Barrier Park Cafe

by Frank Creber

Artist’s Statement

The works are informed by many topographical cityscape drawings made on location in East London; figure drawings made from observation and memory feed into the narrative process that is part of an unfolding personal visual chronicle, about the new emerging East London, both physical and social.

As an artist with thirty years experience of working with community groups in East London, I am committed to making works that explore a deeply urban affair between a new world created in the pursuit of progress and modernity and the community that it is setting out to serve. The Thames and Waterways of London have been at the heart of Community Life, have driven the economy in the area for hundreds of years and today are emblematic of what it means to be a Londoner.

A key to the relationship that I have to the East End and its community lies in my role as Creative Director at the celebrated Bromley by Bow Centre, as one of the founding artists arriving in 1985 I have spent the last thirty years developing Community Arts programmes, and making my own paintings that focus on local community life.

I have had numerous solo shows including at Art Space Gallery 2002-8. ExCeL London 2014, Lloyds Register 2014.

I trained at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (B.A in Painting 1981) and Chelsea College of Art (M.A. in Painting 1987) I have collected a number of awards: Herbert Read Fellow-ship at Chelsea, Barclays Bank Young Painters Award, and the Picker Fellowship at Kingston