Tooting Common Autumn Almanac

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  • Dimensions: 91cm x 66cm
  • Media: Acrylic paint on canvas
  • Year: 1999
  • Sold: Yes

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I was living down the road from Tooting Common in 1999. It was an easy stroll to the lido that I would decide to paint a few years later. This, though, is an autumnal scene – a couple out walking, a homeless man and some kids in the park, a man feeding birds in the background, and a train clunking by.

There’s never just one road that leads to the point where you can’t not make a painting of the things you come across in the city. Usually, the journey starts with a word. There’s a kind of poetry in a place name. ‘Tooting’ is a word full of motion and sound. It’s a word that always makes me smile – mainly because of the old joke about Tutankhamen. But there’s a kind of romance for me about a common. Winter walks on its flat plains, a stop off at the Bedford for a drink. The great panoply of life stretches before you as you wander through a city, affording great freedom and anonymity, a space to collect thoughts, or lose them. A common is often a cut through, a wild place with different laws and possibilities. We are blessed with such spaces in London

The other way to respond to the call of the city is when it puts something difficult in your path. It slaps you in the face and brings you back to earth, waking up your senses and reminding you of your own insignificance in the great machine that rumbles on around you. The city presents you with uncomfortable truths. It makes you aware of your circumstances – fortunate circumstances in my case.

When this fella eased his boot off, oblivious to anyone around him, I couldn’t help but look away. I could only guess at the causes of his sore foot as he took a moment to smoke and rest.

Move on, awake to visions, with an image stamped on my mind, as if a record button has been pressed down, past youngsters idling on the bench with phoneless twentieth century hands. A man tenderly feeds a flock of pigeons. The air is potent with the smell of smoke and decaying leaves. A young couple, caught in proximity, have forgotten the rain has stopped. A glance to the train track,the watchers onboard are watching from the window. A scene is taking shape. Hold on tight.


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