Arty Dinner Party at S-B-L Gallery

The Sulger Buel Lovell art gallery hosted a meet and greet art dinner party with some of their clients and guests at the Unit 2 La Gare gallery in London. Monday gone.

Flying all the way from South Africa to mixing business with pleasure, Tamzin Lovell, a co-partner of the Sulger-Buel-Lovell Gallery, was not jet lagged, one bit.

Sharing friendly and business conversations with guests, invitees, and some clients in-between at the leisure of their gallery, she beamed with the characteristics of an international art curator in her presentations.

Explaining the essence of the 'Arty Dinner Party' Tamzin said: “ I think it's a different approach to making business I suppose. This is where you don't have to think about people as clients but rather thinking about them as friends. So this is an opportunity for us to bond with our clients as friends.”

Glaring the artist and curator relationship between their gallery and its artists, she said “We have been working with Neil from over some good years.

“So arriving in London, both for his first trip and exhibition respectively, we thought we should celebrate him together with our clients, friends, wonderful and fascinating people.”

As programmed, the evening's dinner was to dine and wine with their two prominent artists, South Africa's Neil Wright and El Kamel of Tunisia, whose exhibitions are still on-going at the gallery.

But due to some visa bureaucracies, El Kamel could not honour his invitation.

And touching her thoughts on the visa situation, Tamzin emphasised that “Yeah, El Kamel is in Tunisia and found it a little bit difficult in getting his visa.

“It's rather unfortunate, not to have him here, as we had him in Cape Town recently, where he exhibited his works. But the good thing is that, he is being represented here by his ambassador.”

Delivering the protocol of the Tunisian embassy's administration was the deputy head of mission, Mr Anouar Ben Youssef, who was concise and very promising with respect to the role of arts in Tunisia's tourism.

In connecting the evening's art dinner to tourism in Tonisia, Mr Anouar said: “First of all thanks for the invitation, it's such a pleasure to be among like minded friends.

“Of course when you speak about arts, it's always an opportunity for us, as a nation to connect it to our tourism. Because visiting Tunisia gives you the opportunity to discover more.

“We place much importance in supporting our artists and their work, because our artists are our message and our ambassadors.

“The participation of Tunisia's artist El Kamel tonight, is an opportunity to put a bridge between Tunisia and the UK, as we already have a good relationship with the UK.

“And we try to put a strong emphasis in our friendship and relationship through arts and tourism with the UK by extending our invitations to visitors and tourists visiting our lovely country, beautiful beaches and its friendly people.”

Neil Wright whose presence was eminent given his work at the gallery, took his time to explain the meanings and the techniques that inform his decisions, in the drawings of his projects on exhibition to the utmost admiration of most guests.

The food was craftily cooked and dished by his majesty- the chef of Bala Baya. Better look for your French dictionary or excuse my French.

Tapping liquor from France, Mr Christian and his gallery staff made sure Moet and Chandon, vin blanc et rouge was on tap all night.

It was a total night of art, business and pleasure at the leisure and presence of some art collectors, art lovers and art enthusiasts.