John Monks has worked in the same studio in Clapham Old Town for over thirty years. Originally a hayloft and stable it became, post war, an artisan metalworkers workplace. When Monks first encountered the space it was completely full of large broken metal springs, which were causing the floor to sag under their weight. The imagery and sentiment of the distressed buckling wood is one which has prevailed in both Monks’ mind and painting. This building has, and remains, a highly potent environment where he has created the majority of the works for which he is known.
In the history of art the word ‘Studio’ conjures a place of romance tinged with a sense of mythic struggle: the titanic epic of the production of art.
The process of creating a work of art is often a solitary occupation. The studio becomes symptomatic of a space that assists and nurtures the atmosphere required to allow creativity to thrive.
It is the stage the artist sets for each individual narrative that he creates. In doing so, it offers a place of refuge in which to absorb the uncertainties and concerns of the world beyond and to attempt to channel this disquiet into a positive outcome.
This exhibition will consist of new oil paintings completed this year. They are products of the ether of the ‘Studio’.
