City States
Cities of the Imagination
Since childhood, certain cities have held a special place in my imagination. New York existed almost as a fantasy island, while London inspired a different but equally compelling sense of intrigue. Both felt familiar and yet somehow distant, places I could vividly imagine long before I ever encountered them in person.
Stories from Afar
My connection to these cities was shaped, in part, by my grandmother. She had lived in London, and I remember listening to her stories of the city, alongside stories of her husband travelling to New York on business. To me, these journeys seemed far too exciting and distant from my own world. I vividly imagined the places and experiences she described, forming my own impressions of cities I had yet to see.
These early imaginings stayed with me. I eventually moved to London before I had ever visited, and later travelled to New York several times, including as part of my degree studies. Looking back, these experiences reveal how imagination, memory and a sense of place had already begun to shape the way I saw the world.
Two Cities, Two States
City States brings together two cities, encountered in the real world and transformed through the imagination. Through unreal and surreal colour, a new dimension is added to a familiar reality. These earlier works trace the beginnings of ideas and themes that continue to run through my practice.
London Fever: a restless, intoxicating energy, where history and modern life collide, and intensity pulses through the streets.
“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.”
— Samuel Johnson
New York Blue: an expansive, dreamlike energy, where dreams feel like reality and possibility fills the air.
“There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.”
— Simone de Beauvoir
Cities with Their Own Identities
Looking back at these works, I am struck by how many of the themes that continue through my practice were already beginning to emerge. Emotion, presence, duality, contrast, opposites, juxtaposition and the surreal can all be found within these paintings, with the cities themselves almost taking on identities of their own.
I wanted to convey the feeling of being within these cities. This was the catalyst for both paintings. Rather than simply depicting a place, I was interested in how each city could become a feeling. Something experienced as much through memory and imagination as through what was physically seen.
Geometry and Rhythm
I remember being particularly interested in the pattern and repetition of the architecture in both cities, and how I tried to heighten this within the works. New York's skyscrapers drew me towards their strong geometry and vertical structures, while London's skyline offered a more complicated mixture of architecture, bringing together heritage and modernity.
I was interested in how both could be simplified, while remaining instantly recognisable. The photographs I took were from elevated viewpoints, adding to the sense of scale and allowing me to explore these panoramic views from a different perspective.
Colour, Distortion and Influence
The posterised quality of the views reflects the influence of one of my favourite artists, David Hockney. His use of colour, distortions of perspective and playful approach to the image had a strong influence on me at the time.
Painted in acrylic, several layers of paint were repeatedly applied across the entire surface, adding depth and intensity to the colour. The unreal and heightened palettes allowed me to move beyond a literal representation of the cities and towards something more imagined.
Immersion and Memory
Due to their larger scale, I planned some key elements of the compositions and worked from photographs I had taken. I began at the centre of each canvas, focusing on the prominent building or area of interest, and gradually worked outwards. This allowed me to create simplified versions of these panoramic views while retaining enough detail for the cities to remain recognisable.
The larger scale created a sense of immersion while working on the canvases, particularly in contrast to much of my smaller-scale work at the time. The process became a way of replaying those initial feelings of witnessing these views. Connecting the physical experience of the cities with the imagined versions that had existed in my mind for so many years.
The Beginning of a Thread
Looking back, these paintings feel like an early exploration of ideas that would continue to develop throughout my practice. The relationship between reality and imagination, the emotional presence of place, the tension between opposites, and the transformation of what is familiar into something less certain can all be seen beginning to take shape here.
City States is therefore both a record of two cities and an early glimpse of a way of seeing that continues to inform my work.