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Reuben Powell - Paintings on tin, drawings and prints

24 June 2009

Reuben Powell is exhibiting new oil paintings on tin-plate steel and a selection of his large scale drawings of the Elephant and Castle. There is also a series of highly innovative prints made on tin-plate.

Reuben is artist in residence in the Elephant and Castle where he has been working and exhibiting from his studio/gallery over the past year recording the regeneration of the area from the point of view of a long term resident of this often maligned part of London.

The drawings are made up of large expanses of graphite, sweeping strokes of grey that plunge and soar through a condemned landscape.

They are a permanent record of an unstoppable change and often bleak past. The drawings of the now demolished London Park Hotel include a stripped out basement room likened to a torture chamber by some visitors; on the wall is written “Nobody Lives Here Anymore”. The 2.5m drawing of Claydon House on the Heygate Estate reduces it to a series of oppressive horizontal lines punctuated by the almost indistinct presence of people on the walkways.

Painted in oil and bitumen on tin-plate steel the new work on tin is more intimate. Colour creeps in from time to time and there are more signs of a human presence. The subterranean theme persists with pictures of the subways beneath the streets that appear as though images from a horror movie poster. Through the bitumen glints bursts of light from the steel like the first rays of sun on a winter morning. A hint of hope for the future of the Elephant and Castle?

Reuben Powell’s work has been featured in The London Festival of Architecture, Blueprint Magazine, The Independent and on BBC London Tonight (due to an arrest as a result of anti-terrorism laws). His work has been exhibited at The Morley Gallery, Menier Gallery, Mall Galleries and Beaux Arts Bath. For more information visit www.reubenpowell.co.uk

A.P.T Enables is a funded education programme which aims to focus and extend A.P.T’s profile in visual arts education by offering a broad range of support to students, teachers, artists and curators.

APT GALLERY
Harold Wharf. 6 Creekside. Deptford. SE8 4SA
020 8694 8344 lizmay@aptstudios.org
10th-11th-12th July 2009
Private View 6-8pm Friday 10th July
Gallery opening times 12-5pm Fri-Sun