Ed Gray has been painting London for many years now and is always compiling lists of places in the capital that he wants to paint in the future. Lists so long that they overwhelm his thoughts so much he eventually bins them and starts a new list, an act that shows that Gray is always looking ahead and also that as long as he can hold a brush he will be painting the city he loves, writes Michael Holland.
I visited the artist at his studio and asked him to explain his art in simple terms. ‘It is one big collective painting of my relationship to our city, a tapestry that’s developing over time as I change and the city changes.’
It has been a while since his adoring – and discerning – fans have seen any new artwork from Gray; his last exhibition was in 2018 and a planned 2020 exhibition was scuttled by Covid. A bad time for almost everyone.
‘I retreated, he recalls. ‘The city emptied and my wife Ingrid and I were home-schooling and trying to keep working… I spent a lot of time painting over stuff and starting again, and again.’ Admitting, ‘I was a bit stuck, to be fair.’
Fortunately, he had projects already on the go. One, Ode To Joy, about the ‘monumental incompetence of leaving the EU… an idea constructed with lies and deception’, shows the clashes between Remainers and Leavers outside Westminster.
Gray describes the work as ‘a snapshot of a country imploding, a vortex into which the far right has attempted to infiltrate, dragging our government further to the right.’
This is perhaps my favourite Ed Gray painting; it shows our society’s best and absolute worst. We stopped while I enjoyed this masterpiece in all its glory and I am amazed at how what looks like a simple painting of people, actually has so much else going on, and I tell him so. He then takes me through almost every centimetre of the canvas, explaining each motif and symbol and what I thought was just randomly dropped litter, I find are metaphors for something very complex.
Another painting completed during the lockdowns was Torsion, a painting of St Thomas’s Hospital that Gray had begun to sketch in 2016-2018, a time when junior doctors were striking (as they still are now). ‘The painting was about the pressures that the NHS was under even before Covid and is named after the Naum Gabo fountain in the hospital grounds, across the river from the Houses of Parliament’ the artist points out. ‘Torsion means to twist and break under pressure… I finished the painting just as Covid became a tragic reality.’
Again, the smaller images within the painting tell a bigger story.
And now that the worst of Covid is over, Ed Gray has an exhibition to look forward to: ‘Scenes of Innocence & Experience’ at the House Of Annetta in the East End.
I asked Ed how this came about. ‘I became very interested in the venue once I’d learned about the aims of the house, which was the former home of the late cyberneticist, activist and architect Annetta Pedretti. Annetta left no will when she died in 2018, so her family gave the house to the Edith Maryon Trust, whose aim is to “seek to withdraw land from the flow of commodities and hereditary property and thus from speculation permanently, in order to promote social housing or workplaces”, which immediately interested me as even in my fairly short lifetime recent developments in many parts of London have focused solely on commodity at the expense of community.
‘My work is about communities,’ he continues after taking a breath, ‘layered connections and connectivity so there’s a great crossover with the aims of the house. The house was built in 1710 so on a metaphysical level I’m interested in a building that has so much history in it and I like the fact that I’m filling a very old empty space with the people I’ve sketched in the streets and cajoled, caressed and compressed into one and half metre canvases…
‘As it’s a Georgian house I chose a title for the exhibition from one of my favourite visionary Georgian artists, Soho’s own William Blake. It seemed to fit. In these paintings, there is innocence and experience. The pre-Brexit era and pre-Covid era seem more innocent times. We’ve all had a lot to experience these last few years, collectively as a nation and individually in the confines of our homes.’
Both Torsion and Ode To Joy will be in the exhibition and Ed will include other works more local to the Spitalfields venue. There will be one of Whitechapel during Covid: ‘Not the empty streets I’d imagined, but a different crowd. In the painting people are consoling each other outside the hospital, fathers suddenly find themselves unable to work and look after children, people getting used to mask-wearing, and the homeless are still homeless. It’s a depiction of wariness, loss, indifference and community strength.’ The central image is a man on a tree stump – we were all stumped, for a while.’
Ed Gray has a story for every person in his art. If they do not have a story or a connection to what he wants his picture to say, they won’t be there; no one gets in just to fill space in an Ed Gray painting.
I wondered if those streets around Brick Lane, just a couple of stops away from his Rotherhithe home, feel different.
‘Definitely! He claims excitedly. ‘It’s different in every direction. It’s the market, it’s Banglatown, but there’s a lot of wealth there too, and all the fashionistas. It’s changed so much since I was a boy, as the city does. Watching that process is exhilarating, that’s what city living is all about.’
Ed was quite animated now. ‘I’m working on an evening scene of Shoreditch Station, a lot of party people. But I don’t think it will be ready for the show. I’ll exhibit it as a work in progress so people can see the process.’
Will exhibiting in an East End gallery attract a new audience?
‘Every show brings new people, especially as I’m giving an intensive series of free tours of the exhibition, and am hoping to get primary and secondary schools at the tours because as an art teacher, I think it’s so important for young people to experience art outside of schools. Our art colleges and art courses are under threat, and the art curriculum is under pressure from right-wing politicians who claim they don’t see the benefit of creative thinking.’
What next?
‘After the exhibition tours, I’ll carry on with my Spitalfields work, and hopefully, by being there and meeting people and exhibiting, I’ll have learned even more about the area.’
House Of Annetta, 25 Princelet Street, E1 6QH from 20th October – 6th November.
Booking and opening times 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: info@edgrayart.com
