Brixton Arcade Brixton Market

• Dimensions: 70 x 70 cm
• Media: Acrylic paint, chalk, charcoal on canvas
• Year: 2003
• Sold: Yes

This was an early market painting for me. On my weekends, I’d visit the market to stock up with fish and veg. These two fellas had a little stall outside a Colombian cafe where you could always be sure to find a good breakfast. One day, I perched by a window and began to sketch them.

After some time, my attention was drawn to the couple arguing in the background. Drawing makes you very sensitive to energy. Sometimes, it gets too overwhelming. I could only guess at their relationship, but it was certainly an unequal one. Her blackened eye told a story.

As I walked back home up the hill, I saw them twice more, the argument progressing on route each time. I saw them for the last time standing by his car. She hesitated, distressed, then stepped shakily but swiftly inside, as if pulled inside by an invisible thread. The door slammed, and the car sped away. The spider in the market stall was my own late addition to the painting.

On seeing the finished painting, a white friend’s dad, John, told me one of his early jobs was working in a very successful shoe shop, in or around the Brixton arcade. He spoke very fondly of the stylish Caribbean gents that made the shop so successful by saving up their hard earned money to spend on fine footwear. A shiny shoe is a symbol of status and pride in a cold foreign place, an antidote to homesickness – a visual reminder of sacrifices made – best foot forward, a step up, ever onwards.

This painting held a lot of memories for him, and consequently, thanks to him, it now holds those memories for me.