A fourth-generation Portobello market trader, a Notting Hill Carnival stalwart and fashion icon known locally as "Notting Hill's best dressed man" are among the people featured in a new artwork by street artist Endless, about Notting Hill's identity. The installation, Endless Frieze, displays local buildings and street scenes celebrating the west London neighbourhood as part of the annual art fair Frieze London. Guests and celebrities specifically chosen for their contribution to the area's identity were photographed during a live event on Friday and now feature as part of the exhibition.
The work is "about the community and bringing them into the art world and into my world," Endless said. This world includes Cheryl Devlin, a greengrocer whose family have had a fruit and vegetable stall in the market for more than a hundred years. She has worked on the stall since she was five years old.
"I used to stand beside my mum and dad and sell lemons, five for a shilling," she says. "And if you didn't, you didn't get your dinner; it was really that tough in the '50s." The area has changed since then, she says. There used to be around 350 people selling fruit and veg, but that's been replaced with stalls selling cooked food or bric-a-brac.
"A lot of people downsize who can't afford the housing. "It's just tough to live around this area now where it was quite cheap and reasonable." Like the area, the exhibition is ever-changing. It's being created in real time - as soon as the portraits are taken they appear on the wall, in a collage - something Endless says can be a creative risk.
"It becomes a frieze, a moment in time of the architecture, the buildings and the people. So it's really about the energy of the place. "Whenever I make any artwork, I plan it and I have a vision, but then it can go either way," he says.
"There's like elements of risk even when you're making a painting. So with this the risk is life, anything could happen. So the camera could go wrong or I could stick it up wrong but that's part of it.
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