Recollection

Back in 2004, along with my amazing and beautiful friend Kelly Washbourne (and working under the name ARK), we organised a series of exhibitions in Moseley Village... We met when we both worked for Lee Benson at number nine the gallery and connected straight away through our love of abstract painting... Kelly is a natural and brilliant painter who uses colour like no one else I know and she encouraged me massively to exhibit my work. I might never have thanked her properly but I'm doing it now! We always felt that our stuff worked really well together, and though produced in different ways, there's a correlation between how we aim for a bold graphic simplicity and how many of our ideas relate to the landscape... Back then we had a great venue in the newly refurbished (at the time) upstairs of the Cross, and over six months we invited different people to come and exhibit, play tunes, and hang out... Pogus Caesar, pOsH oNe, Steve Woods, Ash Lloyd and the Lying Cheetah Collective, Mark Wilkinson and Sam McEwan were just some of the contributors... We even sold some art! On our busiest night over 250 people passed through and I think that our closing 'Made in Moseley' exhibition really helped to establish the need for a more focussed artistic agenda in Moseley (now spearheaded by the community development trust). Shortly after this I went off to work at the Custard Factory and Kelly moved to London - six years whizzed by and we haven't shown any work together until now... Tuesday 28th September - we're having a party at The Vaults in Birmingham and you're all invited...