ref: aRk Nov 20-Dec 9 2018 STUDIO SIENKO GALLERY

I was a passionate printmaker from Poland, continuing my studies at Slade, at the Central School of Art & Design, and at the Royal College of Arts, after the Academy of Fine Art in Warsaw. I wanted to know all about it, as it was mysterious like alchemy and giving beautiful images, emerging from the studio full of acid, solvents, pigments and presses... Studio Sienko was founded in 1993, three years after my Royal College degree in Printmaking, to promote independent artists and printmaking as a way of expression, not a secondary craft. Borough was than deserted and local kids were throwing the stones at the gallery window.... Some 25 years and about 120 shows of all kinds of media later, we are still cruising in international free waters, showing artists from the UK, Europe and Japan, perhaps due to my college contacts. We have also had poets, concerts, theatre, art performers, Dervish turning, Butoh dancing, Sufi reading with music... A few group exhibitions, but mostly individual. Wines tasted, always good as Waipara West, my husband Paul Tutton's New Zealand vineyard, is the main sponsor. The space is within a Victorian warehouse, little changed since it has started. I saw the last carpenter, who was using it as a woodturning machinery floor... above, he had a cabinetmaking room and there were weavers' workshops on the upper floors, too. These, still active for a few years, with more artistic approach. Nowadays, there are flats above the gallery and the wine company office, which I share. I like to mix the artists of the world, see what is the most important in their work and get inspired by their talent and professionalism. London allows the world travels in culture... I like people living with original art and life music: in the time of electronic media, it is all too easy to forget the power of this contact. We now have a concert pianist in residence: Lukasz Filipczak, giving performances with his Steinway. We have fought to save Borough Market from demolition, as our guests loved to walk there when it was still a Victorian night market. We saw the creation of the Hays Gallery and the Tate Modern. I convinced Paul's friend, Don Riley, to restore the Menier Chocolate Factory for culture too, as it was my favourite building on the thendeserted Southwark Street. The area is changed, we are not the only ones anymore and it is making me happy…The omnipotent Tate machine takes the limelight in the area, but interesting people find us. Just the shortest story... Olga Sienko