Paintings of city life in motion
Ed Gray is a painter of city life and the layers of urban stories and people that create the modern city. Traces of recognisable lives lived within the city are revealed in these gritty metropolitan moments drawn from the shadows of the dark grimy streets of London to the glittering spires of the Shard. These paintings are not caricatures, instead they are street scenes that celebrate the character and characters of the city and the theatre of urban life. Everyday people are keenly observed and drawn into sketchbooks to inform paintings that are a multiplicity of events and incidents. The resulting exuberant scenes resonate with allegory and symbolism, revealing the diverse relationships of people to their built environments and to one another within those spaces in a unique empirical exploration of civic identity.
Transmetropolitan Tapestry
Ed Gray’s paintings are enthused with the spirit of Hogarth, Dickens and Lowry. Nothing is imagined and everything is sketched from life in the streets and painted onto canvas in a collective transmetropolitan tapestry of London, New York, Mexico City, Tokyo, Bangkok and Cape Town and wherever else he may find himself drawn deep into the layers of lives lived in our cities.
New work in progress in the studio
March for Gaza painting in progress
New paintings in progress for 2025 include scenes of the March for Gaza peace marches that Ed has been sketching, Soho at night, Paddington Train station and the City of London. In 2024-25 I began to sketch the crowds in Whitehall that were attending the freedom marches for Palestine. Protest, uprising and resistance to political corruption have featured in two of my previous paintings, St Nazarius's Day Mexico City and Sukhumvit Market Bangkok...
‘… If for once we may suppose nobody to be everybody, as everybody is often said to be nobody, then this work is dedicated to everybody by their most humble and devoted William Hogarth’
William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty 1753
Painting of the month
Primrose Hill Regent’s Park London ‘Sledgers in the Snow’
A painting made from sketches drawn on Primrose Hill of a snowy afternoon with people sledging and playing in the snow with views of the City of London and Regent's Park Zoo in the background. In 2010 I found one of the highest points in the city to take stock of all that happened to me after I'd moved away to live in Mexico in 2008, and travelled on to make work in America, Bangkok, Japan and Cape Town in 2009. I needed to reflect upon the new London that I wanted to paint. I'd wanted to paint the view from Primose Hill, with its connections to William Blake, for a long time...
‘… If for once we may suppose nobody to be everybody, as everybody is often said to be nobody, then this work is dedicated to everybody by their most humble and devoted William Hogarth’
William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty 1753
Paintings
Explore paintings of London and other cities around the world. Browse the Gallery by location and discover distinctive street scenes, skylines, and everyday moments captured in paint, from familiar favourites like London and New York to vibrant destinations across the globe. Explore collections including London, New York, New York Sketches, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Tokyo, Bangkok, Cape Town, and Hamilton, Bermuda.
London
New York
New York Sketches
Mexico City
Tokyo
Cape Town
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