Cityscapes
Background
I started working with cityscapes while a student at Portsmouth, I would often draw and paint this coastal city. Since leaving college I have travelled to a number of metropolitan areas. When in Japan I painted Kyoto from various locations and made drawings from the banks of the Sumida River at Asakusa in Tokyo. I have drawn on-site while in New York and worked alongside Miles Richmond from rooftops of the London South Bank University. I joined him as he worked on his millennium painting commission for the university entitled ‘London from the South Bank’ 1999. This also gave me the opportunity for my own research. I made studies and paintings of the London cityscape from the south bank. I continue to draw and paint urban localities from both ground level and higher vantage points. Another cityscape series is the study of medieval churches that survive in the square mile of the City of London, many of these churches were reconstructed by Christopher Wren after the great fire of London. ‘St Mary at Hill’ 2005 is one painting from this series.
I am attracted to cityscapes and although my subject matter and methods can vary there is a relatively constant approach that stays with me. I think elements of this approach or philosophy are contained within my working practise as an artist. For example, most of my cityscape paintings were based around drawings I made on location. As I worked on these drawings my perception of the locations expanded, the energy of this expansion then became embodied within the drawings. Subsequently I made paintings from these drawings. My aim was to construct and enhance the paintings by using the energy of expansion encompassed within my experience when drawing at differing urban environments.
Nigel Caple
2021
