Abney Park (2019)Oil painting by Frank Creber

This painting contains a drawing made on location at the entrance of Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington. I had been involved in a community art project at the Cemetery which is a nature reserve and Cemetery, and I wanted to make a painting in response to my experiences of getting to know the area.
The Cemetery is a fascinating place and has become overgrown during the 1970s and 80s it was neglected, so in the painting, I wanted to reflect the strange nature of the space which has many fascinating sculptures and overgrown pathways where trees and wild bushes have blocked an easy pathway through. Along the bottom of the composition, there is a concertina arrangement of spaces depicting dead-end alleyways and empty rooms, this imagery is in response to the park itself.
The characters float across in front of the background street scene and they are a diverse group of people, I particularly wanted to show older people as part of the general community living in the area, like many areas of London, Stoke Newington has people from very diverse cultures sharing their lives, traditions and stories. Older people can become neglected, even forgotten as their lifelong friends pass away and their families live a distance away, and yet they are full of wisdom, and life experiences and their stories shed light on a past that cannot be found looking through history books.

Materials used:

oil paint

Details:

• Oil painting on Canvas
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 103 x 76 x 3cm (unframed) / 103 x 76cm (actual image size)
• Signed on the front
• Style: Surrealistic
• Subject: People and portraits

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