Pastscapes: Ed Kluz

A solo exhibition by artist, printmaker and illustrator Ed Kluz. Pastscapes celebrated those lost country houses and iconic buildings of Great Britain that were abandoned, burned down or deliberately destroyed.

Featuring original paper collages, scraper-board and prints the exhibition continues from Ed Kluz’s first show with John Martin Gallery in 2015 and explores contemporary perceptions of the past through the reimagining of historic landscapes, buildings and objects. The ideas of early Romanticism, the picturesque movement and antiquarian representations of topography and architecture underpin his approach to image making.

His enchantment with the once-great country houses, ruins and the memory of lost British Architecture has lead to them becoming the mirage-like subject of his work. Their ubiquitous pomp and eccentricities as well as the intriguing stories that surround them, filled with history and memory captures Kluz’s attention time and time again. This fascination has become manifest in Pastscapes. Animated, meticulous and at times dark, these hauntingly quiet reimagining’s of the houses of the past, set in candescent landscapes conjure ideas of memory and the past. As Kluz explains ‘I have chosen to show the houses more like ghosts, existing in surreal, dream-like landscapes illuminated by theatrical lighting.’ The result is powerful image making by meticulous craft and paper collaging skill.