26 CREATIVE BRIXTON
brixtonblog.com
2022 AUGUST
A lost paradise on Railton Road Works by one of Brixton’s iconic figures, Pearl Alcock, are once again on show locally. Thirty-five years after her solo show Mood Paintings at 198 Gallery in 1989, Pearl Alcock is back with a new exhibition on Railton Road, not far from where she used to live and run her café and shebeen. On until Sunday 14 August, Coming Home, at 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning at 198 Railton Road, celebrates Alcock’s life and explores her legacy in the current age of social justice, racial equality and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Part of the gallery space will be transformed into a café. The exhibition is a rare chance to experience Alcock’s creations, with 46 works ranging through abstract paintings, landscapes, figurative drawings and sketches. Full of patterns and movement, her colourful
body of work is reminiscent of a life in a different world, perhaps a lost paradise, says the gallery. Coming Home depicts Alcock’s creative journey of reinventing herself and invites the viewer into her vibrant and intimate subjective realm. Alcock, who was born in 1934, became an artist by accident at the age of 50. Unable to afford a birthday card for a friend, she made one herself, using magic markers. This was the beginning of her creative journey. She started painting and drawing at night by candlelight and produced more than 300 artworks, some of which were acquired by collectors Monika Kinley and Victor Musgrave to form part of the Outsider Art collection now gifted to the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester. She gained mainstream recognition in 2005,
Untitled, 1980 a year before her death, when she was shown at the Outsider Art exhibition at Tate Britain. Alcock was a member of the Windrush Generation, arriving in the UK from Jamaica in 1958.
Scenes from Urban Art 2022 on Brixton’s Josephine Avenue, back after a two-year Covid absence. More than 80 exhibitors took part. Despite its smaller size than in the past, the event raised a record £4,200 split between four charity partners who supplied the volunteers: Anchor Group; Southside Rehabilitation Project, Holy Trinity and Jubilee primary schools.
© Estate of Pearl Alcock She moved to Brixton and opened a bridal shop on Railton Road. The basement soon became a shebeen – an unlicensed bar – which became a safe space for the Black gay community.