Artists up the Creek

Renaissance for Deptford?

by John Park


Artists need cheap space – they’re often found in London’s grimmest areas.

And grim doesn’t come grimmer than Deptford. It’s equidistant from the death-sites of Damilola Taylor and Stephen Lawrence – two serious young men with an interest in the arts. It’s a place where racial awareness means carrying a baseball bat.

Deptford’s a place people go from rather than to. A bus stop bears the name Rose Bruford College, but the drama college has long since moved out. There’s a slight theatrical connection, and it’s a violent one. In 1593, Christopher Marlowe was murdered in Deptford.

A dirty river runs through it, and the high street is the A2. Deptford is named after their junction: Deep Ford, the point where the Dover Road crosses the River Ravensbourne. The river's known in this stretch, where it meets The Thames, as Deptford Creek. Creekside is the road alongside the Ravensbourne - and that’s where the artists are.

There are several sets of studios – Creekside Artists, Cockpit Arts, Oils-Studio (since renamed Cor Blimey Arts), Art In Perpetuity Trust (APT) – a gallery and framer Framework, and the Laban Centre of dance and movement.

A prime regenerator of the area is the Creekside Education Centre, reflecting Deptford’s long-standing maritime tradition. Henry Vlll built The Royal Dock here in 1513. Peter The Great, Tsar of Russia trained at the Dock as a ship designer (1698). The East India Company was founded here. In 1581, Francis Drake was knighted in Deptford.

The studios are mostly located in refurbished Victorian industrial buildings. Oils-Studio (since renamed Cor Blimey Arts) and Creekside Artists are located in the same complex. Each group rents a large industrial unit, which is subdivided by tall partitions into separate workspaces for individual artists. The artists work alone, but share common facilities and a sense of community. Art In Perpetuity Trust (APT) occupies a building nearby.

Artists around Creekside include painters, sculptors, designer-makers. They create works in all relevant media including limited edition prints, film, products, and installations.

The studios in the area organise combined open days. Members of the public are able to visit, chat with the artists, look at and – if they wish to - buy works.

Oils-Studio Artists (since renamed Cor Blimey Arts) ran an open weekend in December 04 (and more in future) with works by all their artists (see list of works and artists at end). The exhibition included a selection of glorious monoprints and silkscreens on paper by Gillian Best Powell. Her works are exhuberant and sensual, reflecting a variety of moods from the blissful to the introspective - with a wide palette of colour from vivid primaries to subtle pastels. Enver Gursev shows an evocative set of photographs from the ghost-town - in the wake of the Greek-Turkish Cyrus war - of Famagusta. Nicola Wills exhibits a series of paintings of diseased food. They’re disturbing and artistically exciting. Dee Whittington shows intriguingly exact multimedia monoprints that catch and hold the eye. They have a powerful emotional focus. Lyn Lemont Webb shows mixed media works – with the appearance of spattered oil and water. They have an immediate visual impact combined with a subtle emotional afterburn.

Creekside Artists joined in the same open weekend with works by all their artists (see artist list at end and their website). Andrea Gregson, shortlisted for the Jerwood Prize for Sculpture, creates complex miniature worlds inside boxes – viewed via peepholes from the outside. They’re intriguing, and disturbing, finely constructed but very much art rather than craft. Patrick Duggan shows fabulous, bold paintings using domestic gloss paint on sheet aluminium. Their stark minimalism looks a ready match for Docklands flats (the opulent ones) further down-river, but they’re rather more fun than this may suggest. Brazilian artist Mauricio Vincenzi exhibits and acts as ebullient and charming PR for the studio’s work – and expert on how to get there. They’ve taken signposting seriously, with arrows at every turn of the occasionally labyrinthine route from street to studio.

Cockpit Arts also took part in the open weekend. Art In Perpetuity Trust (APT) and Framework Gallery ran exhibitions during the month. For information on future open events by artists in the Creekside area, all contact details are given below.