I love to write poetry in my spare time, which generally consists of sitting on trains going in and out of central London. In addition to writing poetry, my work is concerned with art and the urban environment. I call this theme ‘The Decorated City’, and I am dedicated to increasing awareness of how important it is for urban dwellers to have a beautiful and inspiring environment, and not simply empty walls of concrete and brick. My first printed book ‘Hidden Cities,’ (1991) was a book about history, art and design in architectural details, and was published by Vancouver Canada publisher Talonbooks. I researched and wrote the text, designed the book, and shot all of the 371 photographs in it. ‘Hidden Cities’ won a City of Vancouver Heritage Award for 1992. It was also a nominee for the Vancouver Book Award. You can still find it on Amazon. In 1994 I moved to London where I have lived, worked and studied for over twenty years. During this time I have exhibited photographs of Art Deco architecture on numerous occasions, and given talks about London’s Art Deco architecture. From 2006-2012 I also had a website called ‘London Deco’. In September 2014 I published the first volume of a series of ebooks: ‘London Deco: Offices’. This was the first publication dedicated to exclusively examine the city’s considerable number of Art Deco office buildings, most of them in central London. This ebook has over three hundred photographs in it, and includes sections devoted to buildings that no longer exist, and also on contemporary ones which reference Art Deco. At this point only available from Apple. This was followed by ‘London Deco: Residences – Part 1 Suburbia’ and some time later with ‘London Deco: Residences – Part 2 Central London’. These two ebooks effectively divided the tremendous number of Art Deco apartments – ‘blocks of flats’ to Londoners – into outer and inner segments which in turn each revolved West - North - East - South. With these two volumes a broad survey is presented, showing the many forms of Art Deco flats constructed in the Greater London area, mainly in the 1930s, but sometimes later. Both feature hundreds of photographs, many in single album frames. Again, only available from Apple. Another work, ‘London Deco: Introduction’ is available as a free download. All of these books can be located by searching for ‘gregory edwards london deco’. This is available from Apple too, but also from Smashwords for non-Apple users. Art and poetry activities have so far resulted in one ebook: ‘Stay Up Late’ which is a collection of science-fiction and fantasy poems available from Smashwords and Apple. I am currently working on a new work, an illustrated collection of poems called: ‘Rotten Rhymes’. During the summer months I have been painting a series of works collectively titled: ‘Quantum Mythology’. These paintings, all white on black, explore the vastness of the physical universe whose mysteries are being slowly unraveled by modern physics, one of the most exciting, and baffling, scientific quests ever undertaken. The paintings depict vast empyrean spaces, fleeting orbits and cosmic explosions. Not yet sure how they will apply to ebooks... If you want to see them there a few on my Facebook page.
