A ‘RAY GUN’ GOTHIC SPACE OPERA.

Anthony John Gray went from working as a policeman in the early 70s to one of his first exhibitions of stylised, Surrealist soft porn images – being banned by Brighton’s local authority. In 2005 Anthony’s work, which he calls ‘Spiritual Logic’ remains provocative albeit in very different ways.

Set against a topical backdrop, with the Western world encumbered by a cycle of indulgence, guilt and cynicism, Anthony’s paintings are a reminder of how fantastic living in the future is. In his work, man is once more dwarfed and excited by possibility; ideological agendas possess beauty and validation; and glamour is an intelligent and worthwhile pursuit rather than simply a display of status. Sex, graphics, splendour and psychedelia combine in a ‘ray-gun’ gothic space opera that, unlike most modern art, looks beautiful on a wall. Right now, our generation needs Anthony John Gray. “ I just paint pictures “ says the artist who is entirely self-taught and who designed one of five coins to celebrate Palm Springs golden anniversary.

Lazarides. 8 Greek St. Soho. London. www.lazinc.com

A VERY POSITIVE SURREALISM FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
by Michael Robinson

Although Anthony John Gray is without formal training, like many artists he began his career by studying and copying the old masters. An early exhibition in 1975 revealed his ability to imbue the realism of Courbet, for example, with his own sense of the surreal – an indicator of the path he had chosen as a painter. His subsequent early works are reminiscent of the heyday of British Surrealism, with visual qualities that set them apart from their French counterparts. It is to simplistic however, to call Gray a surrealist. Although his work is clearly informed by, for example Roland Penrose, and even the continental Surrealists such as Magritte and Delvaux, it is less sinister, motivated as theirs was by European politics of the 1930s. Like the previous generation of Surrealists, Gray’s paintings are based on a methodology of collage and montage, and still have the ability to disturb and pacify at one and the same time, through strange juxtapositions. There, the similarities end.

There are subtle differences that set Gray’s work apart from his antecedent, including the empowered women who populate his world, a forceful reminder of how male artists of his generation have transcended the notion of woman merely as muse.

In Britain during the 1930s there were seemingly endless battles between the Surrealists and the abstractionists about the superiority of their respective art forms, that saw artists such as Henry Moore and Paul Nash acting as arbiters. Gray is not an arbiter, but an artist whose work is a fusion of Surrealism and geometrical abstraction, as enigmatic as his surrealism is, his images are imbued with a sense of order and rationale.

In this Post Modernist age, Gray is aware that the viewers sensibilities are continually bombarded with visual images, many of which are nihilistic and pessimistic. Gray however is an optimist, his images imbued with a luxurious sense of colour that eschews negativity – an art he calls Spiritual Logic. It is in effect a very positive surrealism for the 21st century.