The Spider in the Fruit Machine

New paintings on tin. A retrospective of a 2 year residency.

Private View & SLAM Last Friday: 6-9pm 25th November
SLAM Last Friday After Party 25th November 9pm-Midnight

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 Powell’s 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 1950’s and ‘60’s, 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”.