Andy Cropper – “I’m fascinated by nighttime spaces”

We’ve been great lovers of local realist painter Andy Cropper’s work since we first featured him in the printed edition of Now Then in 2015, so we were pleased to hear that he’s got a new solo exhibition upcoming in Sheffield, featuring pieces made by his fair hand between 2020 and 2024.

Andy’s paintings capture something uncanny and unspoken, particularly when it comes to night scenes which initially appear mundane, but are suffused with a special kind of latent meaning. We strongly recommend seeing his canvases in person at Gallery 24 on Snig Hill, from 17 to 27 October. He told us more about the genesis of these new works and the ideas he’s exploring throughout the show, which is titled ‘A Time of Stasis’.

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us today, Andy. By my
reckoning it’s been five years since last we spoke, in a now oddly
distant pre-Covid time. For those yet to discover your work, could you
tell us a little bit about how you first came to put brush to canvas?

Thanks, Ben. Bristol born – you’ll hear a Bristolian twang when I
talk – I grew up in Blackpool during my teens, then went off to study
Mathematics at Bangor. I dropped out and restarted to focus on painting,
ending up studying Fine Art at Psalter Lane. I’ve been painting for
over 20 years now, doing a variety of projects in a variety of styles.
Back in 2008, I developed the style I’m now known for, and it was in
2015 that I did my first show of Sheffield landscape-inspired paintings
alongside Mandy Payne, Sean Williams, Conor Rogers and Jane Walker in
the show ‘Overlooked’ in the space in Park Hill known as The Scottish
Queen.

Why do I paint what I do? I’m fascinated by nighttime spaces, from
just after sunset and twilight through blue hour to the solid dark of
night. The way familiar spaces can change, gaining an aspect that can be
surprisingly different, austere if not ‘other,’ to what we know during
the day.

Having been to a couple of your previous exhibitions, I was
struck by how your paintings change quite dramatically depending on
one’s proximity to them – at a distance appearing photo-realistic, but
up close revealing more of the textures and layers present in the
pieces. How would you describe your style?

I’m not keen on being called a photo-realist, though I understand why
some people might. At first glance, my paintings can seem quite
illusionistic, almost photographic. But I see myself more as a painter
inspired by realism. I’m not aiming for the superflat, clean surfaces
that photorealism is known for.

I work with acrylic initially
and later with oil paint. The layering process I use creates masses and
clumps with very obviously painted areas. As I work on a painting,
areas can shift quite drastically. This shift gives my paintings a
certain vibration. I like that you can see a human hand has laboured
over these panels and canvases. With painting in layers, strong
architectural lines of a subject can wander as the painting comes
together. Here’s a video exploring my technique.

Speaking of exhibitions, I see that you have a new show, ‘A
Time of Stasis’, coming up at Gallery 24 from 17 to 27 October. What can
we expect from this collection and has there been a conscious evolution
in your work this time?

Thanks, Ben. I’ve called it ‘A Time of Stasis’ to cover the period of
the last four years, starting with the freeze of everything as Covid
hit and then the following few years where, although things have felt
tumultuous on a national, local or personal level, it almost seems like
nothing has changed – stasis.

These paintings are responses
to this. There are the themes of ‘uncertain spaces’ and ‘spirits of
place’ I’m known for, along with a series of paintings I call ‘Memories
of the Present’ which pretty much speaks for itself.

The stasis also partly mirrors my life. Large parts of the past few
years have been filled with illness and frustrations, which have meant
broken projects and half-finished works. This kaleidoscopic show is
hopefully an end to this period.

Your previous exhibitions have tended to include a number of
smaller pieces, with one or two which are notably larger in both scope
and scale. Do you have a particular favourite amongst your now sizable
portfolio of these centrepiece works?

I enjoy using a variety of scales, and the ‘Memories of the Present’
which are a smaller series of works are like short pictorial entries in
a diary.

Favourite piece? That’s a difficult one. Can I say I have four? 😉

• ‘Tower’ is a painting of the scaffolding structure that stood
  still for a long time but is now known as The Platform apartment
  building. There’s something skeletal about the form, but with living
  near the building it’s stalled progress seemed to symbolically mirror
  what we were going through at the time.
• ‘St Mary’s’ for the
  luminous quality of the street lights, the orange glow of the sodium
  lights from Bramall Lane football ground lending an otherworldly air
  with the silhouette of St Mary’s church in the background, and a lone
  figure frozen in the midground.
• ‘Now’ is a striking counter to
  the idea of stasis as it’s the office block next to the Cambridge Street
  Collective food hall (I think it’s now occupied by DLA Piper law firm).
  The black silhouette of the building stands in stark contrast against
  the striking saturated blue of the post-sunset sky.
• Finally, the
  three paintings that make up the Lockdown Triptych or (aka ‘The
  Leverton Gardens Triptych’ or ‘The Lansdowne Towers Triptych’)

These [last three] were painted in the first two months of the first
lockdown and I am really proud of them. The reference images were taken
on the evening of the 20 March, a couple of days before lockdown began
in the UK on 23 March, though it felt at the time lockdown had already
begun. It was fascinating how, on this night, the quality of light and
the luminous, hot, over-saturated blue of the sky, along with the
emptiness of the streets, created something uncanny about these three
towers. I hope I’ve done justice to the folk that live in these
buildings while describing a very particular time, not just for the UK
but globally. As I painted these pieces, it felt like a never-ending
marathon at times, but I think they’re absolutely worth it.

Once the exhibition closes on 27 October, do you have any more plans to showcase your work in the coming months?

The coming year is one of exploration and experimentation. As a way
to shrug off the stasis and gain a new focus, I’m looking to explore the
works of Dante Alighieri. This will culminate in a show at Cupola
Gallery, tentatively called Limbo, in about a year’s time, as a way to
round off the year of experimentation.

My painting ‘Sheffield Gothic’ is in the permanent collection of
Sheffield Museums and can be seen on display in Weston Park Museum’s
Picturing Sheffield Gallery.

In November, there’s an upcoming group show called ‘Peppercorn’ that
I’ll be part of. Keep an eye on my social media, as details are still to
be determined.

There’s also a short film by Sheffield Museums of my studio process that I was recently involved with. You can watch it below.