James Kay: So Grandma Says

3 November 2007- 23 February 2008
Riverside Gallery
Old Town Hall, Whittaker Ave, Richmond


Artist, illustrator and writer James Kay presents an irresistible installation charting and reconstructing the creative process. Visitors can explore the evolution of ideas, revisions, omissions, detours, dead ends and developments that lead the artist from the initial creative spark to the completed works. Notes, sketches and studies are juxtaposed alongside completed drawings, monoprints, sumptuous watercolours, digitally manipulated images and three-dimensional automata and mobiles. The exhibition presents Kay’s latest body of work - illustrations for the self-penned as yet unpublished children’s book So Grandma Says.

Kay sets his story in an a-temporal fantasy England, which falls somewhere between the repressive Victorian era and a very British Boys Own world - occasionally punctured with random intruder elements including ominous brooding anthropomorphic pylons. This dark compelling narrative, in the fine tradition of folklore, fable and legend, recounts the story of a boy concealed and protected from the outside world by his grandmother. In order to prevent him straying into the outside world and gaining autonomy and independence, she weaves cautionary tales of the imagined horrors that await him beyond the protective walls of his room.

Combining a wealth of western and non-western cultural sources, each tale is visualised in a different artistic style - from Mogul miniatures, illumined manuscripts, to Victorian cartes visites. This offers Kay the opportunity to draw from his encyclopaedic knowledge of art history - he trained as an illustrator and has worked as a picture librarian and curator.

Kay’s dense detailed works brim with potent archetypal images and symbols. These, and the layering of literary and artistic references, make the work accessible to all visitors and universal in appeal.

Curator Mark De Novellis states: “James is a cultural magpie. From disparate sources, he has fashioned a world that is both fantastical but also firmly grounded in reality. The combination of intellect, assured technical virtuosity and creative flair heralds a major new talent on the cultural landscape. The inclusion of preparatory studies of this work in progress partially reveals the mechanisms of the literary and artistic process.”


Admission Free
Gallery Open: Mon, Thur, Fri:10.00am-6.00pm; Tue & Sat: 10.00am-5.00pm; Wed: 10.00am-8.00pm; Closed on Sundays.

Notes for Editors:
Studied Illustration at the University of Westminster. Has produced freelance illustrations for a range of publications including What House Magazine, Classic FM Magazine and Fortean Times, as well as commissions for the NSPCC, Royal Air Force Association and Linney design.