FRANK CREBER
Frank has led on many public art programmes and activities, including in 2014 project managing, curating and exhibiting at ExCeL London in partnership with Grand Designs; a mile long exhibition called “Walking on Water”. This exhibition presented an entrepreneurial and artistic narrative of the new East London with 15 organisations moving in or already active in the Lower Lea Valley creating positive change for the communities in the associated boroughs.
Frank, who is sometimes referred to as the ‘Lowery of East London’, has painted a large series of paintings creating a ‘Water City’ portfolio, that is informed by many topographical cityscape drawings made on location in East London; drawings of local people made from observation and memory feed into the narrative process that is part of an unfolding personal visual chronicle, about the new emerging East London, both physical and social. As a painter he is focussed on an interplay of people and cityscape, this allows him to create motifs about hope, identity, regeneration, community and the tension between failure and success.
Working for 35 years at the celebrated Bromley by Bow Centre for many years as Creative Director and also Artistic Director of Water City CIC, Frank draws upon his knowledge of the detail of people’s lives and their stories of community engagement. For many years Frank has worked alongside colleagues to develop programmes and activities that integrate art, health, training, enterprise and the environment with a track record of enabling local people to develop positive relationships, create a healthy home and achieve a sense of purpose.