Paul Collinson: England’s Favourite Landscape

Paul Collinson (b.1959) lives and works in Hull. The landscapes he paints are made out of modelling materials and devised by himself (albeit referencing ‘English landscape ideologies’). The subject matter is, inevitably, political – abandoned cars, graffiti and fighter jets invite comment when alloyed with verdant pastures and Elysian temples – but the work is studiously impersonal. Paul photographs his dioramas and carefully replicates the photographic distortions as a way of ‘removing subjectivity’.

This is work that emphasises concept over sensibility and abjures ‘the pleasing brush mark’ common to both romantic and modernist sensibilities (“It is as much about how it has been painted as what has been painted”). It also deals in the latter day academic obsession with ‘the forgotten space’.

It’s Paul’s considerable achievement, though, that he avoids the imitative fallacy of simply painting a flat picture of an ugly scene – and produces work that is imaginative, intriguing and readily linked to the landscape tradition. It is no surprise that he was selected for the prestigious John Moores Exhibition last year.

This exhibition takes place in the Crossley Gallery.