Paintings by Zoia Skoropadenko and Clem Chambers
A round red child. A round blue child. Black ink for the city behind them. Eight paintings, from Paris, London, Monaco and Tokyo. Seven can be requested today. One has already gone.
£1,180
The largest canvas in the group. Blue Boy is drawn large, in outline, on the white canvas, with a palace on the rock behind him, a flag, scrubbed black hills, and one hard yellow sun. It is the only painting here with a second pure colour besides the boy.
£340
Red Boy, both hands up, beside the clock tower. The bridge is drawn underneath in the same black line. The red is thin enough that the canvas weave still shows.
£240
Blue Boy fills the right half of a square canvas. Notre-Dame’s west front is drawn behind him, rose window and portals included, in quick black. He is waving, or hailing the cathedral. The paint is blue. He is not red.
£520
A square canvas. Blue Boy is planted in the middle, hands like small bursts, with the columned front of the museum drawn above him and rocks and railings in black around the edges. Same pairing as the Eiffel Tower painting: oil and oil pastel, white ground, one boy in colour.
£230
A torii in heavy black, foliage flicked in around it, and Blue Boy small at the lower left, one arm up. The white of the canvas does as much work as the paint. The gallery says this one is signed by the artist, singular.
£255
Fuji sits in a rectangle of black, like a view through a window or a gate, and Blue Boy stands in front of it with both hands open. The blue is brushed on thick enough to ridge. Signed by the artist, as the listing puts it.
Sold
The densest of the eight. Blue Boy is hemmed in by black signs, stripes and the scramble of a crossing. There is no empty sky. The gallery has marked the painting out of stock, so it is not offered for sale here.
Each painting puts one of the two boys in front of a place: the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, the London clock tower, the palace on the rock in Monaco, the oceanographic museum, the Meiji gate, Mount Fuji, Shibuya. The landmark is drawn in black. The boy is the only saturated colour, except for the yellow sun over the palace.
The Meloy’s page for the exhibition Around the World says the series was conceived in Monaco in 2020. The show it documents ran from 5 February to 5 April 2024 at La Vitrine Contemporaine de Monaco, Palais de la Scala, 1 avenue Henri Dunant, Monte Carlo. That text says the paintings had been seen in Paris, Tokyo, New York and Monaco. It does not name the other galleries.
Zoia Skoropadenko’s own site lists three duo exhibitions in 2023: Blue Boy & Red Boy in Paris at Sylvia Rielle Gallery; Blue Boy & Red Boy in Monaco at La Vitrine Contemporaine de Monaco; and Blue Boy & Red Boy in New York at Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery. For 2024 it lists Red and Blue Boys Around the World, again at La Vitrine Contemporaine de Monaco.
The exhibition text names the Meiji Shrine gate, the Empire State Building and Monaco Palace among the landmarks. The Empire State is not one of the paintings listed for sale on The Meloy’s Clem Chambers page, so it is not offered here. A separate Notre-Dame digital print by Clem Chambers, and his Fractal paintings, are different series and are not included.
“I wanted to create something that would speak to people’s inner child. There is a joy and innocence that we often lose as we grow older, and I wanted to capture that feeling with my art.”
“I hope that our works will bring a smile to people’s faces and remind them of the magic of the world and the joie de vivre of being here.”
Ukrainian contemporary artist, based in Monaco. She works across drawing, painting, sculpture and ceramics. Her gallery is The Meloy. Her signature is on every canvas in this series. The Meloy’s exhibition text says she painted the landmarks.
Clement Hadrian Chambers, born August 1963, is a British entrepreneur, author and financial commentator, and lives in Monaco. As a teenager he founded the games publisher CRL in 1982. Among its games were Tau Ceti, Academy, The Rocky Horror Show, Dracula and Jack the Ripper. He was co-founder and long-time chief executive of ADVFN, and stepped down in February 2022. He is chief executive of Online Blockchain, founder of aNEWfn, and a co-founder of Silex World, with Professor Animesh Jha and the University of Leeds. He retired from Forbes after 25 years as a senior contributor, and wrote Wired’s stock-market column, Market Maven, in the Brains Trust. In 2018 he was Journalist of the Year for Business Market Commentary at the State Street UK Institutional Press Awards. With On-line he helped pioneer commercial multiplayer gaming, including Federation II, MUD II and Air Warrior.
LinkedIn · X @clemChambers · Substack, Clem Chambers Alpha
Sales requests: clemcmail@gmail.com
Prices were set for this site in sterling. The Meloy lists the same paintings in euros. Both figures are on each painting’s page. Delivery is not included in the price. The paintings are unframed.
