Jerwood Drawing Prize Entry

Here is my entry for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2015, now open.

"Dalston: Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs" by John Close. Charcoal on paper, 125cm x 155cm, 2015.

Catalogue description:

"My inspiration is the Parthenon Metopes at the British Museum, based on a Greek mythological conflict of cultures. This version is in Dalston, my place of birth in the London Borough of Hackney. The process of gentrification has put a new, affluent class amongst struggling local communities- perhaps varying forces have pushed this area of London into it's own battle of tribes.

I wanted to use drawing to show fighting, as it is experienced in inner city life; the sporadic street violence and pathetic brawling where there is never any triumph of good over bad, no heroic valour, only desperate people trapped in an internecine cycle."

Jerwood Drawing Prize 2015 private view.