Limited edition print of Shoreditch High Street, London

55cm x 22cm image size not including the white boarder paper. More details below.

I was commissioned to paint this junction of Shoreditch High Street. My client spent many years living in an apartment on this junction, and wanted a memory of it.

Today, it is party central with a bar, club, coffee shop or nightclub on every corner. Oh mustn’t forget the arty book shop. It looks like it has always been there.

This, however, is not the case. It seems just a few short years ago I visited the Comedy Cafe on Rivington Street on a Saturday night, and Shoreditch was like a deserted dystopian world, lit only by the single red neon light of the lone comedy night spot.

Painting Shoreditch High Street

This picture was painted looking North up Kingsland Road, and Hackney Road. I was also treated with a lovely wrought iron railway bridge on the Kingsland Road side.

When you are drawing on site you have the opportunity to notice the local people. The people who hang out here are totally different from those in Camden High Street. Shoreditch High Street is far more fashion conscious, and sadly far more self conscious too. It’s a great place to party though its a mite too poised.

That said, my job is just to record. I did also notice the action around ‘Browns Gentlemen’s Club’ in the centre of the painting. A constant trickle of men in groups passing through the well guarded doors at the front. And at the side door ‘girls’ going on lunch breaks alone. I drew them in too.