Painting of london scene by James Apichart Jarvis

Feb. 1, 2012 - PRLog -- Queue (2007)
Oil Paint 91 x 61cm

This is not an abstract painting.  It is a painting that accurate depicts the effect of light and the movement of the photographer (me).
 Nor is it an image at an a subway station, a reasonable mistake.  It is intact a men queuing up to buy the latest clothes product in the busy Top Man.  Typical Londoners, and most likely tourists, in a normal setting, in the centre of town: Oxford Circus.
 Queue was in fact a project during my year at the Chelsea College of Art, a task that asked students to look into the materialism of London. My interpretation was to portray the modern man in a leisure activity that has long been deemed as a predominately female: shopping.  

  For me the aesthetic qualities of the photograph I worked from had a very rough and raw quality to it, from a very accidental photo taken on the move without me looking through the viewer.

Content:  Ten figures line the width of the canvas, forming a disorganised queue that is highlighted with the varying heights of the men.

Colours:  A colour range of browns and black, contrasting with the artificial white of the background.  This creates an interesting visual effect where the darkest and lightest colours standout in a tonal range of earthy browns.

Composition: A very integral part for my art.  The men lining up in the foreground, with varying faces that are blurred with movement adds a certain style that, for me, is reminiscent of Francis Bacon (another favourite artist of mine).  Funny enough, it is not the faces that stand out, but the details of the clothed figures.  The painting is then bordered by the black ceiling that features a hazed light which focuses attention back on to the figures, while at the same time giving the composition breathing space.

A related painting that I did titled Blurred Transport looks at the visual movement of the London Underground train.  Vaguely inspired by J.M.W. Turner's Rain, Steam, and Speed. The Great Western Railway painting.

Blog: http://artstarting.blogspot.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/JJarvisartist

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Jarvis states that the aim of his work is “to induce the experience of exploration and fascination through paintings that experiment present a range of techniques and an architectural based composition”.