-
'Future relics': the painter capturing the beauty of council houses
Frank Laws’s Hopperesque watercolours depict the individual character of east London’s most impressive – and everyday – buildings, as gentrification threatens their very existenceFrom Mike Leigh’s film Meantime to the TV show Top Boy, the social housing estates of east London have provided rich subject matter for writers and artists exploring the human stories intertwining in their communities. In the paintings of east Londoner Frank Laws, however, there isn’t a person in sight. The only signs of life are curtains flapping at open windows and the luminescent glow emanating from inside a home. Blocks of flats that teem with life in, say, Plan B’s film and album Ill Manors, stand eerily quiet and vacant in Laws’s images.Laws was born in a village in Norfolk but hated the rural quiet. “I was always scared of the dark in the countryside,” says the 37-year-old. “I’m still scared of it.” It’s this fear, and Laws’ love of film noir, that informs the dramatic, Edward Hopperesque lighting in Laws’ meticulously detailed watercolour and acrylic paintings. Continue reading...
More like this (3)
-
Penthouses and poor doors: how Europe's 'biggest regeneration project' fell flat
Few places have seen such turbocharged luxury development as Nine Elms on the London riverside. So...
-
The Nigerian-British Writer Putting Black Joy on Stage and Screen
“There’s so much more that comes with being Black apart from dealing with racism,” says Theresa...
-
Coronavirus live news: pubs reopen in England, as Victoria announces 'hard lockdown'
Fourth of July holiday weekend starts 53,000 new cases on Friday; WHO changes timeline of how...
