Only artists proofs left. AP1-10. Edition of 25 sold out. Giclee print on 300gsm acid free stock. Signed and numbered by the artist. 68 x 38cm.

Jo Peel

I first encountered Jo Peel’s illustrations when I was scouting for new work for the Scrawl Collective pop-up project ‘KIN (from where this site takes it’s name) in 2008. She had just embarked on her first drawings of the cross rail construction site in Shoreditch and it was these drawings that were to provide fertile soil for an emerging talent. 

The main theme of Jo’s work is urban environments in flux and the central image she uses to convey this cityscape in a seemingly constant state of becoming is the construction crane. At once ubiquitous in it’s familiarity but also foreboding and monstrous in scale. As the work has progressed it has gone from mere reportage, documenting the building sites around London, to something more expansive. The construction sites began to give way to, or rather incorporate, the idea of the death and rebirth of the city as huge murals began to tumble from their 2 dimensions spilling piles of bricks onto pavements. And as buildings began to turn to rubble, vegetation bursting through roofs and windows, abandoned skips and other detritus started to take over. There’s an affection for her subject that underlies everything Jo does, it shines through in her portraits of favourite buildings, from Trellick Tower and the Brick Lane Begel shop in London to the Parkhill Estate and Henderson’s Relish building in her home town.