'River City' — Mixed Media on Canvas

'River City' — Mixed Media on Canvas

'River City' is a painting that responds to the experience of a city seen from the water — the particular perspective that a river offers on the urban landscape, with its combination of the ancient and the modern, the monumental and the domestic. The title is deliberately ambiguous: it could refer to any number of cities built on rivers, and this ambiguity is part of the painting's intention.

Mixed Media and Urban Landscape

The painting was made using mixed media on canvas, with the surface built up through layers of paint and other materials. The urban landscape presents different challenges from the natural landscape: the geometry is more insistent, the scale more varied, the relationship between the built and the natural more complex.

In 'River City', the architectural forms are suggested rather than described — the painting is not a view of a specific city but an evocation of the experience of being in one, seen from the particular vantage point of the water. The palette is urban: greys, ochres, and the particular quality of light that reflects off water in a city context.