No ‘soft focus filter’ has been applied to Art Space’s latest exhibition – Inside Croydon

KEN TOWL was caught by Muse at Addiscombe’s art gallery, one of the outstanding works in his summer exhibition

Bread and roses: black and white ceramic

Croydon artist Tina Crawford counts Sir Paul Smith, Grayson Perry and Jean Paul Gaultier as champions.

Each owns a doll she created.

Of perhaps more immediate interest, Tina Crawford is also the creator of the piece which dominates the ‘Colour in Splendor’ section of Croydon Art Space’s latest exhibition, The Mirror of Life (which is open at Addiscombe Gallery until 10 August).

Entitled MuseCrawford’s piece is a nude, but not as we usually know them.

It’s visceral, raw and intimate, but, as it says on the side, “no soft focus filter.”

The terraces of the Crystal Palace by David Wolverson

When you walk into the room, it’s the first thing you see, with its bold blocks of pink, yellow and green, and it seems to challenge you to look away.

At £1,500 it’s out of my price range but no doubt someone will pick it up. Go and take a look before someone puts one of those little round stickers next to it to mark it as ‘sold’.

The opposite wall features a series of powerful landscapes by Yorkshireman David Wolverson.

One of them captures the geometric shape of Battersea Power Stationilluminated by a horizontal light that only adds to its brutal appeal, while the deep cobalt sky above it adds an almost dreamlike, surreal touch.

Next to it is a smaller work, Crystal Palace Park Terraces, which evokes the spirit of impressionist Camille Pisarro, who lived and painted near the grand Crystal Palace while in exile in Norwood during the Franco-Prussian War.

I used to live in a pub called the Bread and Roses in Clapham, so it was a surprise to see a series of lovely monochrome ceramics (in the ‘Black and White’ section, of course) that were attributed to ‘Bread and Roses’.

This turns out to be the trade name of Patricia Moses, who created the black-and-white vessels at the suggestion of gallery owner Paul Hall.

“Bread and roses” has its origins in the labor movement in the United States and is associated with a 1912 strike by women who succeeded in obtaining a 15% wage increase so that they could afford not just the necessities (“bread” ), but some of life’s pleasures (“roses”) as well.

The pieces are interesting, modern, but evoking tradition. Anyway, looks good. The info suggests they are also “tangibly pleasant”, but after a previous disaster at Croydon Art Space a few years back, I declined to test this proposition. From £45 to £65 they are good and affordable pleasures.

• Croydon Art Space, at 41 Lower Addiscombe Road – buses 289 and 410 stop right next door – is open Tuesday (10am – 2pm), Thursday (4pm – 8pm) and Saturday (10am – 2pm) 00), access with free tickets from Eventbrite

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• ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s most rotten boroughs for the seventh consecutive year in the annual summary of civic advertising in Private magazine