Before The Motorway

Painted over the last 30 years, these delightfully obsessive works depict the mutation and evolution of a once industrial valley, now a commuter corridor. Stockport has been dominated by ‘the three Rs’ — river, rail and road — and now boasts a motorway, a congestion of roundabouts, sliproads and a pyramid.

One of the few artists working in egg tempora, Helen Clapcott’s paintings have been continuously researched through drawing on location, each laboured over for periods of months and sometimes years. They are not critical, nor do they defend a cause or corner. They are a celebration of light, and show a deep appreciation of a unique landscape.

Born in Blackpool and now living in Macclesfield with illustrator Ian Pollock, Helen Clapcott studied Fine Arts at Liverpool Polytechnic and the Royal Academy Schools and has received both a Green Shield Foundation Award and the David Murray Landscape Award. She has had one-woman exhibitions at Stockport Art Gallery; Salford City Art gallery; The New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham; Scolar Fine Art, London and has exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions.