EXHIBITION: Editions Gallery, 9th March – 12th April 2024

John will be exhibiting with artist Paul Mellor at a joint show at Editions Gallery this Spring.

‘There seemed a strangeness..’ references the eponymous poem of Thomas Hardy in which ‘the land’s lean face’ is the setting for an uncanny interplay between the poet and some elusive – other. Mellor and Elcock’s paintings for this exhibition feature places each with their own genius loci as a starting point for a similar exploration of liminality.

Paul’s paintings explore history, loss, and mortality as he seeks to question the idea of both private and collective memories, their illusion and ambiguity. Taking his personal memories – of places (real or imagined) – as a starting point. He uses source materials from the internet, film stills, postcards and his old photographs to affect a distance from the subject so the final painting is viewed atmospherically rather than descriptively.

From Yorkshire, Scotland, Wales to the Wirral, we have gathered a series of enigmatic yet strangely beautiful paintings that aim to shed new light both on the familiar and the unknown. Our works are accompanied by a selection of found objects, photographs and other ephemera, specially chosen by us to provide a glimpse of respective journeys towards their practical realisation in the studio.

PREVIEW Friday 8th March 6-8pm. All welcome.

Please note: the exhibition has now been extended until the 12th April.

Editions Gallery, 16 Cook Street, Liverpool.
Instagram @Editionsltd

Open (weekdays 10.00am-5.00pm) 9th March – 12th April.