London Zoo from Primrose Hill
oil on canvas, 1000mm x 800mm

Collection Prudential plc

 

Shown at Bernarducci. Meisel Gallery, 37 West 57th Street, New York, USA "Industrial Landscapes in Contemporary Painting" September 2005

 

A sense of London within the natural world is created by a view across a nineteenth century park, over a zoo to distant hills. Wind and sunlight create an environment of natural change. Clouds at different altitudes show air masses moving while aerial perspective shows distant, luminous air. Shape and texture echo between clouds and trees.

Next to Regents Park canal lays The Great Aviary. Free birds fly off to the far left. Beneath high contrails a low flying jet runs into Heathrow. A telecommunications tower, buildings, cranes and spires project upwards. The manmade and the natural mix. People sit on the grass in and out of the Sun, some self absorbed, others enjoying where they are, in nature and in the city; a special, subrural view from Primrose Hill loved for hundreds of years by Londoners and visitors alike.

The painting is in a tradition of city prospects and was inspired by a view of London from Greenwich by JMW Turner (1809) now in Tate Britain.