Summer 2025 at Tower Gallery, East London – June/July 2025 – A large group show in a gloriously tall chapel tower in Plaistow, East London. Really wanted to take part in this one for a number of reasons, and I should declare right now, at the start of this piece, this is a show that I’m actually taking part in. Tower Gallery’s Summer show is on over in a big tower in Plaistow, London E13 right now. Why did I want to take part? Well the Tower itself for a start, always liked that space and that rather unusual looking church tower that’s part of a building that looks more like a big Welsh chapel than an English church. Do like those wide stairs and the way the whole thing snakes up and up; in terms of an art gallery there are endless possibilities. I do like that building, I like showing art in strange buildings, however, the main reason for wanting to take part in the Tower Summer Show this year was really because of the way it really does want to engage. It is important that art engages or at least attempts to, it is what Cultivate has always been about, especially in those Vyner Street Days. The Tower Summer group shows feel like they want to be for everyone, that they want to go beyond the insular enclosed aloof art bubble(s). The focus of the Summer show is on artists who have an East London connection and I’m kind of pleased to be invited, I do still rather feel like an East London visitor even though I have been in this part of the world and pro-actively putting on shows and leaving art and running galleries and the rest of it since the last century now, it is an honour to be invited by the genuine people of the beautifully self styled #cockneyguggenheim. 

There’s a whole variety of styles both in terms of the art and the artists taking part, the basis of the show is that all participating artists have to have an East London connection, with a focus on the Newham area. Artists either have to live or work in the area or to originally be from the area, there’s something like 80 artists taking part and getting on for around a hundred pieces of art hanging or standing in the square tower that is Tower Gallery. Artists of all ages, from all kinds of backgrounds – I like the mixture, the openness of it all and especially as the show is opening on the same weekend as the laughably aloof Hackney Art Week, an event that seems to be based around a couple of very middle class rather gentrified wine shops/Vintage shops in a street by London Fields where most proper Hackney people probably can’t afford the cashless coffee, a Hackney Art Week that seems to be going out of the way not to connect with anyone or anything to do with the real people of Hackney let alone the long-standing artists who are and have actually working or curating in the East London borough for far longer than these arrived 15 minutes ago people have. Enough of that though, enough of that self-celebrating unengaged unfriendly aloof middle class wine shop bubble, Hackney Art Week my arse! Art should at least, if nothing else, should want to engage, to at least want to be part of the community it is existing in. It surely should be welcoming, it shouldn’t exist behind closed doors and look down its nose at those who have been there far longer than it has been or will be, it should at lease show some respect for the community and this is why the events and the attitudes of Tower Gallery, in complete contrast to those laughable Hackney Art Week, are to be celebrated. This Summer show isn’t perfect by any means and that as well as everything else about it makes it a pleasure to be involved in this year’s Summer show over in Plaistow, over in Newham, over in the gritty reality of it all, a short walk away and a million miles away from the privilege and the imposing of the so called Hackney Art Week.

There’s a whole load of reward both is terms of the art and the artists taking part here at the Cockney Guggenheim, there’s some delicious art, some maybe not quite so good art, there’s engaging art, enlightening art. there’s art that clearly means a lot to those who have made it. The most important thing is that there’s emotion to be found here, there’s heart, warmth, and yes that does sound dangerously patronising when it really isn’t intending to be, this is a very real art show. And yes, there’s some depth here, there are standout pieces and artists you really want to know more about (which surely is how a good group show should work?). Is it lazy to say there’s something for everyone here? The curators have some how put together a show that simultaneously feels like a positively curated slightly edgy contemporary art show and at the same time something that could almost be part of a East End village fete – you get the feeling that the late Joshua Compston would more than approve of what’s happening in the Tower, a better Woolworths as it were. 

There’s art that delights in here, there’s one or two pieces that challenge, it would be true to say there are things that are, how can I politely put this? There are pieces that are not quite to my tastes but hey, that’s part of what so good about the hang and the mix, and, even though as a participating artist, I am in danger of blowing my own trumpet again, this is a great show to both be part of and to just go see. Now I’m not going to pick out my highlights (although over the next few weeks you may well be reading and seeing more from a participating artist or two on these pages), no, no cherry picking today, it is once again about the show as a whole, about the feel and indeed East End thrust, the cor blimey ‘guv, I rather like that one, there’s some good stuff up those apples and pears and yes, everyone is going to find something (even if is just a chance to explore the tower that they find rewarding). There are a number of artists I shall be following up on, there’s some very fine pieces of art up those stairs, it is a pleasure and an honour to have been invited to take part.   (sw)

Summer is on until 6th July (open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 3pm until 7pm). I have been invited to show a rather large canvas piece. The address is Tower Gallery, 395 Barking Road, Plaistow, London, E13 8AL. East London locals will no doubt know the place, for those from furtherafield who don’t then then the Lizzy Line speeds you to either Stratford railway station or Custom House station where a 241 bus runs between the two, the stop by the Iceland in Plaistow is what you need.

As always do please click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show