Ross Ashmore: Cataloguing the mundane

Ross Ashmore has embarked on an ambitious task of painting all the London Transport Underground Stations- of which there are 267. “I realise for me this has to do with my commercial past. I was always under pressure to deliver on time, except this time I had created my own brief and deadline.” To coincide with this year's 150th Anniversary of London Underground, he will finally complete all the paintings, of all the stations, this summer. “I love the Underground. I love the concept of going below ground and resurfacing somewhere else."

“I believe that art is a powerful form of expression. That an artist should be honest, passionate and have conviction about his work – much at odds with the commercial world I had come from and today's obsession with perfection. I didn't want to be chocolate box. The gesture of painting, the process, is just as important to me as the image. Every painting is an action – making the mark in paint creates energy and conveys emotion – it creates the mood – it begins to take on a life of it's own. I love the physicality of painting. Many artists today are so obsessed with perfection and technique they don't look like paintings at all.”

“The mass produced commercial world is so concerned with perfection – 'everything was airbrushed out!' In contrast I began to appreciate being different, embracing individuality – freedom of expression. This view is what drives and inspires me today. It's the ordinary things in life, the mundane that I want to catalogue in my work. With all the relentless change, very soon, we may forget the way things were.”

Ross Ashmore: Going Underground is at SPACE art gallery (141 High St, Southgate N14 6BP) until 5 April. Open: Mon-Fri 17:30-19:30, Sat and Sun 12:00-16:00.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Jam - Down In The Tube Station At Midnight.

Ross Ashmore: Going Underground

Ross Ashmore is about to finally accomplish his three year mission to paint every station on the London Underground – of which there are 267.

‘SPACE art gallery’ are set to exhibit for the first time together, over 100 of these highly expressive impasto paintings.

As an urban landscape artist, Ross feels compelled to document the ‘beauty in our streets’ before the inevitable changes society forces upon them.

He endeavours to convey emotion in his paintings, revealed by his textural mark making in paint, creating energy – giving each painting a life of its own.

Speaking of his work, Ross said: “I love the physicality of painting…and it’s everyday life that I want to highlight in my work. What better subject could there be than the streets where we find these wonderful stations.”

The exhibition will take place at SPACE art gallery, 141 High St, Southgate N14 6BP and will run until Friday 5 April. The opening night is on Saturday 2nd March from 7.00 - 9.00pm.

For more urban landscapes see the following:

Caroline Nina Phillips is showing work in Start 13: The New Industrialists celebrating the full opening of London’s newest creative hub, The Bermondsey Project, which comprises Crisis Skylight Bermondsey, Bow Arts SE1 Studios, London Sculpture Workshop, London Community Furniture and the Outside Puppets Collective. The urban landscape has been a source of fascination, inspiration and a recurring theme throughout the work of Caroline Nina Phillips. Observational drawings and camera snapshots of the local urban environment are used as starting points for these layered, painterly works. Particularly favoured focal points are construction sites; building works; passageways and stairways. Noticeably, the chosen places are those which could be easily overlooked. It is through experiencing; looking; recording and reflecting upon such particular spaces, that Caroline Nina captures their existence and essence.

Part 2 of CiTiES: All Dimensions, an exhibition celebrating urban-living and virtual-architecture, will open shortly at the Tokarska Gallery:

• Thursday 7 March 2013 – Private view will be held at Tokarska Gallery, 6pm-8pm
• Saturday 9 March 2013 – Performance night: 6-9pm. Music provided by Mark Beazley
• Thur 7 March – Sun 17 March 2013 – Exhibition will be open to the public Thursday to Saturday 12 – 7pm

Cities, like people, have their stories. Loved or deserted, they never fail to provoke a reaction. Silent testaments to human endeavour and social intelligence they form a collective view, which we tend to interpret by focusing on a certain aspect of its being. It may even be acceptable to think that cityscape art is a reflection of oneself within the city-concept. Cities, like people, grow, age and develop. However their lifespan is unrivalled to that of their inhabitants. Driven by social tendencies their transition from generation to generation often perceived as seamless. This facade cannot be further from the truth though, as is explored in “Cities: All Dimensions”.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Jam - Going Underground.

Maciej Hoffman: But what's going on?

I was at the launch of Maciej Hoffman's exhibition at SPACE Gallery Southgate tonight and enjoyed the opportunity to meet the artist and his family as well as viewing the immense unframed canvasses on which he has realised his vision of freedom.

There is great freedom and improvisation in his gestural brushstrokes overlaid with flecks and drips of paint creating the sensation that the artist has almost physically attacked the canvas, yet concept and composition also clearly underpin his expressionism. The images which emerge from this maelstrom of paint, although often founded in the darkness of existential angst, also exhibit a dynamism and energy which moves towards freedom. 

Hoffman has said that the subjects which interest him are those "issues that puzzle us throughout the years, forming our way of looking at the world, changing us." Our reluctance to genuinely explore these issues features in a key image 'But what's going on', a question posed by those whose covered faces prevent them from seeing. 

I also appreciated the chance to meet Ross Ashmore (who will exhibit at SPACE in March), Gosia Stasiewicz (one of the two artists who have opened SPACE, the other being Fionn Wilson), plus Voytek from the Best Before Project, which aims to educate the public about food waste, overproduction and its consequent ecological impact while also setting up an effective network for the re-distribution of food being wasted now. Also to be found among the interesting mix of people attracted by this exhibition was Rabbi Herschel Gluck OBE, founder of the Muslim-Jewish Forum which seeks to build bridges between Muslim and Jewish communities in the UK and around the world.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Low - Especially Me.