About
Photo by Fiona Trevitt
WAITING FOR A CONNECTION
by Howard Clegg, Director, The Stratford Gallery
”Storey’s paintings are powerful. Not in a manner that greedily grabs for instant attention, only to fade equally as quickly. Or in an instantly visually arresting sense, they are far more sophisticated and subtle than that. They hang quietly, awaiting connection. Each painting, I firmly believe, is unconsciously created with a mission to connect. Patiently and purposely biding its time to form a bond with a viewer who sees beyond what the artist laid down in painted intention. Their composition, tone and suggestion of detail are like incomplete strands of DNA looking for a match.
Herein lies their power. It’s a wonderful scenario to imagine. As each painting begins, sketched out from an idea in the studio, its eventual owner is already decided. That person will see more than you or I, more than the artist, they will see themselves, their family, or a treasured memory that only they posses. Their DNA will match.
Such is the pleasure of representing Storey. Each work offers up sweet or bittersweet nostalgia, the power of which moves us to recollect and ponder our fading memories. When such a memory is decades old it is no longer crystal clear in our minds, it is hazy and visually fed by emotion, rather than reality. Storey’s paintings are catalysts for such historic thought journeys. Whilst many might view the same painting, which in turn stirs up a memory, there will be one person whose memories match more closely to the image they see, and that is who the painting is intended for.
Interested in what he calls ‘the edge of living memory’, Storey creates works that are influenced by family stories of and the look and feel of Britain in the mid 1930s to mid 1960s. Whilst not rigid parameters, it does serve as a signpost to understand his works’ direction. Paying attention to the compositional and tonal decisions in each painting, we see reflections of style from within the periods he loves to create scenes for. These subtle decisions assist the ‘time-machine’ qualities of his work, as do the cut of clothing, formal photograph-type poses, and suggested hair styles.
‘That’s my mum and dad on holiday’, ‘That could be my wife as a teenager’, ‘That’s me as a little girl in the garden’. These are the comments we hear as people discuss his work with us. Sometimes with smiles and laughter, sometimes with tears but always with a degree of sentiment that is driven by that most powerful of human feelings, personal memory.
If so inclined, Storey could name-drop an army of famous music stars for whom, back in his early career, he designed album covers and promotional artwork, but he doesn’t. Or the fact that he still to this day has those same stars asking him for collaborations decades after first working with him.
Instead, he gets up early every day, gets to the studio, finds his peaceful place and plans out his work. He gathers his intentions, positions, his references and works. It is perhaps this lack of desire to feed an ego that allows him to create such authentic and sentimental works that appeal so widely. That and the endless fascination of times past and the way we were in his mind’s eye.”
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Studied
St Bees School, Cumbria
Hornsey College of Art and Middlesex University in London
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