Catch a Boat Here Today

Catch a Boat Here Today captures a Thames pier illuminated by the colourful lights of the London Eye and the buildings beyond. Reflected across the river and caught again in the glass of the waiting area, the layers of light transform this temporary stopping place into something worth pausing for.

Catch a Boat Here Today began with a walk along the Thames after the British Art Prize private view at OXO Tower Wharf in December 2024.

Across the river, the London Eye was glowing pink, while the nearby Country Hall and aquarium was illuminated in yellow and blue. All that colour was reflected across the Thames, and then caught again in the glass of the waiting area on the pier.

I wasn't catching a boat that evening; I was simply passing by. But perhaps that's part of what interested me about the scene. A pier is a temporary place, somewhere designed for people to arrive, wait and move on again.

The title came directly from the sign on the pier: Catch a Boat Here Today. I love finding ordinary words and phrases within a scene that can become part of the painting's story.

What began as an attraction to the layers of reflected light became a painting about one of those places we rarely think about as destinations in themselves, somewhere between where we've come from and wherever we're going next.