Right Where I Left It

There are places we visit for their beauty, and places we barely notice at all.

A multi-storey car park probably belongs firmly in the second category. We arrive, find a space, remember roughly where we've left the car and disappear to the shops. Later, we retrace our steps, hopefully find it exactly where we left it, and carry on with our day.

But these ordinary places are part of our lives too.

Right Where I Left It is based on a multi-storey car park in Truro, with the cathedral rising beyond it.

I often use photographs as a starting point rather than something to reproduce exactly. My reference photograph for this painting was actually taken during the day, and I also shifted the cathedral within the composition, bringing two very different pieces of Truro together: one instantly recognisable and celebrated, the other functional, familiar and usually overlooked.

As daylight gives way to artificial light, the car park becomes a grid of illuminated windows and repeated shapes, while the cathedral sits quietly beyond.

There is something I love about that contrast.

One building is visited, photographed and admired. The other is simply used.

And yet for many people who live in or visit Truro, both are part of the experience of the city.

That's at the heart of The Colour of Night. I'm interested in the places that quietly support everyday life: the car parks, bus stops, shops, cafés and roads that we pass through repeatedly until they become part of our own personal map of a place.