Steve Upton: Paintings

6 July - 8 August 2007

Steve Upton is an artist whose mix of social realism and humour is a sort of considered jumble of surrealism, comic strip, documentary and street art. His pop commentary replicates – with a fondness, no doubt – the everyday goings-on of Nuneaton, an ex-mining town and factory fodder-providing outpost slap bang in the middle of England.

On the surface, Upton’s approach is, explicitly, a fantastically British way of remarking; a style he shares along with the attraction to the Nuneaton backdrop, with the British film director, Ken Loach, who was born and raised in the town. And like Loach, Upton is a political voice. His image-making backs the underdog, his marks champion the marks of the everyman, and he does so with a vivacious honesty that is to be admired.