Jonathan Davis: artist & studio manager

Everyone has a story. Urban planner and architect Jonathan Davis may still think about the built environment but he’s switched the focus of his work from creating buildings to producing contemplative paintings to sooth the urban soul at a new Seven Sisters workspace for creatives, The Lumen Studio. Interview by Nicola Baird

Artists’ studios often aim to be creative sanctuaries and that’s certainly the first impression you get at the recently opened The Lumen Studio. The bright two floor space, reached by an external metal staircase, boasts a kitchen, meeting table and generous workbenches around the walls. Everywhere work is displayed but my eye is immediately caught by a large, sleeping dog, Sir Galahad, a visitor adding to the building’s charm.

Jonathan Davis and his ceramic-making partner Norman Yap only opened The Lumen Studio in the workshop-lined Thane Works off Seven Sisters Road, N7 last September after the previous tenant, the Designer Warehouse Sale (formerly in King’s Cross) ceased trading from there. Now the studio has space for 16 creatives. It’s open 24:7 and has already attracted a stained glass maker, painters, jewellers, photographers, a craft gift maker and designers. A workbench here –with wifi, heating and electricity – costs £190 a month.

“Our objective is to provide a creative and collaborative environment for people to work in,” says Jonathan who paints in a loft studio drenched in light at the top of a white-painted wooden staircase. “We offer flexible tenancies so we often have space on a workbench to let. I think it’s a business model that works because many self-employed people live in flats and either lack space to work from home or get bored with their own company,” he says perhaps wishing he’d been able to find a place where he could have painted more over the past 30 years.

Places Jonathan Davis likes in Islington

• I like the 91 bus route because it goes past my door, up to Crouch End and into town and I think the new buses are gorgeous. On the 19 from Finsbury Park to Chelsea you observe how the public change as the bus proceeds through our socially divided metropolis.
• I love the restaurants along Seven Sisters Road including Girasole, the exciting new Italian deli; Hana Sushi which serves Japanese cuisine and Round Square, 132 Seven Sisters Road which serves hearty Cantonese and Vietnamese fayre.
• I love to cook and find that Michael’s Fruit and Veg, nearer the Nag’s Head market, is the best of all – I hardly ever have to go near a supermarket.
• I really love the Park Theatre. The last show I saw was The Patriotic Traitor. It’s really good having a local theatre.
• I buy some art supplies from Cass Art on the Essex Road and have in the past bought from John Jones near to Finsbury Park station. John Jones’ new building is an excellent example of how to use land and assets responsibly – they really responded well to the planning agenda for intensification around transport nodes and recent tri-borough plans to improve Finsbury Park town centre.

Art v architecture
“When I was 17 I really had a dilemma about whether to apply to a school of art or architecture,” says Jonathan, now 56, who was brought up in rural Essex. Architecture won – and he began working as an architect in Sheffield before moving to London to work on Housing Action Trust projects in Waltham Forest. More recently he was with CABE, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment where his work focussed on sustainable urban design until, as he puts it “it was reduced to a rump” by Jeremy Hunt in 2011.

“I always had a burning desire to paint, then in 2013 I took the plunge,” he explains.

“I paint on panels and make my own paints with metals using techniques that give rise to the possibilities of chance. The processes I use are partly controllable and partly doing their own thing,” says Jonathan showing me a recent painting. The film, by Felix Uff, shows him in action – in his super tidy studio, see here.

Jonathan still has strongly-held views about wellbeing, sustainability and the urban environment.

“I live in a new build flat at Tiltman Place, on the site of the Hornsey Road Baths, and my studio is barely 100 metres away on the other side of the Seven Sisters Road. Sometimes I finish a week’s work and realise that I haven’t been out of the neighbourhood for days on end. With all the traffic it can be quite a depressing place at times but it has many redeeming aspects such as some good restaurants.

Jonathan thinks particular shortcomings of neighbourhood are the traffic, the number of empty shops, for example the prominent Bank of Cyprus on Hornsey Road – empty since the 2007-08 crash, the vast electricity sub- station which is still being built by National Grid next to Montem Primary School and a severe lack of public open space. Ironically Kinloch Gardens backs on to Thane Works where he paints, but a tall fence prevents access.

“My paintings are not in any way polemic,” he says, almost surprising himself. “In them I aspire to provide people with opportunities for peaceful contemplation.” He shows me some of his recent work – gorgeous seas of colour with a precise material back story – and hopes to have a summer of creativity so he can show around 20 works at his first solo show this autumn.

Islington forever
“My dad was from Finsbury Park. He grew up on Allerton Road, Hackney. His dad was a policeman in G “Finsbury” Division, who retired in 1931. My grandparents moved to Edgware though when the Northern line was extended and developers built all those new £500 houses. I still have a photograph of the living room at Allerton Road taken by my father in around 1920,” he adds.

Years ago Jonathan lived in the south of the borough close to King’s Cross. “Wharfedale Road was incredibly convenient but it was also polluted. You could see the diesel deposits when you cleaned the windows,” he says. So in 2009 he and Norman decided to move further along the 91 bus route for more space and access to the studios.

“I got a flyer from the Red Rose Tandoori on Holloway Road, N19, and their take away menu has a picture of Jeremy Corbyn!” he says laughing. “I’m going to check that place out. Jeremy Corbyn is a really popular figure around here and before he became leader of the Labour Party you would often see him in this neighbourhood. I once went for a walk with him and his knowledge of the local area was impressive – right down to the detail of who owned the leases of all the empty shops.”

Jonathan shares that same passion for local knowledge – after the interview he shows me some star sites on his little bit of Seven Sisters Road including the reopened Bedford Tavern which now sells craft beer; the Handweavers’ Studio and Gallery as well as some local eyesores and planning issues. It seems that the one time urban planner and architect has become an artist whose experimental paintings help soothe some of the stresses of urban living.

• Go see Jonathan Davis’ first solo exhibition at Highgate Contemporary Art Gallery running from October-November or check out his work on his website studiojdavis.com

• The Lumen Studio, Thane Works, Unit 5e (off Thane Villas, off the Seven Sisters Road), N7 7NU http://www.thelumenstudio.london

Over to you
If you’d like to nominate someone to be interviewed who grew up, lives or works in Islington, or suggest yourself, please let me know, via nicolabaird.green at gmail.com. Thank you.

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If you enjoyed this post you might like to look at the A-Z  index, or search by interviewee’s roles or Meet Islingtonians to find friends, neighbours and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. Nicola