Shropshire Star

Vision of Darwin evolves as artwork to go on display at Shrewsbury gallery

New innovative artwork featuring Charles Darwin as never seen before is set to go on show in Shrewsbury.

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Jonathan Soden and Gary Drew

A pair of large and colourful paintings by a leading mural artist have been commissioned by The Soden Gallery in the town and will be unveiled soon.

Jonathan Soden, owner of the gallery on Wyle Cop, said that he was very excited by the new pieces, which will be exhibited from June 1 at the start of the Comic Salopia festival, an event celebrating the medium of comic artwork.

“I asked international mural artist Gary Drew to create some new images inspired by his travels, the art world and the local area," said Mr Soden.

“Of course Shrewsbury’s most famous son is Charles Darwin, so he features prominently in the paintings, along with some other more unlikely characters like Desperate Dan and Dennis the Menace!

“The finished pieces are amazing – I am thrilled with them and am sure our customers from Shrewsbury and throughout the Midlands will enjoy them as much.

“This is the start of a collaboration with Gary and we will be able to show a wonderful collection of similar paintings in the gallery in the future.”

Excited

Gary Drew regularly travels the world as a commercial artist and his work can been seen in murals in north and south America. He also specialises in producing pieces for the business and healthcare sector.

His Soden Collection paintings also include an image of Charlie Adlard, one of the world’s leading comic book artists and one of the creators of the Walking Dead series, who lives in Shrewsbury.

Gary added: “I love Shrewsbury and so I was so excited to work on this commission. Am looking forward to seeing them on show in such as stunning and innovative gallery.”

The Gary Drew paintings will be on show at the Soden Collection, priced at £2,450. They will be on display alongside a new exhibition of paintings by leading contemporary artist Endre Röder.

“Röder is one of the gallery’s favourite artists. His work is exhibited all over the world and he is widely regarded as one of today’s greatest UK artists so we are very proud and privileged to be hosting this show,” Jonathan added.

A preview event will be held on May 31, with the exhibition starting on June 1.