Gary Power: Canonbury artist

Everybody has a story. Why artist Gary Power never tires of painting the same Canonbury streets. Interview by Nicola Baird. Photos by Kimi Gill

“All right Vincent!” is just one of the wisecracks Gary Power hears from passers-by as he paints street views around Canonbury, N1. Other people walk by without saying a word, or maybe wave a quick hello. But after almost a decade of not painting – because he felt his home just didn’t have the space – Gary’s solution was to take his easel and palate of oil paints outside and get to work.

“I remember thinking I’m an artist. I have to be painting,” he says to Islington Faces over a latte at Canonbury Tavern. The result is hundreds of canvases and since November 2018 a fabulous exhibition of Canonbury scenes hanging in the pub’s panelled room.

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Gary only paints during time off from his responsibilities as a carer for his partner Eleni. When he can, he’ll nip out with all his painting kit. But he’s now a very well-loved and known in the area.

A year and a half ago after popping into Canonbury’s newsagent he emerged to find all his painting equipment, left where he’d been painting, had gone. “The easel, palate loaded with paint, even the painting was gone. The tweeting community helped, and the Islington Gazette said they’d put the story on the front page. People were kind,” says Gary grinning. “Tim Sayer, a local man who at the time I did not know, even gave me money to buy my equipment back. Then a week later the police phoned and said they’d found my stuff. Some kids had kicked it over and a taxi driver then saw it lying around as if it was being chucked out. He picked it up to give to a friend, then later thought maybe it was stolen!”

“I felt lucky to get it all back,” adds Gary who ended up giving Tim Sayer (another Islington Face) two paintings as a thank you.

Gary calls himself a tonal artist adding: “I like empty streets. It gives a spooky new year’s day or Christmas day feeling, something different. We know people are there because the lights are on, but we just don’t see them in my paintings.”

Gary was born at the Royal Free Hospital on Liverpool Road in the 1960s. His mother and father, who are both from Ireland, met in London, eventually settling in Archway. The third of seven children, Gary grew up on the estate at Hazelville Road. He went to Ashmount School and then what he remembers as Archway Comp (formerly Mount Carmel and now City of London Academy Highgate Hill).

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5 places Gary loves to paint again and again

“Canonbury has a row of shops with everything you need. A newsagent that sells everything (last thing I bought there was eggs), drycleaners, café and a place to do your nails. It also has an independent school (North Bridge House, Senior Canonbury) and a stop-and-stare house with its own tower where Thomas Cromwell once lived (read all about him in Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel). It now belongs to the Marquess of Northampton’s estate.”

• I’ve got to know Tom at The Place, the coffee shop on 11 Canonbury Place. It’s a nice place!
• I love to paint things around Canonbury Tavern. The owners, Youngs Co said, ‘you paint Canonbury a lot will you curate a show?’ The answer was yes, and as a result Gary’s paintings have had a public home since December 2018.
• There’s a particular garage on Compton Avenue with a colourful door that I come back to again and again.
• I rarely paint people. One exception is in Wait for the Green Man which is inspired by the crossing between Upper Street and Canonbury Lane.
• Canonbury Tower has been there for 500 years. It’s big – I try to fit everything in, the street, the houses and the tower. I saw a light on once and I really wish I could be painting from the top of the tower, that would be great. Guided tours can be booked via Islington Guided Walks.

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Art school
Although both his mother and grandmother had been theatre people – touring Ireland using the stage name Vic Loving – becoming an artist was never part of Gary’s life plan. At least it wasn’t until he rented a room in Belsize Park from Ruth Leibman, who was an artist and art teacher.

“Moving to Hampstead I found Ruth Liebman  was my guiding artisticspirit. She said you’re very sensitive why don’t you try art? I was 20 and she was 60 – we were both in transitional moments in our lives. I tried it and within eight months got a scholarship to City & Guilds of London Art School in Kennington.”

From then on Gary has alternated painting, at first mostly water colours, with acting and poetry in a very creative life.

As a local artist, Gary has previously exhibited at Cross Street Art Gallery, before it closed, showing “oils of Cannonbury and some of my watercolours”.

Collectables
Like Ruth, his early art mentor, Gary puts his effort into local  Canonbury scenes. “I think of my life as a journey without distance,” he explains. “I am never more than the 500 yards from my home but I always find a unique angle, unexpected perspective and shifting tones and wide abstract colouration in all seasons. I realised that I don’t need to go anywhere to be creating. I like seeing the magnitude of what is always in front of me in an area I know so well.”

Gary’s paintings are special enough to have been bought by John Mortimer as well as many Canonbury locals. If you know the area  then Gary’s paintings are extra special, with their unpeopled streets and brooding colour, what he describes as “urban alienation”.

Gary points out that: “All these things have happened just because I’m a standing  in a small radius of  Canonbury, choosing to stay on the street and paint. Two or three years ago I was a bit shy painting outside, but not now.”

At the end of the interview Gary flips through his ipad to show me a fraction of his plein air paintings: there’s pink blossom from the cherry tree at the corner on to Willow Bridge Road; Compton Avenue in the snow and several sites he comes back to repeatedly, including a particular garage/shed on Compton Avenue with a colourful door. He’s even used street walls as a gallery to display his paintings. It may be a small area but Gary points out that he’s always “hunting for compositions. Corners are impending dramas. We know them to be busy, but no one’s there…”

Islington Faces feels that Gary’s work has references to the great Impressionists – Monet and Manet with their love of repeating motifs, and also the haunting work of American artist Edward Hopper. You’ll have to go and see them at the Canonbury Tavern where there are plenty on display. Gary’s always keen to sell his paintings too – expect to pay around £600. He claims he’s not so keen to take commissions, although if you are in Canonbury you should definitely try asking, especially if you’re able to give him access to Canonbury’s roof tops.

• Find Gary on Facebook
• Insta @canonburyartist
• Garypower65@yahoo.com
• See Gary Power’s oils at Canonbury Tavern (and enjoy a meal and a drink while you are there – famously this pub was one of George Orwell’s favourite drinking spots.) It has a fabulous-sized garden and both the bar and garden are open to well-behaved dogs.

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 dot green at gmail dot com. 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. Nicol