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”.

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The Jam - Going Underground.

Caroline Nina Phillips: Attentiveness to the seen and unseen

Caroline Nina Phillips is an artist who is attentive to obscure and overlooked spaces seeing the geometry of pattern inherent in urban construction and the interplay of light and dark within. These large works are paintings into which one feels one could walk to encounter a world that is both original whilst also being profoundly ordinary:

‘Focusing on less glamorous sections of the city Caroline Nina chooses to paint the more obscure sights and spaces she finds whilst peering through gaps and alleyways into construction sites; gnarled stairwells and decaying, deteriorating buildings.

For Caroline Nina, these real, raw unpolished spaces are impressive finds – neither unpleasant nor threatening but intriguing, charismatic, authentic parts of our world.’

Paintings which work derive from the attentiveness and insight of the artist and reward the attentiveness and contemplation of the viewer. These are such paintings. Their images have been worked and reworked in order to find and to build images which reward our contemplation:

‘Oils are scraped, layered, removed; smeared, worked and reworked again and again- indicative in many ways of the process of building; of time passing; of ageing; deterioration; breaking down and of revival; reconstruction; of turning something old; damaged or worn, into something new.’

In addition to her attention to the found environment, Phillips is also keen to evoke the beyond which is unseen in her images - the sense that there is more around the corner or down the stairwell. Her use of light is often used to draw our sight towards the point at which vision ends and intuition begins:

‘Openings entice as barriers block. Stairwells guide the viewer’s gaze from one implied space to another – beyond the physical boundary of the painting.

Attracted to specific spaces that offer this potential for imagining; Caroline Nina contemplates what can be seen and the possibilities of what remains unseen. Features fascinate and draw her in with their depth and intensity.’

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Bill Fay - City Of Dreams.