Feature: Art - Former WMC art teacher Colin Bailey on the inspiration behind his King's Cross etchings
Published: 20 May 2010
by DAN CARRIER
THE idea came from living in a squat on the old Hillview estate in the heart of King’s Cross. Inspired by the beautiful interiors of his neighbours’ flats, former Working Men’s College art teacher Colin Bailey started a photography project: picturing the old estate’s exteriors in grimy black and white, and the insides in glorious technicolour.
This was the 1980s, when the King’s Cross area was suffering from the industrial blight of the soot-sodden railways, tenement blocks had seen little improvements since Victorian builders threw them up, and street walkers patrolled the dimly lit corners.
“I wanted to contrast the vibrant growing community I was living in with the then crime-ridden grimness of King’s Cross,” Colin recalls.
It also provided inspiration for him, and now his studies of St Pancras station and other landmarks of the area are the subject of a series of detailed etchings by the artist.
“I had taken lots of pictures of the area when I was living there and could use a dark room to turn them inside out,” he says. “I was teaching etching and decided these photographs would make the basis for etchings.”
He began selling crude attempts at Camden Lock market during the weekends, until he eventually left London to live in Rye, Kent. It is here he used his new studio to create five different vistas of King’s Cross as it was before Eurostar arrived and the Railway Lands began being developed.
And Colin says he enjoys the medium, which was first used back in the 1400s, as even for an experienced hand like his own, it has an element of surprise. The process uses acid to scour lines on copper plates, which are then used to make prints.
“You have only seen the lines on the copper before you print off your first one,” he says. “You have an idea of how it should turn out but you don’t really know. For example, it’s hard to judge how much ink the lines will hold. It’s a question of trial and error.”
• Colin Bailey’s etchings are available to buy at www.ryepress.com and are on display at sepress,
39 High Street, Hastings, East Sussex TN34 3ER. 91424 424501