Newcastle Upon Tyne recently welcomed artist Dudley Edwards to local art gallery ‘The Biscuit Factory’. The artist, who first grew to fame in the 60s, unveiled his new exhibition named ‘Tranquil Echoes’; a collection of his work which aims to take its viewers on a tour of his career and history as a painter.
As stated on the Biscuit Factory’s website, this exhibition “showcases a collection that has evolved and transformed over decades, reflecting the artist’s unwavering dedication to his craft.”
His chosen pieces vary in size, style and medium, but each symbolise the stages of his career, as well as his own interests and inspiration at the time of their creation.
Image Information
Image: “Still”. Painted by Dudley Edwards. Photo taken by me. Ownership belongs to Dudley Edwards. URL: Dudley Edwards – Art by Dudley Edwards
The tour starts in the beginning, and most influential, stage of his career; the 60’s. Working alongside the gradually increasing pop art movement, Edwards co-founded a pop art collective known as ‘BEV’ with Douglas Binder and David Vaughan. The group collaborated on many colourful projects, including murals on walls and vehicles.
During the Q&A portion of the exhibition, Edwards explained why the ‘BEV’ experimented with such a broad variety of colours in their work. He stated:
“Post-war [England] was a very grey world. We’d come down from the North, and it was a dark, grey, dirty area. And when all the Asian immigrants came over, they painted all their doorways in really bright colours. In that grey area, they shone like diamonds. So, when we got to London [which] was just as dark and dirty as anywhere else, we wanted to paint the streets. We wanted to paint everything.”
According to Edwards, after painting the streets of London, “the next thing was [to] paint cars’”. This soon led to their most influential project which catapulted the group into the public eye; the Buick.
This piece symbolised the pop culture movement of the sixties with their use of eye-catching colours, shapes and patterns.
For example, in the Q&A, Edwards explained how the colours and patterns they painted on the Buick were motivated and influenced by ‘fairground art’.
Listen to the short audio clip below to hear Dudley Edwards’ account and explanation.
Audio Details
Audio recording taken by me whilst attending the exhibition and Q&A.
Image and Video Information
Video (left) taken from Youtube. Ownership is credited to username @britishpathe. URL: Art On Wheels (1966) – YouTube.
Photo (right) taken by me at Exhibition. Original photography of image is owned and credited to Dudley Edwards. URL: Dudley Edwards – Art by Dudley Edwards
The tour of Edward’s work then moved on to his later paintings on canvas. Here the abstract style Edward experiment with during the 60s was made more apparent in portrait form.
“Because of the artistic background we wanted to experiment with colour combinations; how colour worked against colour.”
The best example of this in the exhibition was the painting ‘Musical Chairs’
This oil painting utilises a unique perspective style to make the viewer feel like they’re looking down on the portrait.
During the Q&A, Edwards noted that he “used what we call isometric perspective, so it’s kind of like you’re looking from above. It tends to flatten things.”
This composition, alongside with the combination of warm and cold colours, invokes feelings of nostalgia in the viewer, as though looking at a memory.
Photo information
Image: “Musical Chairs”. Photo taken by me. All credit and ownership of the original painting belong to Dudley Edwards. URL: Dudley Edwards – Art by Dudley Edwards
This idea was similarly replicated further-on in the tour of his work in the paintings “Schott’s daughters” and “Like for Like”, where Edwards utilised shape and colour to convey motion and body autonomy.
Image Information and Credit
Ownership and credit of both images belong to Dudley Edwards. URL: Dudley Edwards – Art by Dudley Edwards
“I always do things that look like they could be still images from a film. I like them to feel as though it’s always going to be there […] Nothing before, nothing after. The movement in those paintings is in the lines and the shapes, not the imagination […] I want your eye to follow the shapes. I like to take the eye for a dance.”
Dudley Edwards
To conclude the exhibition and tour through the history of his work, Edwards praised the work of his key artistic influences, noting that most of them were “around during the turn of the century. People like Matisse and Picasso. All those guys were giants. That’s history, there’s so much we could learn from them.”
Edward’s exhibition will be available for people to visit until the 14th of January.
Find out more about Dudley Edwards by visiting his website: Dudley Edwards – Art by Dudley Edwards
Find out more about the Biscuit Factory and the upcoming events they are hosting by visiting their website: The Biscuit Factory Independent Art Gallery Newcastle | Buy Art Online