MY MUSE - ZOË MARSDEN

I’ve never been to Tile Hill, or even to Coventry, but that doesn’t matter, as for me they aren’t a portrayal of a specific place, as such. They speak to a memory or a sentiment. Something about not knowing the place leaves a sense of mystery and wonder in the viewer. What happened here? Is something about to happen? 

I first came across the work of George Shaw (b.1966 Coventry, UK) whilst studying for my BA in Fine Art in Bath between 1999 and 2002. However, to my recollection the first time I saw his work in person was at his exhibition ‘The Sly and Unseen Day’ at the BALTIC in Gateshead in 2011, the show that rightfully earned him a Turner Prize nomination. The exhibition comprised of 40 paintings made between 1996 and 2011 of the Tile Hill housing estate in Coventry where the artist grew up. These everyday scenes of a suburban English housing estate are beautifully rendered in Humbrol enamel, a material usually used by hobbyists to paint Airfix models and the like. They depict rows of run-down garages, the backs of houses, woodland paths, the local pub, broken swings, and even the local phone box. 

While I began my degree painting abstracts, after a year I moved to the sculpture department where I created large-scale fibreglass casts based on the contour lines on maps (a skill that served me well when I subsequently began a career in the film industry). Seeing Shaw’s 2011 exhibition made me want to paint again. I still distinctly remember standing in this exhibition and feeling like someone had punched me in the chest, but in a good way, in the way you hear a song for the first time and then have to play it on repeat. Despite their seemingly mundane and everyday subject matter, Shaw’s paintings are so charged and evocative. To me, they feel wistful, sentimental, nostalgic, and sometimes unnerving. Paintings of seemingly nothing and no one yet saying everything. 

I’ve never been to Tile Hill, or even to Coventry, but that doesn’t matter, as for me they aren’t a portrayal of a specific place, as such. They speak to a memory or a sentiment. Something about not knowing the place leaves a sense of mystery and wonder in the viewer. What happened here? Is something about to happen? 

Shaw’s' ability to convey so much through a beautifully rendered yet seemingly banal scene inspires my own work. In my practice, I paint abandoned and unusual buildings and structures. I’m interested in capturing the everyday and the often overlooked and re-presenting it in the hope that it will be looked at again, its beauty and presence seen. I hope to convey the atmosphere, sense of unease and aloneness I often get from these buildings.

Perhaps I have a similar sentimentality for these abandoned places as Shaw does for Tile Hill. Although not all the places I paint are nostalgic to me, they have a history. When I title my works, I purposefully give them matter-of-fact titles void of geographical description to disassociate them from actual places. After all, my paintings are much more about conveying a feeling and an atmosphere. Exactly why I’m drawn to paint these places still feels intangible to me. As Edward Hopper once said, ‘If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint’. I wholeheartedly agree.

View George Shaw's Baltic Bites on YouTube

Zoë Marsden - Artist Profile