JONATHAN ROSS came to set up a gallery in his home five years ago.
What inspired him to do it? ELOISE SEDDON reports.

From his twirled moustache and rakishly pointy beard down to his dapper beige linen summer suit, Jonathan Ross is every bit the late nineteenth century aesthete. Even his manner - precise, solicitous, charming and very discreet - is disarmingly old style. So it's no surprise to find that his South West London house in Earls Court Road, is a five storey mansion of a place. It is an imposing town house stuffed with antique furniture that gleams like freshly fallen conkers, bursting bookcases, figurative sculptures, and collections of mid Victorian photographic paraphernalia.

What is a shock is that Jonathan organises exhibitions for very modern contemporary emerging artists at this London home he shares with his artist and sculptor wife, Camilla Shivarg. For on first appearances this is a space that would seem better suited to more formal portraits, Pre Raphaelite morality or traditional landscapes rather than cutting edge pictures by a new generation of artists. Yet it is here in this unexpectedly tranquil haven on a manic London thoroughfare that innovative young artists are showing their work. 286 shows a fantastically wide range of pieces from political textiles representing Osama Bin Laden to figurative oils of bathers and brightly coloured abstracts. These exhibitions last two to three weeks each, and Jonathan organises three private views, two in the week and one on Sunday lunchtime for up to 150 people each time. On average the gallery shows about 10 different artists each year.

So how come Jonathan came to set up a gallery in his home five years ago? What inspired him to do it? The answer is a self-confessed passion for discovering and promoting new artistic talent and a desire for collecting that goes back to childhood. "I really enjoy other people's creativity," he says. "Camilla is more creative than me in that she makes things like sculptures, paintings and gardens. She likes getting her hands dirty so to speak, while I enjoy putting all that effort together. For me art collecting is a bit like making collages which is something that I used to do as form of art therapy. "It is also fun to go with gut feeling and support less well-known artists than to go to the secondary market and buy examples of well-known names. That would be too predictable and safe."

Having been brought up in Chelsea by sociable bohemian parents - his father was the poet and writer Alan Ross who used to run the literary journal The London Magazine - he is also someone who is used to partying and mixing in eclectic social groups. And since childhood, he has also been an avid collector of stuff in general.

"As a child I liked collecting stuff. I used to take people up to my room, which I called The Museum and give them guided tours. It is essentially what I'm doing now but with new art."

It was also what he was doing when he ran a hologram business making glass plate and printed holograms primarily for use at trade fairs. Even now he has a whole studio at the top of the house devoted to housing his vast and ever increasing collection of holograms and an entire archive of holographic work

To see them you need to be invited by appointment, which is more salon style than typical gallery. This is not just a mere money-spinning enterprise, (prices range from a couple of hundred pounds to around £3,000) but also a way for Jonathan to satisfy a highly personal need to be involved in the creative process and meet people. "I once rented out the gallery got paid in advance, but it was boring to do. I just ate canapés for three days."

Jonathan invites people who are known to him or the artist who is showing. "I regularly prune the list in order to maintain an interesting mix. Some people will always be invited regardless of whether they ever buy a painting simply because they add something to the event. Artists as a rule are welcome too. I weed out the bores and drunks though. I accept there is a definite social function to the gallery but, if you just turn up and head straight for the bar and do not have the courtesy to look at the work, then you probably won't be invited back again."

His home, where the artists' works are exhibited is not some blank white space, but a hub of domesticity and creativity that has taken over three years to restore in painstaking detail to its former mid nineteenth century glory.

"I have very intimate relations with the artists who show. Although this relationship might only last a couple of months," he says. "I would never show anything that I didn't like and I only deal in stuff that I can sell with conviction. We have to live with them after all for the length of time that they are up. What is great is when we get them to come back with other exhibits at later dates.

"Quite often I will buy paintings off the artists who show here and I have refused to show pictures that I don't understand," he continues. It is this same intensity and love of the work that also inspires his wife Camilla, who he met thirty years ago and married in 1998 -"I'm not exactly a fast worker," says Jonathan.

Camilla, who studied fine art at Chelsea Art College and then at Wimbledon Art College in the late seventies, has doggedly pursued the figurative route. "I am totally figurative and desperately unfashionable," she says. "I can't say this has ever really bothered me. At art school I cant remember many inspiring tutors there." She works in traditional materials such as clay, stoneware, wax or terracotta for her sculptures and in oils for her paintings.

"I've been endlessly fascinated by the human figure. I think this harks back
to my training as a ballet dancer," she adds. Camilla, who also runs drawing and sculpture classes at her home, works most of the summer at the couple's remote cottage in Buckinghamshire. When she is there, and not painting, she is either cooking for the models who regularly stay over or else gardening - another great passion of hers.

For them, not having children was a conscious decision that has enabled them to continue the creative lifestyle that they lead. "I always think that artists have famously not made good parents," Jonathan says. "Art is a good child substitute. If we had children, we probably couldn't afford to do what we can."

Soloarte
November 2003

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