Early 2020. A few weeks before the whole world decided to stay home.
I was living in Penge West. Going out with a girl who liked to drink. I liked to drink too, back then. We used to come into London through Victoria. It was our station. The beginning of everything.
This particular morning I was there at 9am on a Tuesday. Rush hour. The full thing. Hundreds of people moving through the concourse like they’d rehearsed it. Coffees. Headphones. That specific London face that says I am here but I am not here.
I don’t remember exactly where I was going. Probably a job interview. When you’re an artist in London you spend a surprising amount of time sitting in offices pretending you might become something else. You smile. You answer questions. You take the Victoria line home and wonder what just happened.
But that morning I stopped.
Right in the middle of the concourse. Just stood there watching the whole thing move around me. That feeling I’ve had since I was a kid, being inside something and completely outside it at the same time. A free Tuesday while the entire city clocks in.
I painted it from memory when I got back to Penge.
It’s one of my earliest watercolours. Less controlled than anything I make now. The figures aren’t precise. The light does things I didn’t quite plan. And somehow that’s exactly right, because the morning itself felt like that. Slightly out of focus. Real and unreal at the same time.
If you’ve ever stood in the middle of a crowd and felt like the only person not rushing somewhere, this painting already belongs to you. You just haven’t put it on your wall yet.
Watercolour on paper. 31 x 41 cm. Signed and dated. Ready to frame.
