Brighton’s Arty: Alison Krog

a short walk from Brighton station

When you live in Brighton, its architectural landmarks become part of your daily life. And as an extreme commuter (two and a half hours each way to work on a good day), I’ve developed a love / hate relationship with Brighton Station. (So it takes a lot to make me look on it fondly.) But Janet Brooke’s Ticket to Ride, shown here, captures its sense of place so perfectly that it’s impossible to respond with anything but utter appreciation of the engineered elegance underpinned by bygone romance. Specialising in urban landscapes, Janet expresses the essence of our many faceted city in linocuts and screenprints that never resort to cliché.

Over the past five years, since launching Brighton’s Arty, I’ve also come to appreciate that Brighton artists have an uncanny ability to translate the beauty of the everyday into captivating studies. Heading down from the station, Trafalgar Street may seem an unlikely muse. But for painter Vincent Donlin it provides the inspiration for one of his irrepressibly characterful Brighton scenes. Vincent prefers to work with “the putrefying fecundity of oil paint”, and the rich layers he paints build up a sense of the unique atmosphere and shades of dark and light that colour North Laine life.

Just a few steps down the street, The Great Eastern pub and Rare Kind demonstrate the skills of award-winning local artist Jay Collins, whose paintings and prints show Brighton in all its aspects – from the sea to the Downs, from the backstreets to the Georgian facades – in oil gouache ink and wash, wood and lino cut. So you see … no matter how far you have to travel away each day, it’s worth it just to come home for the great art on your doorstep.

Pic 1: Janet Brooke
Pic 2: Jay Collins
Pic 3: Vincent Donlin