome enjoys movies, books and going out to gigs etc. but one of his main pastimes is surfing the net for images of his favourite cartoon characters, and looking for new inspirations such as fruit machine artwork.

Sometimes Jerome uses paper and pens and sometimes art programmes on his computer. Whilst inspiration can be spotted from some of the aforementioned influences, most of the characters that Jerome depicts are very much of his own creation. I think one of his strengths is his command of perspective and characterisation. As well as character pictures Jerome will occasionally produce pictures which are more abstract in feel. Some might describe his work as “primitive” or “outsider” art, but I just think of it as Jerome’s art.

Jerome attended the private view of my last exhibition at The Old Town Hall and enjoyed it very much, and it was here that the plot began to offer a combined exhibition.

Grae J. Wall

Grae J & Los Chicos Muertos performing Last of the original Young Trash Lovers
unplugged at the private view of the exhibition held at Hemel Hempstead Old
Town Hall Arts Centre, Friday June 1 2007 (featuring Alba aged 3 on tambourine)

Grae J. Wall

Grae J. Wall studied photography at St. Albans College of Art and Design in the early 90’s. He has had images published in such diverse places as Making Music (national music magazine), 95% (youth arts magazine), DJ (national club culture magazine), Maverick (national country music mag) and German/Finish alternative culture magazine Sanomat, along with The Arts Council of England’s annual report, Bubblegum Slut fanzine, hundreds of posters and flyers and a number of alternative music and band websites.

Grae has had three exhibitions at The Old Town Hall Arts Centre, Hemel Hempstead and one at The Railway in Herne Hill as well as curating a large scale outdoor exhibition in the parks of St Albans.

Grae J. has been a performer and promoter for many years, fronting bands such as The Sindys, The Trailer Trash Orchestra (who performed at Glastonbury 2004 on the Lost Vagueness stage) and performing in pan European Lo Fi collective The Anglo German Low Stars.

Grae J. spent some years as a Youth Arts worker before becoming the Music Animateur for Hertfordshire and then The Contemporary and Community Music Officer for the Arts Council of England. Since leaving the Arts Council he has worked freelance on a number of projects, most latterly as promoter of Club Attitude, part of the Attitude is Everything project that promotes improved access to venues and festivals for disabled artists and audiences.