The Concrete Hermit has had a pretty good track record of introducing London to some of the finest illustrators and Artist the world has to offer and “Off the Wall” by Richard Hogg is no exception. I had pretty high expectations for “Off The Wall” as all the work displayed was going to be brand new to me. So imagine my delight when turning the corner on Club Row to enter the gallery and being instantly greeted by this guy:

The gentleman above pretty much sets the tone for what “Off The Wall” is all about; a very enjoyable exhibition full of  colourful characters that don’t take themselves too seriously. This exhibition was the first time i had seen the work of graphic artist Richard Hogg, one of the highlights from the show was his minimal use of colour in the pictures, i don’t think that any piece had more then four or five colours in, and because of this your eyes are drawn to certian ”coloured” characters in crowed pictures, i found that this made the pieces more inviting to study.

The show also saw the return of the artists utilisation of wall space by projecting their work directly onto the walls of the Hermit. Giving the artists this freedom to mess around with the environment inside the gallery makes the Hermits shows feel unique  in that the temporary images shown there will only last for the run of the show before being painted over again.

It should be noted that the cute characters marching through forests and sweet stories of bricks flying from the wall might be a little too much for some. Personaly, i found the work had a lot of charm and their were even some darker subjects thrown in for good measure, such as a naked woman getting high or a man being squashed by a machine.

If you enjoy the work of Dave the Chimp or Lazy Oaf then i encourage you to check out Richard Hogg as you’ll get a lot out of it, for those of you who take your “art” a little more seriously then this is probably not for you. I’ll be keeping a close eye on Richard in the future and look forward to his book “Car Boot Sale” due fro release later this year.

Exhibition Rating:   8 out of 10

(check out Richards band “Satan’s Cock” at www.myspace.com/satanscock)