M6 Northbound

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Department for International Trade, Old Admiralty Building

M6 Northbound explores the Brutalist architectural features of Bill Galloway and Ray Anderson’s 1964-5 Pennine Tower, a cantilevered restaurant and sun deck that once occupied the head of the Forton Services at the Preston bypass on the M6 Motorway. As described by Paul Crook:

It’s something I have painted a number of times. In many ways, it is symbolic of a golden age of road travel. I often see it when I travel north. I feel it represents a sort of gateway to the north, it signifies entering another kind of north, a place of beauty and escape. In the painting, the service station tower is seen from a window on the southbound side. Essentially, I have used the linear window frame to de-construct the image into four main sections. As in many of my works, the subject is manipulated and processed to fully investigate and understand what I am actually seeing.

Paul Crook lives in Leamington Spa, and studied for a BA Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art and MA Fine Art at Birmingham Polytechnic. His work has been exhibited since 1985, with recent solo exhibitions at MAC Birmingham (2013); Visual Arts Centre, Lincolnshire (2016); and selected work in the New Light Prize Touring Exhibition (Scarborough Art Gallery; Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery, Carlisle; and the Biscuit Factory and Bankside Gallery, London, 2020–21); and John Moores Painting Prize 2021, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

acrylic (paint), canvas, paint, acrylic painting

Artist

Paul Crook (1964 - )

Title

M6 Northbound

Date

2019

Medium

acrylic on canvas

Dimensions

height: 95.0 cm; width: 125.2 cm; depth: 6.0 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from the artist March 2021, through the Art XUK project 2020-21

Provenance

The artist; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 17 March 2021

GAC number

18939