OZENGELL
ANDREW CURTIS
02/12/23 - 14/01/24
Andrew Curtis invites you to take a leisurely tour through Thanet continuing his fascination with the often
overlooked histories that surround us as we go about our daily lives.
You arrive at Cliftonville Halt, a proposed train station in the Dane Valley a short walk from Quench that
was never built, despite a recently demolished 1929 station hotel addicted to arson and two subsequent
housing estates still awaiting its arrival.
Is that Jackie “Mr TV” Pallo’s (a star of British televised wrestling in its 1960s and 1970s heyday) wardrobe
door?
That is the pervasive presence of Thanet Weed, introduced as seeds in the hay filled mattresses of soldiers
returning from the disastrous Walcheren expedition in 1809, ploughed-in by a farmer and commemorated
daily with a ritualistic burning by designated residents in every Thanet street.
If you are waiting for a connection please take a short rest on the memorial platform bench for both T.S.Elliot and
Howard Wexler.
What is growing in those ashtrays?
Have a look in the waiting room.
Penny Fall’s - the world’s first coin pusher arcade machine was invented in 1964 by Alfred Crompton at his
factory just off the Haine Road not far from Ozengell, one of 20 Pagan Jutish burial grounds in Thanet.
James Howden’s experimental 1MW wind generator was built behind Richborough power station in 1989,
at the time the biggest anywhere in the U.K A small lecture centre was set up near it’s base and a nature
reserve established. Howden stepped back from wind power after a failed project in the Altamont Pass in
California and the turbine has stood idle ever since.
As you make your way back to the platform try not to stare at Jackie Pallo’s fading La-Z-Boy franchise
Thanet showroom in Ozengell Farm which never really took off - perhaps his target audience lost faith
when he broke kayfabe?
Andrew Curtis (B.1979) graduated from the Royal College of Art (MA Printmaking) in 2009.
Since then he has exhibited with PayneShurvell (London), Nicola Scaglione (Bergamo) and
alongside Niall Monro as International Lawns with Domobaal (London).
From 2019-2022 he and his family operated PenthouseMargate, an exhibition space in their
Cliftonville home.
He is also director of Counter Print Studio, Margate, social media director for mocathanet and
will exhibit at cafe_ch_ti (Margate) 2024.
