What London means to me in an artwork — Green, Blue, and Hard Gritty Steel…
I’m delighted to be taking part in a fantastic art project at Wimbledon Art Studios. As part of the next Open Studios show on November 10–13, 50 artists of Wimbledon Art Studios (including yours truly) have donated an original artwork to create a concertina artist book that will be auctioned off to raise funds for promoting the show. The theme of the artist book was set as London.
While for some artists, creating artwork inspired by London might seem like an easy task, for me it was quite a difficult idea to inspire me. While I have lived in London for more than eight years now, the dominant inspiration for my artwork is nature. Mainly in the form of landscapes, seascapes, and flowers. I am strongly influenced by the awe-inspiring nature I have been lucky enough to witness during my hikes, walks and travels throughout more than 50 countries, including the UK.
And yet, here was the challenge — create an artwork that is influenced by London. London, which is a big bustling city with a population that wavers around the 8–10 million people mark. London that can often feel very crowded and congested full of buildings, roads, and people. London, that with all its history, energy, and vibrancy is at the end of the day a big city. It’s been my home for nearly 10 years, it is the place where I met my husband, and the city where I’ve grown and developed as an artist and as a person. And that got me thinking… What could I create that would be an artwork that is still my style, still speaks to my love of nature, and is inspired by a city that on the surface seems to be at odds with what inspires my artwork the most.
Even casual visitors to London often notice that unlike many other large cities, London is green — very green. London is often recognized as the greenest city in the world (for its population and geographical size). As somebody who’s lived in New York for a mere 2 years and London for more than 8 years, I concur. London has a plethora of green spaces, whether it’s home gardens, greens, commons, parks, nature reserves, rooftop gardens, and even woods. And all of these green often tranquil and beautiful spaces are within London itself, many in central London.
Over the past 8 years, I’ve lived in several areas of London, each of which had its own green space. When I was based in Mile End, I adored Victoria Park. When I was based in Dulwich, I was amazed at Dulwich Woods with its mature trees so close to central London. And now that I’m based in Wandsworth, I have so many green spaces to choose from — from Wimbledon Common, Bishop’s Park, Wandsworth Common, Wandsworth Park, and Wimbledon Park to name just a few. All this time, London’s green spaces have so often given me room to breathe. Emotionally and physically. London’s plethora of green spaces has given me the connection with nature, which I crave, particularly when living in a big bustling city.
The other aspect of London life that is noticeable to me is the proximity of the colour blue. London is very blue. When I lived in New York hears ago, I distinctly remember not being able to see the sky because I was surrounded by skyscrapers in mid-town Manhattan. While London’s skyline is certainly growing rapidly, it still is nowhere as build up as other cities. London is a place where you can still see blue — you can see the blue sky and the rolling clouds that often playfully roll by along the skyline. And you can see the river Thames, Regents canal, and London’s many other smaller canals and rivers. Often, those are more of a brown colour (or even green covered with algae), but equally as often they are blue. Unlike some other cities where the river is not easily accessible, in London the Thames runs through the heart of the city. Not only is it accessible, but it is actively encouraged to be a real part of city life for Londoners — the multiple walks I’ve done along the Thames Path are a testament to that fact. London’s canals can be gloriously scenic, lined with beautiful houseboats and trees (Little Venice comes to mind), connecting parks and residential areas. One of my favourite walks is from Mile End to Broadway Market along Regent’s canal, which takes in Victoria Park, and passes by some historic canal locks, new residential housing, striking gasworks, and up to the vibrant Broadway market. So there we have it — London inspired colours for my original artwork would be blue and green — maybe surprising, but true.
But even with so much access to the natural world, one cannot forget that London is a city. It is after all called the Big Smoke because of its history of polluted city air that came about from coal-fired homes. And part of living in a city is its infrastructure, particularly its transport networks which move around the millions of visitors and residents on a daily basis. Part of the reason why London does have so many green and blue spaces is because it is simply so spread out. And because it is so spread out, it requires a massive transport network to enable its residents, commuters, visitors, and tourists to get around. And that is the second part of my inspiration — the extensive London transport network that encompasses the tube, a variety of overground trains, DLR (Docklands Light Railway), a tram, and even a cable car line.
For my London-inspired artwork, I wanted to add the city’s grittiness to my background nature-inspired colours of blue and green. To incorporate an urban stamp of what it is to live in London — London’s transport system — what makes London’s green and blue possible and accessible to its people. I wanted to reference the typical London commute, the massive transport network, the metal look and feel of endless lines of rails. And I decided to add that element of urban hard metal life by taking “rubbings” from certain transport elements with graphite. When you look at the floor of London’s transport network (as I often do commuting back and forth to various places), I see the textures that are created by the various physical urban elements. The anti-slip protrusions that are so common in many of the heavily walked areas in London (including steps in tube stations), the grill covers that cover small rivets on the surface that enable the rain water to drain away from the surface, and the raised surface of the yellow line near the edge of the platform.
Earlsfield Station is the closest train or tube station to Wimbledon Art Studios. And so on that sunny Sunday afternoon in September, when I created my artwork for the concertina artist book, I took rubbings (i.e. put the watercolour paper on a textured surface and rub graphite on the paper thereby transferring some of the texture onto the paper).
And there you have it. My London — with green spaces, blue skies and waters, and a gritty, necessary, industrial urban transport infrastructure that makes it all possible. And here is the final artwork entitled “Earlsfield on a sunny Sunday afternoon in September”.
