Frank Laws likes a nice bit of brickwork (as seen previously on these pages); the artist developed an appreciation for the skill of bricklayers when he worked as one for a year before his painterly career took off, and the study of architectural brickwork has been a cornerstone of his artistic output. Amid all the social and economic regeneration in Hackney, the Pembury housing estate stands out to Laws. He has returned to the estate, built in red brick in 1938 and still an imposing sight in the borough, to paint Pembury 2014.
Interested in housing estates as a social solution as well as architectural studies, Laws has produced a large-scale painting of one of the Pembury walls in minute detail. This work has been reproduced as prints, which have been used by local children as canvases during workshops run in conjunction with the Peabody organisation. The participants overlaid their ideas of what Pembury means to them over Laws’ work, and the results are being displayed alongside the artist’s at a new event space within L’entrépot, a wine shop and dining room on Dalston Lane, between 28 March and 27 April.
Burchington House, 2014
ink, acrylic on paper
Crop
Robbery, 2013
ink, acrylic on paper
