Award-winning artist Joe Magee takes over Stroud CAMRA Pub of the year 2022 ( that’s here) for six weeks from November 16th. Based in Stroud, Joe has provided images to The Guardian for around 25 years and counting - and also worked with Time Magazine (had 5 covers published) and publications such as Libération, New York Times, Washington Post. Joe has shown works at many galleries - including the Institute of Contemporary Arts, ISEA (Japan, Liverpool), the Victoria and Albert Museum and The National Portrait Gallery.

Joe will fill every available wall of our popular pub with limited edition screen prints, studio works, one-offs and more – and all the work is for sale, many at discounts. There will even be a limited edition print of an image that helped Joe get sacked by the Daily Telegraph for embedding political statements in his illustrations.

“I love the idea of a pub as an art gallery”, says Joe, “of showing work in a less rarefied and exclusive environment - one where people haven’t especially gone to to look at art. Galleries are these empty white spaces - people are focussed on the artworks that look great and are the centre of attention. But in a pub people are relaxing and a piece of work might provoke an unexpected
reaction in someone”.

“The Albert is painted in really bold primary colours and has a lovely warm and offbeat vibe, and I can’t wait to see how the work looks, packed onto the walls. I think my work will work well there - a lot of my images are very bold with minimal colours. I have produced a lot of images that have been commissioned for publications over the years, such as in The Guardian and Time, and I think
that has channelled me a little to develop a style of art that competes for attention on the pages of magazines, and so it maybe feels that it would also compete for attention on walls. I don’t even know if that is a good or bad thing!”