The Urbanites
Iona Frances Brown, Jack Coates, David Fox, Bernard Quinn, Beth J Ross
Preview: Wednesday 5 February 2025 5-8pm
6 February –1 March 2025
Jack Coates, Dunn Cow / Atlas North East studios / Vane gallery / High Street Gateshead, 2023, pencil and watercolour wash on board, 70x70cm
‘The Urbanites’ is an exhibition that brings together five artists from the UK and Ireland, each of whom has an individual approach, and employs a variety of different media, to depict the urban landscape they inhabit.
Iona Frances Brown, Favourite Home in Merida, 23/06/24, 2024, pen on paper, 12x10cm
Jack Coates, Bottom of Dean Street, Newcastle, 2023, pencil and watercolour wash on board, 50x50cm
Iona Frances Brown creates vast collections of ink drawings that fondly preserve multicoloured, dilapidated buildings, kitsch amusement figures and humorous graffiti in urban landscapes. The sometimes derelict locations, although charming to the artist, comment on the increasing epidemic of rough sleeping which underpins the artist’s motives to affect social justice via art, through donating sales profits to charitable organisations. With The Edwin Easydorchik travel grant, Brown undertook a research trip to Mexico in 2024, comparing Newcastle and Merida’s approaches to street architecture and tacky coastal sculptures. The subsequent drawings respond to these findings through the lens of poverty injustice, a deep interest in colour, and the cityscape walking which informs the artist’s creative practice as a whole.
Iona Frances Brown was born in Whitley Bay, in 1994, and is based in Newcastle upon Tyne. She graduated with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Newcastle University in 2017. Her first major solo show, ‘Concrete Edges for Next 3 Miles’, was at Vane in November 2022, and she has exhibited in Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, London, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Gateshead. She was awarded The Edwin Easydorchik Travelling Scholarship from the Community Foundation in 2023 and conducted her solo research trip to Mexico in March 2024.
Jack Coates creates fluid, gestural and impressionistic artwork that captures the details and shapes of the urban landscape, consciously embracing an autonomous style. His most recent works have a more graphic quality, with the finished drawings produced in studio mainly from sketches done site specific. Although figurative and non-conceptual, he considers his approach contemporary rather than traditional. He makes no apology for revisiting or reworking subjects, viewing them as ‘impressions’ observed at different times.
Jack Coates is based in Sunderland. He trained as a draughtsman and graphic designer at Newcastle College and Liverpool College of Art. He then spent thirty years working in secondary and further education. His most recent solo exhibition, ‘Northern Lines’, was at The Gallery, Gateshead Library in 2024. He works from his studio, based at Atlas North East, part of Orbis Community, Gateshead.
David Fox, The Bottle Banks, 2023, oil on canvas, 83x103cm
Bernard Quinn, Nelson Street, Gateshead, 2024, soft pastel on Fabriano 5 paper, 50x75cm
David Fox’s work possesses a compelling connection with the contemporary Irish landscape. In recent work he captures the vibrant essence of graffiti within the bustling cities across Ireland and beyond. Through meticulous attention to detail and a nuanced understanding of colour and form, Fox’s works serve as a testament to the hidden beauty and enduring spirit of street art, weaving a tangible connection between the everyday and the extraordinary. His most recent work is a love letter to the streets, a celebration of the unspoken, and a compelling journey through contemporary Ireland’s visual voice.
David Fox was born in Tullamore, Ireland, in 1987 and is currently based in Dublin. He graduated from Belfast school of Art with an MA in Fine Art in 2013. He has previously exhibited at Vane in the Encounters section at London Art Fair, 2024. Group exhibitions in 2024 include ‘Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition’, Ulster Museum, Belfast, and ‘Exhibition of Emerging Irish Artists’, Contemporary Irish Art Society, Dublin, Ireland. Solo exhibitions include ‘Urban Fingerprint’, Aras Inis Glare, Belmullet, Ireland, in 2024, and he is currently working towards a major solo show at GOMA, Waterford, Ireland, in spring 2025.
Bernard Quinn’s recent work is a series of town portraits of his native North East of England. Having lived away from the area for many years, he was curious to ‘return’ to his home through photography, drawing and painting. The drawings underneath the paintings are highly detailed to anchor the location and to reconnect with his memories of each location. The colours which highlight the beauty in these places are carefully mixed and slowly added in pastel in an overlay of diagonals. Each section between the diagonals is a colour poem. His most recent Gateshead Portraits series have an added narrative about the nature of the Gateshead’s more fragmented historic built environments. Here, the focus is on the nooks and crannies, the jewels that are to be found across the town.
Bernard Quinn was born in Willington Quay on the banks of the River Tyne. He left in 1977 and returned in 2007 and currently lives in Whitley Bay. He has exhibited in Bristol, Carlisle, Milton Keynes, Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead, including group exhibitions as part of The Late Shows, Vane, Ampersand Inventions, and Orbis Community, where his studio is based.
Beth J Ross, Freudian iv (Mangaf), 2024, acrylic and varnish on canvas, 100x100cm
Beth J Ross’s work delves into themes of memory, emotion, place, and the lingering traces of the environments she inhabits. Having lived in, and explored, urban spaces across the globe, Ross draws inspiration from the built environments around her. Her paintings capture the dynamic energy and pulse of the city through a rich interplay of colours, shades, and tones encountered in everyday surroundings. Bold shards of colour pull the viewer’s gaze across the canvas, evoking the movement, vitality, and fast pace of urban life. Through her work, Ross conveys the joy and exhilaration she experiences while immersing herself in these man-made landscapes.
Beth J Ross was born in Liverpool in 1973 and currently lives and works in North Shields. Having lived and worked as a teacher across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East, she studied fine art in her forties. She was a member of the Friday Exit artists’ group in Vienna, Austria, for four years before moving back to the North East of England. Her work has been shown widely in the UK and internationally and she has been commissioned for public artworks by Lumiere Durham, Refocus Stockton-on-Tees, and North of Tyne Combined Authority. Between 2023-24 she was joint artist-in-residence at Cresswell Pele Tower and Gardens, Northumberland.
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