Sardine & Tobleroni

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Sardine and Tobleroni is an art-duo based in London that works together on traditional canvas dividing the surface into two halves of which the right hand side is painted by Sardine and the left hand side by Tobleroni.

Biography

Tobleroni, whose real name is Jay Rechsteiner, was born in Switzerland in 1971 where he spent his childhood. In his early 20s Jay immigrated to Japan with his wife where he devoted his time to the study of art. About six years later he got divorced and set out on a journey through Asia back to Switzerland where he settled down for two years working as an artist while taking art courses at the College of Art and Design in Basel. Jay came to London in 2004. He exhibited internationally in Japan, France, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal and in the UK.

Sardine, whose real name is Victor Silveira, was born in Portugal in 1972 where he spent his childhood. From an early age on he was involved in the music industry as a musician. He toured five in the USA, once in Japan and various times in Europe with his bands 77, Tedio Boys, the Parkinsons and Blood Safari. Victor moved to London in 2000 in the search for opportunities in the music industry.

Both painters have close ties to the Punk and Hippie movement. Jay born into a Hippie environment spent a great deal of his early childhood in communes confronted with Indian and American native culture, drugs, politics and the 70 and 80s Punk and Rock music. Victor born in a quiet sea town in Portugal has been in Punk and Rock bands since a very young age supported by his loving and left-wing-minded parents. Victor's first band The Tedio Boys has become a cult punk band in the 80s in Portugal.

Sardine's and Tobleroni's artistic practice can be described as Conceptual Art Brut which is the equivalent to what Punk is in music, a desire to express an idea (political, social, artistic etc) through paiting respectively music without the (conventional) skills as artists or musicians (based on John Holmstrom's definition of Punk) . Their naïve style seen in art brut combined with sophisticated design techniques based on thought-through intellectual and emotional concepts enables Sardine's and Tobleroni's work to capture the very essence of what they paint.

Victor and Jay met while studying multi-media at the Hackney Community College in London in 2006. They planned to set up a graphic design joint-venture but soon came to the conclusion that their real interest is in art itself. They are now based in a studio in Hackney.

Their first joint solo show opened in Lisbon, Portugal on 1 st of March 2008 titled Espelho Meu (English My Mirror), which incorporated 39 paintings of influential Portuguese Rock and Punk bands from the 1950s till now. The show was a tremendous success with a great part of the musicians represented in the paintings and important personalities in the art and entertainment industry present. The event is considered a landmark as far as recent Portuguese culture is concerned. The exhibition is going on tour from July 2008 throughout Portugal.

Back in London Sardine & Tobleroni organized their first self-curated show titled Red Meat that involved two other artists, namely Korean born Eunji Kim and Dave Hilliard from Manchester. The opening night featured two punk bands and a freak show culminating in a mass fight.

References

External links

* [http://www.themonkeyinthebox.com Monkey in the box website]
* [http://www.jayrechsteiner.com Jay Rechstenier website]
* [http://www.zeiTraum.co.uk . zeiTraum website]