Crystal Palace Subway - Open House Weekend

October 26, 2015 Matt Bannister

The arches and pavements of the Crystal Palace Subway were made available to the public on 20th and 21st September 2015, as part of the annual Open House Weekend that ran across the whole UK.

For the second year running, I helped staff the art stall/shop/display alongside. Last year we were in the 'Rusty Laptop' alongside a heritage exhibition, but this time it was the edge of the park for us.

Luckily the weather was very kind. To celebrate, I produced a new print of the Subway that seemed to be pretty popular.

Some of the other artists had also created new items to buy from the pop-up gift shop.

#crystalpalacepark coasters for sale this weekend @cpsubway stall! pic.twitter.com/2TECOXvrrZ
— James Balston (@jamesbalston) September 19, 2015

Our three wise artists pic.twitter.com/esAiiIWVmz — CrystalPalace subway (@cpsubway) September 21, 2015

screen shot of Crystal Palace Subway fundraising site

The team (of volunteers) behind the Subway have launched a fundraising campaign to secure the £11000 needed to install a gate and make the structure accessible on a regular basis. To make a donation, please visit https://www.gofundme.com/cpsubway

A Tour of Crystal Palace Transmitter

October 10, 2014 Matt Bannister

My artistic life hit the SE19 neighbourhood once again, as I was invited to take a tour of the Crystal Palace transmitter as part of the national Fun Palaces weekend.

The tour around all the working digital and obsolete analogue equipment was great. Armed with a few permitted photos on my camera, I hot trained it back home to create these three pieces of acrylic and ink artworks. My analogue dirt and expression of the clean lines and smooth wires of some of the old transmission devices.

I took lots of photos inside. The noisiest rooms were the operational ones. All the fans needed to keep the computer equipment cool create quite a racket: more like a factory than the gentle hum of zeroes and ones that I'd expected.

Find out more about the weekend at the official web gallery here http://crystalfunpalace.co.uk/transmitter/

Gallery with a drawbridge

October 9, 2014 Matt Bannister

It's been a while between posts, reader. I know that. However, that little part of south London known as Crystal Palace is back on these pages again. I can't ignore the place (but I'm not becoming obsessed, I assure you). This time, I'm writing about a weekend's art exhibition I was part of called 'Inspired by the Subway'. Regular readers know my artist associations with the place, and during Open House Weekend, I was asked to join in with the display in Crystal Palace Park.

The venue was once a concert platform for open air gigs and shows but thanks to a few leaky design errors, it's now unused and derelict. On arriving to set up, I was thrilled to see that I had to cross a drawbridge to get in. The whole venue is surrounded by water! It's known to some as The Rusty Laptop.

To coincide with the exhibition, I created three new works (inspired by the subway, like it says on the tin). These were oil on watercolour paper, with watercolour red added afterwards. Alongside, I showed some of the old favourites too.

Art work showing the Crystal Palace Victorian subway

As well as the art exhibition, other areas of the venue were transformed into a recording studio, a screening room, an immersive piece of sound art and a giant model replica of what the railway, that used the subway, used to look like.

Also, to help with the smooth running of the event and to help any lost stragglers in the park, I did some little illustrations of Crystal Palace landmarks to add to their map:

If you'd like to read more about the design of the venue itself, and see some far better photographs, James Balston has a great post on his blog about the weekend. http://thetrianglese19.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-concert-platform.html

Comedy at the Cafe

July 21, 2014 Matt Bannister

Whilst flicking through some recent images of the Crystal Palace Overground Festival 2014 on Facebook, I came across these great pics. A bizarre selection of faces smiling and gurning at the audience, from the recent "Comedy in the Cafe" evening of stand up at Brown and Green Cafe, Crystal Palace station. I then noticed that the temporary stage for the evening had featured my framed prints as a little backdrop. The jaunty angles the pictures have ended up at, suit comedy I think! The images were taken by Ally at Stonelock Photography, and has kindly let me reproduce them here. Unfortunately I did not attend the event, but Ally assured me that some of the photos that didn't make her final edit were a bit blurred, as she was laughing so much. For more info and clips of the comedians, their homepages are here: John Kearns, Jenny Collier, Dan Green, Beasts.

If you fancy getting your hands on your own print to tell jokes in front of at home, click here.

Crystal Palace Subway - Open House Weekend 2013

September 24, 2013 Matt Bannister

I returned to the Crystal Palace Subway last Sunday, as it was open to the public as part of London's Open House weekend. The Friends of Crystal Palace Subway, who ran and organised the visits across the weekend, were giving out postcards of my 'Subway Sphinxes' image to visitors: an arty freebie for the lucky people who managed to get tickets and a little bit of self promotion for me. Thanks to Jules Hussey for being the keeper of the cards. Some of the team were also wearing the t-shirt I designed too, which was great. I'm very pleased to have been involved in a small way with this project, and it's definitely something I'll be continuing to support.