----------------------------------------------------- NOVEMBER 6, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------- Source: Newcastle Journal http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk (abbreviated link text) Roger Dean: Trip into a world of fantasy By David Whetstone It isn't every day that an exhibition by one of the world's most popular artists drops into your lap - but that's what happened to gallery owner Anne Collier. Her lucky break came after a 20-year-old North-East university student called Daniel Earnshaw came into her Dean Street, Newcastle, gallery last May. The first time he came in, she hadn't been there so staff told him to come back. Fortunately for Anne, he did. "He said, `I've got this friend who paints'," recalled Anne yesterday. "I asked what he did and he said, `Fantasy'. "I thought: `Oh, no. Usually we can't sell fantasy art. When I asked what the friend's name was, he said: `Roger Dean'. "I said that would be handy because there was a famous artist in the 1970s called Roger Dean. `Yes,' he said, `that's him'." Daniel, who has relatives in the North-East, is a fan of Dean's work. Meeting him at a computer event, he had asked if he would consider having an exhibition in the North. Dean had replied: "If you can find me a gallery, I'll consider it." The resulting exhibition is a psychedelic trip down memory lane for fans of Yes, Uriah Heep, Asia, Rick Wakeman and others. The work recalls pre-punk days when concept albums gave the likes of Roger Dean licence to indulge their visual fantasies. The show of 40 paintings, drawings and prints by Dean, has had passers-by doing a `double take' as they spot the poster and then realise that the show displays the real McCoy. Once inside the gallery, price tags of £210,000 blow away any remaining doubts. A delighted Anne said yesterday that Dean had never exhibited in the North. "This is his second UK exhibition since 1976. The last one was in 2001 in Cork Street (London's gallery quarter) but the press conference was scheduled for September 11 so it didn't get much publicity. "At his last show in New York, 800 people queued for five hours in the rain just for the preview." Visitors to the exhibition will see a screenprint of the original Yes logo (the drawing for the original is in the Victoria and Albert Museum) and fantastic images of blended moonscapes and seascapes, dragons and floating islands. One of Dean's favourite paintings, Centre of the Earth, shows a shimmering blue honeycomb of caves with two pterodactyls flying across it. Acrylic on board, it could be yours for a couple of hundred grand. Several prints, valued at hundreds of pounds, have already been sold, including two of the limited edition run of Tales From Topographic Oceans which graced the sleeve of Yes's symphonic concept album of 1973. "Roger said it took him four times longer to do the print as it took to do the original painting," said Anne. "This year it was voted best album cover ever by readers of Rolling Stone Magazine in the United States." Concept albums may be a thing of the past but Roger Dean, who lives in Sussex, is busier than ever, designing for albums, computer games and conjuring up amazing interiors, harking back to his studies in the furniture school at the Royal College of Art which he attended in the mid-1960s. The exhibition has been extended until November 30. Roger Dean will be in the gallery on the 20th, from 4-6pm, and the 21st, from 9-10am, to sign album sleeves. Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, problems, corrections, or additions, contact YesinthePress@aol.com