Street Art Book Art launches in Soho and celebrates the artists of the Dulwich Outdoor Gallery

The Dulwich Outdoor Gallery has been a labour of love for the past few years. Curated by Ingrid Beazley, it has turned the streets of leafy Dulwich into one of the country’s must see street art destinations.

That’s because, from an un-intrusive start working on a project with Stik in 2012, the number of walls have grown as have the number of artists attracted. Now, in addition to a fine series of works from Stik, you can see Belgiums ROA, Germany’s MadC, Australia’s Reka and the USA’s Mear One. Those are just a few of the big name international street artists to have graced the walls of South London.

The Dulwich Outdoor Gallery is inspired by the Dulwich Picture Gallery, one of Englands oldest galleries where works of the Baroque hang proudly on its walls. All artists wishing to take part in the former, need to visit the latter in order to seek inspiration and that’s what makes this particular street art project so appealing, it is absolutely aimed at having cross over appeal.

The whole project was put into print last year when ‘Street Art, Fine Art‘ the grand coffee table book was published. That told the story of the gallery so far and placed images of the art next to their inspirations from the Dulwich Picture Gallery as well as the experiences of Ingrid as she curated the whole project.

Since that release more art has appeared with works from South Africas Faith 47, Irans Mehdi Ghadyanloo, Australia’s Jimmy C and UK muralist Walter Kershaw being particularly notable. All in all there are now 25 locations of high quality street art in the area which spirals out from the Dulwich Picture Gallery towards areas such as Peckham Rye, Herne Hill, West Dulwich and Sydenham Hill.

Now the book has been re-issued but, not content with a mere alternative print run, this time the artists themselves have hand-painted the covers. Showing at a hidden away gallery in the heart of Soho on Lexington Street, you needed to spot the poster outside and then ring the buzzer to get in. Once there, up a flight of stairs the hand painted books could be seen hanging against the white washed brick walls.

Now becoming canvasses in their own right it is unlikely that this unique collection will hang together again at any time in the future. The next stop on the tour is the C&C Gallery in Forest Hill but even then only a couple of the works will be presented together from each of the 15 artists.

Street Art, Book Art has all the hallmarks of being just another stop along the way as it adds to the growing reputation of the Dulwich Outdoor Gallery. It seems that the evolution of art in this part of World is continuing to take shape as street art and fine art continue to blur the lines between them.

Street Art, Book Art is a series of hand painted books created by contributing artists to the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Published by Heni Publishing, the show was held at the Heni Gallery on Lexington Street and ran from 26 June 2015 to 5 July 2015. It will next move to the C&C Gallery in Forest Hill and will run there from 10-19 July 2015. All the 69 unique covers together form the newly launched book, ‘Street Art Book Art’ soon available in 15 different covers (one from each artist) in a limited edition of 100 each. This facsimile collection costs only £10. All images in this post are copyright Heni Publishing.

Street Art, Book Art Gallery