Ira Cohen is one of the most outstanding artists of our time. This exhibition will feature Cohen’s famous mylar images which he created in the late 60's in his loft on the Lower East Side, New York City. Among the artists reflected in his mirror were John McLaughlin, William Burroughs, Jimi Hendrix and Angus MacLise.

Hassan Massoudy is an artist for whom the word itself remains the most sublime creative force. He speaks of his work as 'a field of energy subjected to the rhythm that I impose on the movement of the letters [...]'

An exhibition of the work of Three Native American artists of Ojibwe Descent - Frank Big Bear, Andrea Carlson & Star Wallowing Bull

(left: Andrea Carlson, Mashkikii - Medicine, 2006. Oil and Ink on Paper)

Born in 1924, in Ikeda City (part of present-day Osaka) Yoshida studied art under the great Hayashi Kiyoshi and also Furukido, before those studies were interrupted by the war. Selected for training as a kami-kaze pilot, Yoshida was extremely lucky to survive his teens - though the majority of his close friends were not so fortunate. After the close of hostilities, the memory of the traumatic experience of having walked so near to death spurred Yoshida to throw himself single-mindedly into his art again, and devote himself to a sustained exploration of the life-affirming forces that he had seen so nearly extinguished. From that point onwards the majority of his work has carried the single, most telling of all titles, 'Life'.

(above: Kenji Yoshida, Inochi To Heiwa (Life and Peace) 2005. Oil and Metal on Canvas, 195 x 520 cm

The global movement of people has always been a source of fertility, growth and creativity; the vital pulse of humanity. But if a voyage is inflicted on others as an act of violence, how should it be remembered? In the final stage of a major project to mark the 2007 bicentenary of the abolition of Britain’s slave trade, the October Gallery presents works by four artists reflecting on the notion of the ‘Voyage’, in particular that most laden of historical journeys, the movement of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic ‘Middle Passage’.

(above: Julien Sinzogan, Egun I, mixed media on canvas, 130.7cm x 90cm)

The October Gallery has commissioned three leading visual artists from West Africa to create works to mark the bicentenary of the UK’s parliamentary abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Selected for their uncompromising and visual engagement with the histories that connect Africa, Europe and the Americas, the artists each map personal and universal relationships between past and future, yet in three very different ways.

(above: Romuald Hazoumé, And from there they leave, panoramic photograph, © of the artist 2006.)