Reuben Powells work is concerned with the weight and scale of the environment pressed down upon the individual and the emotional response that seeps out. His recent project documenting the regeneration of the Elephant and Castle comprises very large-scale drawings of construction and demolition sites and culminates in a 4m x 2m painting on steel that is on permanent display in Southwark Councils headquarters at London Bridge. The project encompasses work with local school children who come wide-eyed to Reubens 13000sq ft studio/gallery Hotel Elephant to make very large-scale drawings of their neighbourhood. He is currently exhibiting groundbreaking new digital prints onto steel within the exhibition space.

A central part of Reubens work is the materials he uses. His paintings are on tin plate steel (everything from discarded cooking oil cans to shiny new steel). Painted in oil paint, the steel allows for a greater depth in the picture plane; the pictures metamorphosing as the light of day changes. Some of the works extend in to three dimensions, others include their own built in light source. The Mechanical Sky is a 16-frame painting automated with motors and chains.
On arrival at Reubens sprawling studio tucked away in run-down but centrally located South London one is immediately struck by the almost magical realist diversity on display. Though unified by his concerns with metal, light and things industrial, there are a host of totemic icons that reflect Reubens fractured mercurial mind at play - obsessions, diversions, curiousities. Prominent, for example, is a long silver bullet-shaped America caravan. Then there are the neon letters from a demolished local hotel. To one side sits Dr Awkwards Sidecar Coffee Bar (an Italian coffee machine mounted on a Russian motorcycle and sidecar that Reuben drives to festivals and markets). Which is not even to mention the paintings and life drawings of local models resplendent with machine guns, bathed in the neon letters of a reclaimed future.
His work spans the gulf between the serious and profound,the frivolous and profane. If you are in South London a visit is a must! http://london-art.net/?tag=reubenpowell






> VANISHING POINT
15th October-15th November 2010
Hotel Elephant SE1







http://www.kinetica-museum.org/new_site/event_exhibition_main.php?mode=future

Reuben Powell

Light, Metal and Movement

Reuben is artist in residence at 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 with a fresh and compelling perspective. The regeneration of the Elephant and Castle is the largest scheme of its kind in Europe and represents a significant change in the urban landscape of London. The project has taken the form of large-scale graphite drawings on paper and a series of oil paintings on tin plate steel. Reuben also provides eye opening workshops with local school children from his warehouse studio.

Taking his large-scale drawings as a starting point Reuben has produced a series of unique prints using an exciting new technological process. These have been made in collaboration with the Dr Carinna Parraman of the University of West of Englands fine art print department. The print process being used here breaks new ground in the world of fine art digital printing. Using one of only a handful of these specialist machines in the UK Reuben has brought together the drawings with his work on metal to produce prints unlike anything seen before. These startling composites have a magical quality. The reflective surface of the metal is animated and changes with movement and light.

The original works on paper have a sublime quality. The drawings are made up of large expanses of graphite, sweeping strokes of grey that plunge and soar through a condemned landscape. They form part of a permanent record of an unstoppable urban change, ambivalence of the consequences and bleak but characterful past. Their new reproduction on metal using this advanced process increases the depth of the picture plane and breathes a new life and perspective to these works.

The Heygate Estate, an oppressive icon of 1970’s social housing will be dismantled and demolished and the lives of it’s inhabitants irreversibly changed. In Reubens print of Claydon House on the Heygate Estate this ? architecture is reduced to a series of oppressive horizontal lines punctuated by the almost indistinct presence of people on the walkways. The perspective has been negated. This contrasts the complex geometry of the other works. No. 83 depicts the end of a building under construction. There is a complex internal structure; the two halves of the building twist away from each other on opposing helix, there are five vanishing points that contradict and oppose each other whilst remaining in harmony. The drawings, inspired by the mathematical works of Godol use their own structure to reconstruct space according to a logic that denies the laws of conventional geometry. These works are both a scientific experiment and a profound comment on a vanishing landscape.

His work is concerned with the relationship between the individual and their environment whether it is with the landscape of the Thames Estuary in his earlier work or the disappearance of neighbourhoods in the inner city. This work is fundametally concerned with human experience. It is about absence and mourning. His work maps out an internal human landscape projected outward and then reflected back at the individual viewer.

The exhibition takes place in Reubens temporarily reclaimed 13000sq ft warehouse. Within this quinticentially decaying English space, and alongside his and Ivans work, he has juxtaposed the brash Americana of a 1970s silver bullet Airstream caravan and his Sidecar Coffee Bar. This space celebrates the strength of individual ideas counterposed against and within the converging maelstrom of powerful external economic and material forces.
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I paint on tin plate steel with oil paint. The marine pictures are on discarded oil tins, the new work on new sheets of raw tin plate steel. The technique allows for greater depth in the picture plane and a constantly changing surface as the hours of the day pass. I am currently working on a time based mechanical piece to exhibited in December.
Working as artist in residence in the Elephant and Castle I have been recording the changes to the neighbourhood. The Elephant and Castle regeneration is one of the largest regeneration projects in Europe. It will profoundly change this area. Living in the area for more than twenty years has given me an affection for this often maligned part of London. This work will provide an invaluable document of its time. It will exist as a snap-shot of a major change to London life seen from the perspective of the community effected.

Drawing Workshop from reuben powell on Vimeo.

The Studio 2010 from reuben powell on Vimeo.

November 2011
The spider in the fruit machine

New paintings on tin. A retrospective of a 2 year residency.
HOTEL ELEPHANT GALLERY
Private View & SLAM Last Friday: 6-9pm 25th November (press 4pm)
SLAM Last Friday After Party 25th November 9pm-Midnight
Exhibition open 25/11/11-21/12/11
Opening times: Wednesday-Friday 11am-6pm Saturday 1pm-4pm

When the back is removed from a fruit machine or old radio, very often inside you will find a spider living unmolested in the warm seclusion of his own vast cathedral whilst business goes on as usual above.

Reuben Powells eclectic practice spans painting, drawing and three-dimensional investigation. A key concern of his creative enquiry is the use of oil paint on tin plate steel. Powell has been developing this method of working since 2005, where he began painting scenes of the more remote stretches of the River Thames on discarded oil tins. He has continued with this medium employing it to depict urban scenes. What fascinates me is the depth and activity of the picture plane, as the day progresses the surface of the painting changes with the light…I was interested in the idea of reinventing a very old medium...with imbuing a static image with the passing of time.
Much of the work in this show forms a point of departure for Powell. From the large-scale landscapes and interiors devoid of human form, the work now focuses almost in close up on living subjects. It was a conscious choice on my part says Powell Almost as if I had become lost in my own environments I wanted to return to something living and working from a model seemed the most obvious starting point The work here (though including pieces from before 2009) is concentrated on the last two years of residency at Hotel Elephant (a vast studio/gallery space in the Elephant and Castle). There are traces here of American illustration of the 1950s and 60s, amusement arcades and fairgrounds, African folk art, even Edwardian portraiture. Powell sites Mexican ex voto paintings on tin as an abiding fascination my work is concerned with the individuals relationship with their environment and perhaps more poignantly my relationship with those individuals and that environment and how it can be transcended.


September 2011

Dr Awkwards Sidecar Coffee Bar has been out on the road this summer at Glastonbury, Hop Farm, Secret Garden Party and West Dean Festival. Click on the image above to see more pictures on my flickr page.

Seem to have found myself back in the studio painting and twisting bits of tin together. Theres a new section on my flickr page of some work in progress...Ive also added a section of drawings for sale. These are just a few of the hundreds in the studio.

Life drawing is back every Wednesday starting today 7th September. 7-10pm only 10 quid bring your own materials if you can!

Hotel Elephant Gallery has joined South London Art Map and has a programme of exhbitions each month. Check out the Hotel Elephant Blog for pictures of exhibitions and events being held ot our studio/gallery in SE1. hotelelephantgallery.blogspot.com. Check out Hotel Elephant Gallery on Facebook for forthcoming events.







Videos:

The Mechanical Sky from reuben powell on Vimeo.

Hotel Elephant Studio 8/5/10 from reuben powell on Vimeo.

artist suspects presense of conseptual art at door to garret from reuben powell on Vimeo.

please ring or e-mail for more information
HOTEL ELEPHANT Ltd
77-85 Newington Causeway. London SE1 Borough/Elephant and Castle Tube. Buses from London Bridge.
tel. 07710 629317