Art of Wishes Gala 2023 raised £2.6m for Make-A-Wish UK, enough to fund over 1000 wishes.
The Gala was one of the first events to be hosted at the spectacular new Raffles Hotel London at The OWO. This historical landmark was the perfect setting for such an incredible evening where some of today’s most recognised artists, gallerists and celebrity talent gathered.
2022
In the Autumn of 2022, Art of Wishes staged an auction of fifty-one of Italian jeweller Fabio Salini’s creations, raising over £750,000 for Make-A-Wish UK.
The collaboration between Salini, Art of Wishes and Sotheby’s came about as a consequence of the turmoil caused by the Covid pandemic, during which Salini found himself repeatedly questioning the role of art in times of crisis. He said: ‘My jewellery is an aesthetic expression of concepts and feelings and the events of the past three years made me think about how I could use these works to help others. I was searching for a greater purpose for my work and as such am delighted to make this donation in aid of Art of Wishes — it is a magnificent charity that seeks to deliver dreams and experiences to children who are going through very difficult times. What is the purpose of art if it cannot change lives?’
Of the collaboration, Batia said, ‘I have always been a huge admirer of Fabio’s exquisite jewellery, and when he proposed this idea I was genuinely overwhelmed by his generosity. In making this donation, Fabio not only helped make the wishes of thousands of children come true, but also made a meaningful impact on their lives. I will forever thank him and offer my sincerest gratitude for his truly transformative gesture.’
2021
In 2021 Make-A-Wish UK granted its 15,00th wish. To commemorate this achievement, Art of Wishes commissioned artist Brendan Dawes to create an NFT artwork inspired by children and their wishes, to be auctioned at the 2021 gala.
Dawes uses generative systems, relying on data, machine learning and code to craft his pieces. This work, entitled 15,000 Wishes, features 15,000 multi-coloured strands, each one to represent a wish that has turned into reality thanks to the work of the Make-A-Wish UK Foundation. Hope, possibility, beauty derived from chaos, the restoration of childhood and a change from the norm are the themes that run through every strand.
June 2020
Amidst the nationwide lockdown of 2020, British artists Annie Morris and Idris Khan, OBE, each created and donated one hundred limited edition prints of two artworks to Art of Wishes.
Typical of the artist’s style, Khan’s Long Live Love (2020) is composed from a variety of media, including watercolour, oil sticks and sheet music, which he layers continuously to build an abstract, rhythmic piece.
Morris’ Two Hills (2020) takes inspiration from the daily diaries she filled during the pandemic. The re-occurring rhythms and symbols of her family’s life and anxieties are translated into this poetic, narrative drawing.
Khan said of the two prints, ‘“I think both images allude to a childlike drawing sensibility - free and creative movements and gestures… almost like beautiful wishes in themselves!”
June 2017
In 2017, Art of Wishes presented a number of artists with children’s wishes, asking them to create a visualisation of their desires.
Artworks included Tracey Emin’s tryptic I Was Wishing For You, Riding on the Waves, and I Wish for You, her recreation of nine-year-old Grace’s wish to ride her pony across the Welsh countryside. Gillian Wearing, Michael Landy, Dan Colen and Thomas Demand were among the other artists commissioned, who represented wishes such as Tamir’s wish to play viola with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra and Amy’s wish to go to the Royal Ballet School in London.
With a career spanning more than fifty years, John Armleder’s oeuvre is equally expansive. At various points he has been dubbed part of Fluxus, Suprematism, and Minimalism movements, and his diverse output—which transcends media and genre— continues to defy categorisation. Drawing from an array of historical moments, from Dada to Abstract Expressionism and Conceptual art, Armleder’s practice opens new aesthetic and visual horizons.
Born in Geneva where he still lives, Armleder studied at the city’s École des Beaux-Arts. In 1969, he cofounded the Ecart Group. Armleder’s work is held in museums worldwide including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark. His exhibition history is similarly international, and over the past ten years, Armleder has had solo exhibitions at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; and the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai. This year saw his solo presentation Monotypes at Kunsthalle Zürich.
Kevin Francis Gray is known for works in marble which flex the boundaries of figuration and abstraction. Offering a convincing argument for the continued significance of traditional media in the contemporary world, Gray presents figures and forms in transition and in various states of becoming. In each of Gray’s works an acute vitality is captured in that residue of the artist’s hand is left permanent in stone; sheets of white Carrara marble framed in burnt umber Sapele wood incorporate the lines of human shapes through the negative space carved into the stone.
Part of a growing body of work that the artist started in 2018, the marble panels originate from Gray’s life-drawing sketches in ink, watercolours and pastel. The artist isolates lines and angles from the drawings and transitions them to the page of marble, which seems to have been sculpted only with fingers. The human form is abstracted beyond recognition. The result is a wall sculpture that appears delicate but draws the viewer into its texture: the marble is unmistakable and the skill of releasing a work so subtle from the stone is a testament to Gray’s commitment to his material.
Kevin Gray was born in 1972 in Armagh. Work by Gray has been included in exhibitions at institutions such as the Royal Academy, London; Museum of Contemporary Art of the Val de-Marne, Paris; Museo d’art Moderne, Saint-Etienne, and Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv. Recent solo exhibitions have been held across the UK, Italy, France, Denmark, the US and Israel, and Gray’s work is held in collections in both the UK and US. Educated at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, and Goldsmiths, London, Francis Gray lives and works in London, UK, and Pietrasanta, Italy.
Renowned for his wild brushwork and idiosyncratic style, Albert Oehlen redefined painting at a critical moment in its history. A contemporary of Martin Kippenberger, he rose to prominence in 1980s Cologne as part the loose avant-garde cohort known as the ‘Junge Wilde’ (‘Young Wild Ones’). Raucous and irreverent, these artists championed an approach that they described as ‘bad painting’. Fusing genres, colours, media and techniques with riotous abandon, Oehlen’s works rail against aesthetic convention, opening up new possibilities for art-making in the process. Known for his thrilling abstract works, as well as his Grey Paintings, Computer Paintings and other major series, he proved deeply influential to a younger generation of artists. His work continues to push boundaries today.
Born in Krefeld, Germany in 1954, Oehlen studied under Sigmar Polke at the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Hamburg. He has been the subject of major exhibitions at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, the Whitechapel Gallery, London and the Kunsthalle Zürich, with more recent shows at the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Serpentine Gallery, London and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf.
