Thames Gateway Project: Pit Paintings and Wallspines

Simon Callery's three-year AHRC Fellowship, The Thames Gateway Project, in collaboration with the commercial archaeology unit, Oxford Archaeology, questioned how landscape in change within the Thames Gateway regeneration zone could stimulate change to landscape-based painting. The primary development of this project was a series of paintings that progressed away from image-based representations of landscape, and emphasised a shift in the way paintings engage with audiences through physicality and sensory experience. Simon Callery was the sole researcher for this three-year Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Fellowship (£216, 857). This cross-disciplinary fellowship was hosted by the Fine Art department at Wimbledon College, University of the Arts London in partnership with Oxford Archaeology, a large commercial archaeology unit. Research in the field was undertaken at a number of excavation sites: Washlands Basin flood relief scheme; Dagenham AND Woolwich Teardrop, London; A2 road widening scheme Gravesend, Kent; and the London Gateway deep sea container port at Shellhaven, Essex. Works developing from The Thames Gateway Project, called Pit Paintings and Wallspines, have been shown in solo shows in the UK as well as international group exhibitions including: (2012) Inland Sealand. 33 Newlands, Sherborne, Dorset; (2010) Physical Painting, Fold Gallery, London; and (2009) Thames Gateway Project. APT Gallery, London.