Artist Eric Jackson: “IT’S NOT BARTH, IT’S BATH”

Nostalgic travel posters picturing a halcyon day that never entirely existed are now all the rage, their innocence appealing to a modern generation tired of austerity, the bold and brutal. There’s something about the positive images done in strikingly bold colours, counterpointed by the clean Sans-Serif strokes of the Art Deco font -which collectively bring to mind a lost world of vintage movies, seaside railway destinations and, maybe, Agatha Christie characters.

The north can virtually boast a school of remarkably talented, hugely popular poster artists who mine this rich seam. There’s Stockport-based Stephen Millership, Nicky Thompson in Chester,  Jo Witherington in the Lakes and the enormously prolific Richard O’Neill in North Yorkshire, to name a few of the best.

But there is none more creative than Eric Jackson, a poster artist who lightly uses the genre while appreciating its nostalgic appeal. “My stuff is a pastiche, certainly with similarities in colours and typography to Art Deco,” he explains, “but for me, landscapes are a long way secondary to words and people.”

His posters are clearly not to be taken seriously. They are teasing, for the most part, often riotously funny, occasionally slightly acerbic.

We are sitting in the light and airy studio he has built in the back garden of his house in Davenport, a suburb of  Stockport which – Eric assures me with almost a straight face – has recently been described as ‘the new Berlin’ or ‘the North’s Peckham’! He’s got a poster to prove it!

His two Romanian rescue dogs, collies in all but name, look on contentedly while he shows me his latest acrylic painting, which began as a pencil drawing on A3 paper. He will soon scan it to the computer and add the text using an Indesign program.

He describes himself as the ‘Mancunian equivalent of a Cockney’, born within the sound of the cathedral’s bells and raised in Burnage – a suburb featured in a wickedly funny poster that has a pretentious elocution teacher pointing at a picture of Nigel Farage, telling her pupils to rhyme Burnage with his name.

“It’s a fine line between poking fun and being insulting,” he says, “but I usually manage to stay on the right side.”

His posters are clearly not to be taken seriously. They are teasing, for the most part, often riotously funny, occasionally slightly acerbic. Cheshire’s posh set, for example, takes quite a ribbing, and who could resist a guffaw at the two jaunty tennis players from Wilmslow, saying to each other: “Anyone for creative accounting…”. This poster became a collector’s item almost the moment it was withdrawn and replaced by a skit on new money. The new one has a little jingle: ‘Let’s all go to Wilmslow…superior beings are resident there, with mansions, Ferraris and huge hair!’ against the backdrop of the Rex cinema, a Ferrari and a posh blonde!

He unerringly knows how far to go. “It’s a fine line between poking fun and being insulting,” he says, “but I usually manage to stay on the right side.” You don’t so much scroll down the gallery on his website  – statementartworks.com- as stroll through a vibrant landscape overflowing with visual and verbal humour. Eric, who once had soccer trials with Sheffield United, is in his mid-sixties, and his spirit may well draw on the things that amused him in his time. Behind what is often quite sharp social commentary are hints of seaside postcards, Private Eye cartoons, the Beano and Dandy, even, and those pithy proclamations that landlords used to hang behind the bar.

Above all, the banter has a northern flavour. “My original mission was to feature small towns, like Urmston and Ramsbottom and Eccles, totally ignored by the other poster painters.” Some in-group jokes might not reach the wider world, but most hit home.

One with the broadest appeal is the famous Northern Bath poster that started it all for him. It focuses on an attractive blonde straight out of the 1940s, soaping herself in the bath. Everything about it has a contrived cuteness, from the bubbles that float around her to the plastic duck close to her hand. Through the innocently uncurtained window can be seen a modern high-rise building, strangely at odds with everything else.

Nothing seems to justify the slogan remotely. This Is The North. It’s when we read the smaller print, This In Not A Barth – This Is A Bath, that we get it. The whole thing – available in red, blue and yellow versions – is a spoof of those old government-issued information posters that patronisingly instructed people how to think, speak and behave. “It sells well throughout the entire country, so I can only assume Southerners find it as funny as the Northerners,” Eric speculates.

Suddenly, in 2014, he found himself abandoning a 35-year career in journalism and going back to rediscover skills last used in his early twenties…

He describes stumbling across the work of Grayson Perry in the Manchester Art Gallery as a moment of ‘epiphany’. “You might say I owe everything to him.” He pauses to reflect. “I was absolutely gobsmacked by what I saw. I just kept walking around, going from one painting to another, loving his social commentary and how it struck home in such an amusing way.”

Suddenly, in 2014,  he found himself abandoning a 35-year career in journalism and going back to rediscover skills last used in his early twenties, studying Fine Art at Plymouth University. “I leapt straight back into painting.” He still sounds surprised.

He launched his new career with a small exhibition at the Fazenda Bar and Grill in Manchester, well attended by former colleagues on the Manchester Evening News, where he had combined the role of Deputy Features editor with travel writing. “It helped that I knew how to promote myself.”

Within no time, his work was in demand, and his range of subjects was growing. Currently, he has just over a hundred posters on sale. Greater Manchester is his most frequent subject, at the centre of a heartland that extends from Liverpool in the west and Wigan to the north, over to Congleton and east to Warrington.

Yorkshire also features prominently and, hot off the press, is his parody of the archetypal Tyke. A self-satisfied farmer and his sheepdog are mightily pleased with all they survey from above the River Nidd at Knaresborough, right at the heart of ‘God’s Own Country’.

 

We recognise the packaging of a well-known tea brand in the legend ‘Yorkshire Tease’. Only Yorkshire folk, the poster seems to be saying, could imagine they had their own beverage brand imported from another continent. The farmer smugly thinks, ‘I’m not proud about coming from this county.’ Pull the other one!

Before creating a poster, Eric will visit the area, wander around, taking photographs, talk to people, and soak up the local atmosphere. He’s just back from a visit to London which involved 200 miles of tube travel as he hopped about gaining material for a projected series on the capital.

Available online and in various outlets, his is a kind of communicative art that seems to strike a chord with everyone. He knows from sales at fairs and markets that there is no particular customer profile. “It’s not generational, and as many women as men are buying it.” He gets orders worldwide and is surprised by the number of far-flung places where his work has been found.

Happily married to Jane and the proud father of their two grown-up girls, Connie and Florence,  Eric is a lifelong Manchester City supporter.  The former journalist quickly anticipates the standard last question. “No,” he says before I’ve got it out, “I’ve no great future plans, no ambitions to do anything more than I’m now doing.”

This is good news for those who share his sense of humour and love the north, which he somehow manages to heartily celebrate whilst ever alive to the quirks and foibles of its people.

“Life doesn’t have to be bobbins!”

 

Northern Life May/June 23