There’s no one around, or is there? a suggestion of some people but you only see their shadows. Look carefully and there’s 2 people in the restaurant enjoying a quiet space on this Brighton morning.
This was my piece for the summer exhibition this year at the RA. It was the product of a particularly fruitful scouting mission to Brighton as I also investigated the deckchairs on the beach that became Brighton Deckchairs that were exhibited at last year’s summer exhibition. It just the sort of light I like to paint, strong and crisp, deep shadows, high contrast. I’d taken the bus to Brighton with my SLR camera and a variety of lenses, I never know what if anything of inspiration I’ll find. I must have walked miles lugging my gear around, and most of the ideas for compositions I later discarded. Something was always missing. I had also discarded what became Brighton Morning as I was limiting my thinking to what had actually been there in front of me, that is, a busy crowded lane with traffic and people everywhere. But after obsessing over trying to make a composition out of a spot just round the corner and failing, and almost writing the day off, I went back to this spot because the curve of the restaurant’s frontage had a certain something and after taking all the bustle and noise out, there it was, the picture I wanted to paint.
Initially this painting and my deckchairs were displayed at a market fair, it was snowing outside and no-one was paying much attention as it was too cold and they probably just wanted coffee and mince pies, it then got warmer and the marquee dripped with condensation so the stall holders had to cover their wares in plastic sheeting. It was so cold my phone battery almost died. Behind my neat display table I was standing in mud, I had a hot water bottle under my coat and my toes had gone numb. My deckchairs weren’t even framed then, just popped into my card rack. When I handed these paintings over on receiving day, both times I felt bereft and a bit weepy for a while. Partly because they had gone from being overlooked, being rained on in a muddy marquee to the hallowed walls of the Royal Academy, it was such a contrast in context and I felt like I had been on a journey with them, they didn’t go straight from my easel to the exhibition, it’s like they had a little life beforehand with ups and downs. Within days of the private views both had sold. Context really is everything. I still sort of mourn not having them, which is how I know they had that x factor I’m always looking for, for me anyway.