In the heart of Addiscombe, a moment’s walk from the tram stop, is a dry cleaners, and hidden above it is the Blue Door Gallery Space.

Georgie, a local artist, has her gallery and studio space here, where she has worked for just over a year. However her relationship with the building is a long one. The dry cleaning business on the ground floor belongs to her parents, and they bought the shop when she was just 11, so she lived with her family in the flat above it for a couple of years. But Georgie has cyclically worked or stayed there throughout her adult life.

I first met Georgie at the Croydon Art Space group show in April, where I spoke to her about her abstract work and the themes of war, conflict and destruction that she explores in her art. She mentioned to me her gallery further along Lower Addiscombe Road, and invited me to come along to take a look at her current exhibition, Transcendence.

When I think of a gallery I typically think of white walls with canvases hung at appropriate intervals, but Blue Door Gallery Space is a world away from this cliché.

Georgie’s work adorns the two-level gallery, in all the rooms, as well as the landings and stairwells in between. I say ‘adorn’ as her art isn’t just confined to canvases (although there are plenty of canvases on display too) but is physically created on the walls of the space.

Georgie talked about the freedom of painting in the gallery, as the floors and walls can become the canvases.

Georgie’s heritage is Greek Cypriot, and the top floor of the gallery presents some highly personal work, as it tells the story of the Cyprus conflict which culminated in 1974 and resulted in the displacement of thousands of Greek and Turkish Cypriots and the division of the whole country, which still remains divided today.

Although last summer was the 50-year memorial of Cyprus’ divided capital city, Nicosia, seeing the work now feels sadly very relevant, with so many conflicts taking place globally, today.

The front top floor room, called ‘War Paint’ is the most immersive space, as Georgie’s art is in 360. It’s like standing in the middle of the war zone. You can see the destruction of buildings and people carrying their children out of the rubble all around you. It’s an incredibly powerful and humbling space to stand in.

The back top floor room continues the theme of conflict but somehow feels calmer, more peaceful, as it represents Cyprus after the division. This room is more colourful and incorporates mixed media – fabric, crochet and textures alongside paint. It brings in the normality of family life, and incorporates the ‘I will never forget’ graffiti which covered Nicosia to remember the people lost. Georgie has also depicted the city cemetery showing white crosses as far as you can see – soldiers who died in the war. A memorial room.

The theme continues on the landing of this top floor, where Georgie comments on domesticity during conflict – people living in a war zone still have to bath their kids and wash their clothes. Hence a bomber jet looms on the stairs behind a representation of a washing line.

There is a shift in the theme of work on the first floor of the gallery. There are two main rooms – the front exhibits some of Georgie’s more ‘formal’ abstract works, many influenced by the emotive nature of music and Georgie’s synaesthesia, and the back acts as Georgie’s main studio space.

In addition to the personal and political subject matter of the art, it becomes all the more poignant as Georgie and her family are due to move out of the building later this year. It’s an extraordinary space in Addiscombe that may therefore be hidden forever – my photos don’t do the work justice, so I highly recommend arranging a visit whilst you can.

Thank you to Georgie for inviting me into her space.

Blue Door Gallery Space is at 195 Lower Addiscombe Road, CR0 6RA.

You can get in touch with Georgie via her website to arrange a visit.

Posted by Julia