Forman's Smokehouse Gallery is a brand new art project space and factory designed by Ukraine based architect, Phil Hudson, overlooking the London 2012 Olympic Park and has been founded to provide artists with a high profile platform from which to introduce their work to new audiences.

Having had a trapeze school as a previous neighbour and now surrounded by artist's studios, owner Lance Forman is well aware that artists are often the pioneers of urban regeneration, re-energising vacant industrial landscapes through a variety of creative uses and yet live an often precarious existence, with little or no security of tenure. With spectacular exhibition space measuring more than 600 square metres (6600 sq ft) and with an unrivalled view of the new Olympic stadium, the gallery is located on the top floor of H. Forman & Son, the UK's oldest salmon smokers, which was forced to relocate to its new site by the Olympic development…Smoked salmon was made popular in London by Eastern European, Jewish immigrants in the late 19th Century and the Forman's factory has been based in this part of East London for the past 105 years. Forman is hugely supportive of the Hackney Wick and Fish Island artist community and in 2009 allowed the use of the space as a pop up gallery that hosted two exhibitions, In Place, A Wall and Jamais Vu ('Never Seen') featuring artists including Tom Trevatt, Ciaran Begley, Tina Hage and Keh Hui Ng, for the Hackney Wicked Art Festival. Forman also commissioned a group of local street artists to create a new mural in the factory cloakrooms. Each month, invited curators will select artists from the local, national and international art community to create a dynamic and varied program of exhibitions. Forman's Smokehouse Gallery launches in March 2010 with debut show, East Meets East, featuring international street artists from East London, and Eastern Europe. In keeping with East London's traditionally renegade spirit, and made relevant by the development of one of the most deprived urban areas in Europe in the name of the Olympic movement, the opening exhibition of street and graffiti art will ask the audience to consider the part played by artists in the process of urban regeneration and renewal.

Some informations about the artists:

Stanislav Georgiev Trifonov – Nasimo was born in1979 in Targovishte, a small town in the North-East of Bulgaria.
He started painting in 1995 and after some initial interest in tagging, quickly realised that painting came naturally to him and what's more, made him feel great. After studying at the Arts University in Veliko Tarnovo, Nasimo graduated in Fine Art in 2003 and moved to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. He was soon invited to take part in the Brain Damage Graffiti Jam in Warsaw, Poland where he met famous writers from the USA, Germany, Austria and Spain and saw how international, professional graffiti artists work.
Nasimo's crew founded the first ND2ND Graffiti Jam in Nessebar which was commissioned by the local uthority of the Black Sea resort and the whole festival was a great success. Nasimo regularly brings together the best Bulgarian writers, Hip Hop artists and MC's and the event has grown into an international festival featuring artists from Germany, Sweden, Greece, Poland, Italy and Australia.
In 2009, Nasimo took part in an exhibition in Vancouver, host city of the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.
2010 sees Nasimo's first show in London, host city of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Run
Italian artist RUN has been based in London since 2007. With his giant roller painted faces and figures he has brought his brand of street art to London's abandoned spaces giving them a radical mutation. For the last three years he has been working as a muralist and illustrator while in his spare time he creates art on the streets and in the studio.
Drawing is the starting point in all is work ,by painting with rollers and using limited colour, RUN found he could paint using whole buildings as his canvas rather than a small corner of one. Traveling, knowing, drawing... those are the main aims for him.

Busk
Like many writers of his generation, Busk was part of the Hip Hop movement in the early eighties and was introduced to graffiti in 1985.
Active on the Essex and London scenes during the mid to late eighties, Busk founded the crew Third Decade, and now represents the UK for the Europewide collective Xcrew.
After a couple of spells at Her Majesty's pleasure punctuated by fines and hours of community service, Busk moved on from painting trains to other forms of self-expression that have less impact on his liberty and now works from a studio in East London.
Busk is known worldwide as one of the most technically proficient craftsmen in aerosol art, and now has his work on permanent display at the prestigious Ivy Club,above the restaurant in Covent Garden, alongside the likes of Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and Gerald Laing.
His work appears in music videos, clubs and interiors as well as on canvas, portraits, private commissions.

kennardphillipps
kennardphillipps is a collaboration working since 2002 to produce art in response to the invasion of Iraq. It has evolved to confront power and war across the globe. The work is made for the street, the gallery, the web, newspapers & magazines, and to lead workshops that develop peoples’ skills and help them express their thoughts on what’s happening in the world through visual means. The work is made as a critical tool that connects to international movements for social and political change. kennardphillipps don’t see the work as separate to social and political movements that are confronting established political and economic
systems. They see it as part of those movements, the visual arm of protest. They want it to be used by people as a part of their own activism, not just as pictures on the wall to contemplate.

For more information please contact William Chamberlain.
tel: +44 (0) 7947 175 283
email: smokehousegallery@formans.co.uk
and check out nasimo.