Trees and Faces

Luke Brooks and Beth Postle are two painterly kindred spirits who have come together to take up residence at the Hackney Shop on 99 Morning Lane, shortly after friend and sister Jenny Postle and Sam Leutton’s label did the pop-up thing.  You’ll be familiar with Luke from his Central Saint Martins MA collection, making a name for himself for his homespun and hand crafted techniques.  More recently, he’s been selling “tree-shirts”, painted together with his dad, which I’ve now adopted as my default pull-on-in-hot-weather shirt.  Beth Postle is another familiar name as her breakout BA collection led her to a successful collaboration with Machine-A.

It was a well-timed collaboration as Beth has just broken up for the  summer from her CSM MA course and she had people still hankering pieces from her now infamous “Face” BA collection, inspired by 1920s Soviet costumes and 1970s paper cut out dolls.  Postle’s faces now grace a collection of long and short sleeved oversized tees as well as some leather pouches, ensuring that her BA collection gets the third/second life it deserves.  If you don’t fancy a face on your chest than a pair of hands or a hilarious pair of hairy feet might be more your thing.  Bewarned. They’re hard to choose from.

Luke is creating accessible work to satisfy himself and, in turn others and it’s working a treat.  From the series of “tree shirts”, he’s gone on to prolifically painting more XXXL and longer line t-shirts with generously daubed-on butterflies and his take on a floral still life and other more abstracted pieces.  I love the effect of the butterfly paintings as one colour swirls into another.  When unwashed, the paint has this lacquered surface but bung it in a washing machine at 30 degrees and you’ll get a pleasingly cracked and weathered effect.  “It’s the first time i’ve made stuff simply because I like it  and people I know like it, rather than trying to do something clever,” said Luke over an email.  “It feels more humane in a way, rather than striving for, and killing myself over, achieving an attainably specific technique or visual.”  The G-O-D headpiece from Luke’s MA collection has shrunk in size and there will also be squirty flower headbands for sale too.

With summer vibes on my brain as I leave for Los Angeles today, I popped into the shop just as Luke and Beth were setting up.  The walls have been covered with Papa Brooks’ artwork and a plastic sheet with peeling flakes of acrylics paint has been hung up as a makeshift changing room curtain.  This corner unit has been transformed into a temporary joyful haven, which will soak up the rays of London’s pending heatwave and encourage people to get painterly and colour happy.   Especially when prices of everything are around the £40-£120 mark.

Luke and Beth were reluctant to let their best pieces go before the store was officially open but I was determined to nab something that is crying out for the backdrop of Joshua Tree and Salvation Mountain (yes we’re making a baking hot drive out there).  A Beth Postle portrait tee and a pair of Luke Brooks butterfly painted shorts are ready for their time under the sun.  Not sure Virgin Atlantic lounge peeps are quite ready the combo though…