Gillibrand Street - a study in bleakness

I think I'm starting to get used to this blipping thing now. One thing I've learned is that whatever fancy pictures you might have taken - or semi-planned to take - sometimes you come across something by accident and you just know it's the one.

This picture shows the corner of Gillibrand Street and Market Street in Chorley. I don't remember what this shop was before it closed down, but years ago it used to be an Oxfam shop. The picture is uncropped and unmessed about with digitally. I like the bleakness, the drabness, the sense of desolation and the letters remaining on the broken sign.

I'm not saying it's anything fantastic, but the picture reminds me of the work of George Shaw - a Turner Prize nominee this year. A Guardian article about him can be seen here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/oct/23/turner-2011-baltic-condo-review

George Shaw uses tiny pots of Humbrol model paints on board to create pictures of various bleak scenes near the Tile Hill estate in Coventry where he grew up - titles of his work includes Landscape With Dog Shit Bin.

The Guardian article says:

"He finds traces of human occupation in his excavation of this recent past, like the shades of scrubbed-out graffiti on an end-of-terrace wall, but mostly this place is as emptied of life as Pompeii. He chooses his angles carefully. The places he dwells on, like his past itself, are boarded up and closed down to him."

George now lives in Devon. That figures. I wish I did!