'Underground'

My inspiration for ‘Underground’ derived from my first time of visiting New York in the USA through work as a teacher with college art students. I was blown away by the magnitude of the city as we travelled by the dark winding subway system to visit art galleries and landmarks. The lyrics, ‘in a city that never sleeps’, really struck a chord, as our hotel was based in the centre of Manhattan with the perpetual noise of trucks sounding their horns as they rumbled past throughout the early hours of the morning. I found the city to be exhilirating and fascinating, and wanted to capture the feeling of the busy lives of the diverse range of people as they travelled through the urban spaces. Waiting for a train in an underground subway, I quickly took a photograph of the opposite platform of commuters before their train pulled into the station, as was inspired to make artwork from this scene.

One of my favourite pastimes is sitting in cafés people watching, and sketching the crowds, especially if there is a large window overlooking a busy street or station. Perhaps this way of working as an artist could be theoretically situated with the notion of artist as ‘flâneur’. I often wonder who the people passing are, what stories they have to tell, what inspired them to travel that day and where they are going. The world can feel rushed in such transient spaces but there are also folk who stop to help a person carry their luggage up stairs, or who are momentarily transfixed by a beautiful piece of music played by an Underground busker. The Wim Wenders film, ‘Wings of Desire’ is an influence with it’s poetic footage of train carriages and the grey city streets of Berlin amidst it’s Brutalist architecture, as it conveys a romanticised view of everyday life, love and mortality.