No ‘soft focus filter’ applied to latest exhibition at Art Space – Inside Croydon

KEN TOWL was caught by the Muse at Addiscombe’s art gallery, one of the outstanding works in its summer exhibition

Bread and roses: black and white ceramics

Croydon-based artist Tina Crawford counts Sir Paul Smith, Grayson Perry and Jean Paul Gaultier as her champions.

They each own a doll of themselves created by her.

Perhaps of more immediate interest, Tina Crawford is also the creator of the piece that dominates the “Colour in Splendour” section of the Croydon Art Space’s latest exhibition, Mirror of Life (which is open at its Addiscombe gallery until August 10).

Entitled Muse, Crawford’s piece is a nude but not as we usually know them.

It is visceral, raw and intimate but, as the blurb to the side puts it “with no soft-focus filter”.

Crystal Palace Terraces by David Wolverson

As you walk into the room, it is the first thing you see, with its bold blocks of pink, yellow and green and it seems to challenge you to look away.

At £1,500, it is outside my price range, but no doubt someone will pick it up. Go and have a look before someone puts one of those little round stickers next to it to mark it out as “sold”.

The opposite wall features a series of powerful landscapes by Yorkshireman David Wolverson.

One of these captures the geometric shape of the Battersea Power Station, lit up by a horizontal light that only adds to its stark brutalist appeal while the deep cobalt sky above it adds an almost dreamy, surreal touch.

Alongside it is a smaller work, Crystal Palace Park Terraces, that evokes the spirit of impressionist Camille Pisarro, who lived and painted near the grand Crystal Palace while in exile in Norwood during the Franco-Prussian war.

I used to live in a pub called the Bread and Roses in Clapham, so it was a surprise to see a series of delightful monochrome ceramics (in the “Black and White” section, naturally) that were attributed to “Bread & Roses”.

This turns out to be the trading name of Patricia Moses, who created the black and white pots at the suggestion of the gallery’s owner, Paul Hall.

“Bread and roses” originates in the Labor movement in the United States, and is associated with a 1912 strike of women who managed to achieve a 15% pay rise so that they could afford not just the necessities (“bread”) but a few of life’s pleasures (“roses”), too.

The pieces are intriguing, modern yet invoking tradition. Anyway, they look good. The blurb suggests they are also “tangibly pleasing”, but after a previous disaster at Croydon Art Space a couple of years ago, I declined to test this proposition out. At £45 to £65 they are well-priced, affordable pleasures.

• Croydon Art Space, at 41 Lower Addiscombe Road – the 289 and the 410 buses stop just outside – is open Tuesdays (10am to 2pm), Thursdays (4pm to 8pm) and Saturdays (10am to 2pm), access with free tickets from Eventbrite

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