Pop! An Empty Shop Fills With Art
By JULIA WERDIGIER
August 31, 2009

LONDON — Three months ago Simon Tarrant, a 44-year-old painter here who has never had gallery representation and has had only two solo shows in his 15-year career, decided to try something different. He approached the owners of a vacant building on a busy street in one of London’s most affluent neighborhoods, and by June he had turned it into an exhibition space, where two of his semi-abstract landscapes now hang prominently.

The Queen’s Elm in London, once a renowned pub, has been turned by a group of artists into a temporary gallery.

Lee Johnson, and another curator set up DIY London Seen, a three-week exhibition in the Covent Garden area. Formerly a shop for beauty products, the space still smells like soap.

With its four floors of high ceilings and big windows, the building — formerly a fashion boutique on Fulham Road in Chelsea — makes an ideal gallery for Mr. Tarrant’s art, along with that of 14 of his friends and acquaintances.
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