P J CROOK @ Alpha Gallery
front cover: FOX tinted gesso on wood 21.5 x 30.5 inches 57 x 77.5 cm back cover: THE FLORENTINE tinted gesso on wood 12 x 10 inches 30 x 25 cm
P J
C R O O K
To w n & C o u n t r y
al p h a g a l l e r y 23 Cork Street London W1S 3NJ 020 7494 9272
contact@alphagalleryuk.com
W
hile awareness of time permeates all PJ Crook’s work, there is much more to her imagery. The scenes that jump into existence through her canvases seem to be consistent glimpses of an entire world of PJ Crook’s own making. It is a world that could not exist. Her scenes surely could never take place. Yet somehow they reach a part of your mind that wants to believe that they all come from a world that exists as an entity in some mind, somewhere. ... PJ Crook’s ability to make you want to accept the unreal as reality is not far different from Stanley Spencer ’s appeal to your mind. You want to accept Spencer ’s people gathering at Cookham to hear Christ preach. Her rooms are not real rooms - although they could be. The encompassing walls of the room draw you into it and give you a sense of being right inside this other world. Tables often fill the room. Guests are seated tightly around the tables so that the walls cup them as in one of those intimate restaurants where the bill is in inverse proportion to the space: This effect is heightened by the continuation of the painting onto the deep frames. But the use of the frame never seems unnatural. In fact, after living with PJ Crook paintings, it is the paintings of other artists who stop at the frame that seem curtailed and unnatural. Professor Ken Simmonds
THE MEAL tinted gesso on wood 24 x 34 61 x 86 cm
T
here is mystery at the heart of these paintings, as if something momentous might be about to take place; or as if a seismic event has already happened, perhaps still unbeknown to the people in the picture. The viewer may be lost within this world of the artist’s devising, or impose a narrative of their own. Like the silent white owls which swoop though some of the night-time paintings, PJ Crook always invites the imagination to take flight. Cressida Connolly
THE DINNER PARTY tinted geso on canvas & painted wooden frame 36 x 46 inches 91 x 117 cm
THE ANGEL LEADING THE ANIMALS tinted gesso on wood 16 x 14.5 inches 41 x 37 cm
T
he subjects and symbols of PJ Crook’s artworld embrace the sacred and mundane without missing a beat. Activites from the secular world become invested with a significance and ambiguity that suggest we look further into the seemingly commonplace events of reading a newspaper, dancing, even visiting a bar. Perhaps riches lie just below the surface of the everyday, were we able to discard the veneer of our mechanical perceptions. Robert Fripp
ANGEL HORSE & DOVE tinted gesso on wood 14 x 16 inches 35.5 x 40.5 cm
P
J Crook is one of the most imaginative artists I have ever known. She invents a private world of her own that is so convincing, we feel that it comes direct from nature and is peopled by actual characters whom she may know. There is one picture completely filled with people reading newspapers - in fact many of the later pictures are filled with figures from top to bottom, where the setting does not even appear. The most interesting point in these pictures is that in every case the figures are always superbly organised. However the pictures that I like best are those in which a few people or children are enclosed within the walls of a room lit by artificial light. There is a curious oddness about the pictures - sometimes she paints right out to the edge, including the frame. The scope of subject matters to her very much but figures are always of great importance..... Carel Weight CH CBE RA
FRIDAY tinted gesso on canvas & wood 24 x 44 inches 61 x 112 cm
F
or all their surface beauty and frequently domestic nature there is often a very sinister quality in PJ Crook's work Marcia Wheeler
OWL BY MOONLIGHT tinted gesso on wood 14 x 10 inches 35.5 x 25.5 cm FOX tinted gesso on wood 22.5 x 30.5 inches 57 x 77.5 cm
HARE tinted gesso on wood 21 x 39 inches 53 x 99 cm PITY THE POOR BADGER tinted gesso on wood 23 x 30 inches 58.5 x 76 cm
A
n innovator in the new English figuration, P J Crook renders urban crowds which while they consist of individuals absorbed in their own newspaper, cocktail or itinerary, are nonetheless in-
terchangeable archetypes. Or sometimes they are members of a family who are more interested in their
own game, reading or mirror than in the person in front of them. There is always a poignant solitude surrounding these characters onto which the theatrical staging adds a colourful dash of humour. The artist is a virtuoso in the mischievous art of beguiling our perceptions and expectations.
She plays with the notion of painting : not only does she add almost undetectable carved reliefs onto
on the flat canvas but she then extends them into open boxes - where all the surfaces, both inside and outside, are engaged in the narrative. She confuses our sense of space : the spectator, deceived by the
mirror effects, often looks at a scene actually taking place behind him. She plays games with ques-
tions of identity : twins are sometimes the same person, likewise opposing players can be eflections of each other.
P J manipulates time: the same person can be represented at different ages in the same work or simul-
taneously be doing contradictory things. She enjoys mixing ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ perspective or carefully painting the shadow thrown by a relief object - which may then superimpose itself on the real shadow thereof, depending on the angle it is seen from. Her work is a disconcerting meditation on our assumptions of reality. Béatrice Comte
Le Figaro TEA DANCE (Dancing with the Captain) tinted gesso on canvas & painted wooden frame 36 x 46 inches 91 x 117 cm
I
n a world of art which is increasingly conscious of international
fads and fashions I am very pleased there are still those who can independently  feed off the experiences, culture and style with which they grew up
 Peter Gabriel FAIRGROUND tinted gesso on wood 16 x 14 inches 40.5 x 35.5 cm
DANCE tinted gesso on canvas & painted wooden frame 30 x 23 inches 76 x 58.5 cm
E
ver since Hogarth there have been British artists who have reflected on life as it is really lived, but viewed from the grotesque side. In the twentieth century this has taken
on an added intensity one might call expressionist in the work of artists like Stanley Spencer, William Roberts and Carel Weight. As in their work so in Crook’s, there is a feeling that something odd lies just beneath the surface: these ordinary people going about their ordinary business are somehow set apart, irradiated by a strange otherworldly light; for all their ordinariness, they are marching to a different drummer. And in fact, despite her almost defiant Britishness, it is not by chance that she has worked so much with French galleries and is so highly valued abroad. The strangeness in her works may also recall a very different order of strangeness, that of Surrealists like the great Belgian Delvaux, master of moonlit mystery. Crook’s paintings have the unexpectedness of real life and the hallucinatory clarity of a dream. The art has excellent connections, but finally it stands on its own feet and confidently possesses its own personal world. John Russell Taylor
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The Times
BLACK DOOR tinted gesso on canvas & painted wooden frame
44 x 24 inches 112 x 61 cm
he subject matter of this painter's art is the discomfort of man in society, being isolated and interdependent at the same time Gestion de Fortune, Paris
ONE
WOMAN
EXHIBITIONS
2012 City Museum & Art Gallery, Gloucester Morohashi Museum of Modern Art, Fukushima, Japan Alpha Gallery, London 2011
Galerie Alain Blondel, Paris & 1991, 93, 95, 97, 99, 2002, 08 Michael Heseltine Gallery, Banbury Brian Sinfield Gallery, Burford & 1997, 99, 2004, 07, 09
2010
Vaal Galerii, Tallinn, Estonia
2007
Loch Gallery, Toronto
2006
Draakoni Galerii, Tallinn, Estonia
Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum A Day at the Races & tour
Morohashi Museum of Modern Art, Japan
City Museum & Art Gallery, Gloucester Paradise, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained
2004
with Soundscapes by Robert Fripp
2003
Robert Sandelson, London & 1998
2002
City Museum & Art Gallery, Gloucester The Angel & the Multitude
2001
Morohashi Museum of Modern Art, Japan
Ad Hoc Gallery, Buddle Arts Centre, Tyne & Wear Deja Vrooom
2000
Theo Waddington Fine Art, Boca Raton, Florida
1998
Nancy Poole Gallery, Toronto
Barry Friedman Ltd, New York - Art1998Chicago
1997
Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
1996
Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum tour:
Oriel Gallery, Theatr Clwyd, Mold; Musée Paul Valery, Séte; Rye Art Gallery
Montpelier Sandelson, London & 1994, 95
1994
Portal Gallery, London & 1980, 83, 84, 86, 88, 90, 92, 93
1989
Lee Drexler, New York
1986
Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museums The Fourth Grand Illusion
Hay Hill Gallery, London
Catmose Gallery, Vale of Catmose College, Rutland
THE DEEP tinted gesso on wood 14 x 16 inches 35.5 x 40.5 cm
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2013
On a Grand Scale - Panter & Hall, London
One Hundred Years: One Hundred Works - Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
Annually since 1978 Royal West of England Academy, Bristol first prize 1984; elected RWA 1993
2011
& 1978, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 95, 2008, 09, 10 Royal Academy of Art Summer Exhibition, London
Fine Form, the horse in art - Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum
Horse Parade - Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum and Cheltenham Racecourse
2002
Selected works from the Rugby and Artworks collections - Rugby Art Gallery & Museum
2001
Mother and Child - The Holburne Museum of Art, Bath
2000-1
Pictures of Innocence - Melton Carnegie Museum
2000
Women Beyond Borders - London & San Francisco
1997
Women light up the night - Berlin
1996
Die kraft der bilder Realismus der gegenwart - Berlin
Contemporary paintings from the permanent collection - Imperial War Museum. London
1995
Murs peints, Mairie de Paris
1994
VIII Salon International de l’affiche et des arts de la rue - Paris
1993-4
Reclaiming the Madonna - Lincoln Museum and Art Gallery tour
1993
The Gift of Life prizewinner - London
1992
Contemporary Icons - Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
1991
Art and Dance - Leicestershire Museum & Art Gallery
1990
Denim - Brighton Museum & Art Gallery tour
1988
British Figurative Painting since 1945 - British Council tour of Far East
1986
John Player Portrait Award exhibition - National Portrait Gallery
1982
World of Newspapers prizewinner - Sotheby’s; RA - London
1980
Midland View - City Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke on Trent tour
PASSING THE TIME OF DAY tinted gesso on wood 21 x 17 x 4 inches 53 x 43 x 10 cm
COLLECTIONS
Paul Allen Lord Bamford Marquess of Bath Lord Conrad Black Victor Chandler Jackie Collins Billy Connolly & Pamela Stephenson Sir Christopher & Lady Evans Robert Fripp Leonardo de la Fuente Peter Gabriel Billy Joel Holly Johnson Peter King Professor Philip & Nancy Kotler Philippe Lavil Nicholas de Rothschild Rick and Jo Rumrell Professor Ken & Nancy Simmonds Doctors A & AS Subramanium Isaac Tigrett Toyah Willcox
INSTITUTIONAL
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
include:
ALJ Co Ltd, Jeddah Can West Global Communications, Toronto Centrica plc, Windsor Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum Cheltenham Racecourse City Museum & Art Gallery, Gloucester Daniel Owen Community Centre, Mold Department for Transport, London El Mundo, Madrid Gloucestershire College Ha’aretz, Tel Aviv Imperial War Museum, London JP Morgan Inc, London King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia Morohashi Museum of Modern Art, Japan Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge Open Museum, Leicestershire Ville de Paris, Direction de l’Amengement Urbain Paintings in Hospitals (Midlands) Presidential Palace, Tallinn, Estonia Ralli Museum, Ceaseria Royal Hospital, Gloucester Royal West of England Academy Sagitta plc, London Standard Chartered Bank, London Tempelton Asset Management, Toronto
MBE for services to art Honorary Doctor of Art, University of Gloucestershire Patron of Linc Patron of Artshape Patron of Cheltenham Open Studios Patron of the National Star College, Cheltenham President of the Friends of Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum Honorary vice President Gloucestershire College a Gloucestershire Ambassador Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts Member of the Royal West of England Academy
al p h a g a l l e r y 23 Cork Street London W1S 3NJ 020 7494 9272 contact@alphagalleryuk.com