Just seeing an Ed Gray painting is only the start of the journey. You need to get to his exhibition where he’s giving free walk and talk tours of his art to get the full story of every aspect of each artwork in the show, writes Michael Holland.
‘Scenes of Innocence & Experience’ in the House of Annetta – a house built in 1704 – is a relatively small exhibition of big paintings that leap out from the drabness of the 300 year old background that has been left mainly untouched for centuries – Even the monochrome artworks have that effect.
But the house holds many memories. Did Dickens ever cross the threshold? Henry Mayhew in his research? Which artists walked there?
Gray discusses the artists that inspired each work, Lowry and Hogarth feature quite a lot, supported by examples of their work on his iPad. He then talks about how he spends days on-site sketching the people that come and go in the area he will be putting onto canvas. Again, there are small sketches all around the exhibition that go towards creating the finished piece.
But, for me, it is when he explains the stories behind the mundane minutiae of the litter that abounds in his streetscapes. The discarded packets, cartons and leaflets are all there for a reason.
Composition is very important to the artist, and in Torsion, Gray’s homage to the staff at St Thomas’s Hospital, you can see how a fountain becomes a halo around the head of a nurse. A small section of a Notting Hill Carnival work recreates a famous scene from the Titian painting of Bacchus and Ariadne. It is these details that make Ed Gray’s work something special; they add something extra to make them more than just a painting of London.
You can hear the artist’s love for London when he speaks; you can feel the passion he has for art; it is easy to forget he is discussing his own paintings as he talks just as much about the artists he grew to respect and be influenced by. You want to rush up the National Gallery to look at Breughel’s Winter and compare it to Gray’s Sledgers In the Snow’, check out the Adoration paintings there and find similarities in Gray’s oeuvre. His Adoration, though, is not for men of myths but for the people and buildings of London.
His talking tours are now legendary because you find yourself revisiting his older works to seek out the flotsam and jetsam of life that lies around the feet of those within the art and work out its meaning. And legendary because you get more insight into Gray’s mind and modus operandi than, perhaps, his buyers do.
House Of Annetta, 25 Princelet Street, E1 6QH until 6th November.
Booking and details for the exhibition and tours are on the website: www.edgrayart.com
Free school visits by appointment October 30th – November 6th
Book all visits by email: in**@*******rt.com
Photos: M. Holland
