Russell Dorey relaxing under his new paintings at The Crown

The secret life of objects

Hastings has been Russell Dorey’s home for the last 20 years, and The Crown is his favourite pub: “The beers are interesting (not in a Belgian way) and the food is good.” He has chosen to celebrate The Crown – and Hastings – by painting a series of works tailored to a local crowd. Lucky us! His paintings are a feast for the eyes – the perfect complement to the good food and interesting beer. HOT’s Erica Smith meets the artist.

Blue cup and tape measure by Russell Dorey. (oil on canvas 8”x10”) £ 300

Dorey is an artist who lives locally, rather than a ‘local artist’. He has a long-established career and an impressive body of work. His style has transformed over the years – his early inspriation was Cezanne – and it is not a suprise that his great hero is Euan Uglow.

Dorey’s work is cleaner, more modelled – “I’m a draftsman”, he says to explain his style. All his work sits on simple background colours – usually pale greys. The compositions are rigorously structured, and sometimes the truths behind the artificial compositions are left in – construction lines, the brackets of a shelf, masking tape holding up the object or the backdrop.

“My still lives are formal compositions. They are measured and plotted, reduced and balanced, but I hope that they’re not dull and dry. I think of paintings as poems or short stories and they’re peopled with the things I have around me, a cast of familiar characters: jugs, bottles, boxes and pots. I involve photographic images in compositions so that I can play with spaces set within spaces and so that I can get the whole world onto my shelf.”

Usually, Dorey paints larger canvases which don’t always fit either the walls or the pockets of local residents. He has been documenting the creation of his paintings on his website and Facebook. He is uncomfortable about the art world’s tendency to value smaller works of art less than large canvases and he has explored this in his work-in-progress blogs. Often a small painting will take more time and intensive work than a large, broad brush abstract painting.

Screaming woman by Russell Dorey (oil on canvas 14”x14”) £600

It has been fascinating to follow the development of the show on Facebook. One of my favourite paintings includes a grey vase which demanded endless repainting before Dorey was happy. It’s a delightful composition, with detailed rendition of a blue and white mug and a postcard reproduction of a detail of Picasso’s Guernica. Of course this simple collection of objects involved hours of time, and thought, and meticulous painting and repainting. They do not look like photographs or illustrations. They are domestic icons with their own histories and Dorey brings them back to (still) life.

A flavour of the show: a panorama of still lives in the back room of The Crown © Russell Dorey

Playmobil: Cattle at the waterhole by Russell Dorey (oil on canvas 24’’x24’’) £1,200

There are 28 paintings in total, and they look totally at home on the walls of The Crown. The snug is the home for Dorey’s ‘Playmobil period’ paintings. These are beautiful still lives of plastic cowboy toys from the early 1990s.“I bought these toys for my son when he was small. Now he is 27 and I have kept them for myself.”

The exquisite technique and colour palette balances out the kitsch content. These compositions are more than mere ‘ironic kidultery’.

Dorey was still struggling with the difficult challenge of pricing when I met him at The Crown. In order to appeal to all budgets, he has included some giclée prints (at least one of which depicts a wine glass once drunk from by hero Uglow!). You can rest assured that whatever the prices on the labels end up being, these artworks will bring you daily pleasure that will far outweigh the price in pounds. Pop down for a pint of interesting beer and explore these thoughtful – and humane – still lives.

Russell Dorey’s show runs until the end of July at The Crown, All Saints Street, Hastings Old Town during pub opening hours.
You can see more of his work on his website and Facebook page.

Also in: Arts News