Anglo-Dutch painter Nick Goss has opened a new exhibition at Josh Lilley Gallery, featuring eleven paintings inspired by Eel Pie Island, a private marshy area on the Thames in Twickenham with a bohemian past—including 1960s rock concerts by The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Pink Floyd, a hippie commune, and a 1972 fire. In an interview with Paul Carey-Kent, Goss discusses how he blends fact and fiction, combining sources from hotel corridors, Pompeii, and the Sergeant Pepper album cover to create ambiguous, layered works that evoke half-remembered histories.
This exhibition matters because it showcases Goss's distinctive method of merging silkscreen, distemper, and oil painting to explore memory and imagination through a specific historical site. The interview offers insight into his creative process, including his use of charcoal stencils, fabric patterns from Dalston, and deliberate friction between media, positioning him as a painter who challenges straightforward narrative and engages with the tension between reality and invention.