Ed Gray’s Streetlife Serenade
Ed Gray introduces his new exhibition, Streetlife Serenade: 30 Years of Painting City Life, which opens tomorrow at House of Annetta, 25 Princelet St, E1 6QH and runs until 20th July. Open Mondays & Tuesdays 11am-5pm, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays 11am-8pm.
Lucky Tiger, Whitechapel Market 2008
‘This exhibition Streetlife Serenade features my paintings of London life loaned from collectors from my thirty-year career as an artist, with street drawings and some prints of highlights from along the way. In addition, there are two large new paintings of London exhibited for the first time Remembrance, West Lane War Memorial Rotherhithe exploring the motionless silence of loss, tribalism, sacrifice, conflict and ritual and Triumph of Shoreditch, Shoreditch High St Station dramatising the vital call of the roaring city and the unrehearsed choreography of the street – the eternal dance of life that leads us onwards.
In 1995, I left art college in Cardiff to return to my home city of London. I knew I wanted to paint people, that was what I had always done. One day my dad showed me a book of William Hogarth’s work. I did not understand the narratives in Hogarth’s scenes back then but I recognised the Londoners romping, raving and roving through his clustered scenes. In Cardiff, I had begun to paint fish markets and caffs, learning to befriend and persuade fishmongers and caff owners that I would be no bother and keep out of their way as I drew.
In 1996, I left my studio in a squat on the Old Kent Rd, pacing self-consciously up and down the ancient highway, trying to find a way to draw what I thought I was seeing. It was another five years before I felt able to venture into the city with my sketchbook and pencils and really begin to sketch life of the city. I cast my net in different city streams and brought my haul back to a bedroom in Brixton, filleting my drawings to piece together moment, memory, echoes and rework all these elements into a canvas.
I tried to learn to be bold enough to stand in the street and draw faces, finding ways to record flitting and fleeting urbanites, to capture character in a few strokes with only a few seconds’ observation. I was learning to hold a stare, to avoid confrontation, to blend and be a part of the street, to be visibly invisible, but most of all I was learning to be present enough to really look.’
– Ed Gray, Rotherhithe 2025
Triumph Of Shoreditch, Shoreditch High St Station 2025
Adoration in the Lions Den, Milwall 2014
Blackfriars Skittles, 2008
Brockwell Kiss, Brockwell Lido 2005
Full English, Rock Steady Eddies, Camberwell 2005
Golden Day, Bar Italia, Soho 2010
I am Bacchanale, Notting Hill Carnival 2010
Let Me Eat My Wings On Camberwell Green, 2010
Night Bus, Old Kent Rd 2004
Nighthawks, Whitehall 2000
Nothing To See Here, 2007
Remembrance, West Lane, Rotherhithe 2024
Sledgers, Primrose Hill 2008
Tooting Lido, 2004
Xmas With The Camden Cat, Camden Town Station 2008
Ed Gray in his studio
Paintings copyright © Ed Gray
wow! Ed has created something wonderful
– a cross between William Roberts, Burra and Beryl Cook?
I love Ed Gray’s multi cultural buzzing London life scenes & yes he certainly loves people, all sorts! – just fabulous..
Thank you Karen. Those three artists mean a great deal to me. Jacob Lawrence and Archibald Motely too. Please come to the exhibition if you are able
THIS is a banquet! I have looked through, top to bottom, several times over — and am so impressed and enthralled with the vivid story-telling here. Not to mention, flawless composition — this artist is choosing to include SO much into his work, yet he is so discreet about how the characters “talk” to one another, throughout each panel. We, the viewer, are introduced to each individual (dare I say, each interaction between the VARIOUS individuals…….) and yet each painting is a skillfully orchestrated universe. A wealth of humanity in each panel – the abundance is breath-taking — but the hierarchy in each composition is resolved so lovingly. I liked noticing the spaces “in between” the figures as well. Each persona intrigued me — Santa dozing, the couples coupling, the staunch cops, the sunburnt child (ouch!), the over-eaters, the intrepid cyclist whizzing by, everything.
Stunning!
Wonderful articulate work.
Many thanks to Ed for his work. They cheer me up, I think they are all wonderful.
Fab work. Thank you.
Ed Gray is a wonderful observer of everyday life who knows how to summarise these moments in great, fantastic paintings. I am such an observer myself.
I even find myself as an actor in one of his pictures: the lonely caller for PEACE on the edge of a police operation, who hardly gets through with his message even with a megaphone…
Love & Peace
ACHIM