With a strong political mindset and classic British dry wit, the works of Edwin punctuate the routine of the everyday with their aesthetic naivety. Protest has become the sleeping giant in the fabric of the UK. Having spent countless hours walking the streets of East London trying to make sense of the space he inhabits, Edwin’s angsty, politically charged and raw text pieces observe the complacency and mild discontent of a society that is comfortably ignorant and unwilling to challenge the status quo. “Sometimes my work can be an intimate conversation with myself that just happens to be highly relatable," Edwin says.
Shithouse to Penthouse, his debut solo show at BSMT in Dalston seeks, for the very first time, to connect the viewer to the multi-dimensional and relatable aspects of Edwin’s work. From his emotive text-based street pieces, themselves a nod to the lineage of King Mob or Heathcote Williams to his protest poster series reminiscent of Steve Powers and Christopher Wool, Edwin recognises that art and protest are inseparable.
Common threads of banality, humour, psychogeography and political commentary weave through his practice. The exhibition will reveal a decade's worth of artistic growth and the obvious tension between Edwin’s love for and opposition to the space in which he lives.
“Like a haircut in the height of lockdown or a man lost in his phone at the pub, these are the throwaway moments I have chosen to explore and process by rendering them in paint and laying down those connections in my memory of that time and place,” he says.
