Here is a selection of works by artists who use the Urban Environment as a source of inspiration.

THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT

ARCHITECTURE & BUILDINGS

Alexander Selivanov uses exaggerated perspective, strong tonal contrasts and texture to create impact and a sense of scale.

ALEXANDER SELIVANOV

Charles Sheeler has an idealised vision of the urban environment; his factories, skyscrapers and ship-yards seem clean, orderly, elegant and peaceful. His use of smooth texture, tone and subtle colour adds to this.

CHARLES SHEELER

Wayne Thiebaud – almost abstract paintings of buildings and streets.

David Bomberg’s drawings of London are heavy, deliberate, bold and powerful. He uses many geometric shapes and forms to create a harsh, almost inhuman urban environment.

DAVID BOMBERG

Renny Tait – looks at industrial buildings, creating a sense of calm.

David Hepher’s work is interested in tower blocks, cheap housing and the decay found in those environments. He combines highly realistic painting with rough, careless textures and spray paint for a varied, multi-layered effect.

DAVID HEPHER

Schiele is better known for his figure paintings, but these studies of the urban environment give a different slant on the theme; the buildings are quaint, detailed and traditional. They fill the space and create a cosy, welcoming mood.

EGON SCHIELE

John Piper – looking at the beauty of old, crumbling buildings

Georgia O’Keeffe – not just flowers!

John Virtue – smudgy, simple, evocative images of London.

Joseph Stella – strong compositions, lovely use of line and colour.

TEXT, SURFACES AND GRAFFITI

Banksy makes artworks within the Urban Environment, using graffitti and stencilling to create surprising, often humorous images, often with a political message.

BANKSY

Jose Parla – building up layers of tagging, stencils and colour to create complicated and varied effects.

Kurt Schwitters used a wide variety of found materials to produce his artworks; newspaper clippings, old bus tickets, envelopes found on the ground etc. From using the leftover materials of the urban environment, he was able to create new and surprising combinations of shapes and colours.

KURT SCHWITTERS

Shepard Fairey – bold, simple images, linking with street culture, grafitti, advertising, design and social issues.

Barbara Kruger’s work uses text and images to create very strong, attention-grabbing artworks. They use similar techniques to advertising and remind us of the temptation to buy and consume which is everywhere in modern cities.

BARBARA KRUGER

Jean-Michel Basquiat – using a rough, primitive and aggressive graffiti style.

Robert Rauschenberg – mixed-media collages using a wide range of urban imagery.

SHOPPING & CONSUMERISM

Lisa Milroy paints objects, organising them into rows and isles, like products for sale in a market or shop. The overall similarities of the objects also draws our attention to the differences between them.

LISA MILROY

Sarah Graham creates hyper-real paintings of sweets and confectionery, brightly lit, reflective, coloured and tempting. She uses mirrors to create double the effect and accentuates the effects of focus and blurring.

SARAH GRAHAM

Jasper Johns – American flags and consumerism.

Wayne Thiebaud paints delectable cakes, pastries and sweets, presented in a shop setting.

WAYNE THIEBAUD

ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS

Boyle Family is a group of artists who have made meticulous studies of very un-artistic parts of their environment; these are 3D sculptures, made exactly life-size, aiming to be as close to real life as possible. They celebrate the ordinary!

BOYLE FAMILY

Louise Nevelson – collects discarded objects and assembles them carefully. Her work also suggests the congestion of city living and apartment blocks.

Tian Li – a local artist who focuses on the details, patterns and surfaces of traditional hutongs.

Tommy Cinquegrano – creates imaginary, complex structures by building up details and fragments of other images, then stitching together in PhotoShop.

Yang Yongliang creates intricate traditional-style Chinese landscape painting. These are assembled from images of tiny skyscrapers, cranes and building sites.

Andy Mercer focuses on the patterns, textures and details of the urban environment. He builds up layers of marks, repeated shapes and textures to suggest the complexity and chaos of the city.

ANDY MERCER

Carol Engles creates abstracted artworks based on the urban environment; the colours and shapes she chooses resemble maps, street plans, skyscrapers, car headlights and neon lights seen at night.

CAROL ENGLES

Sarah Morris – geometric abstractions based on the city, skyscrapers and neon.

PEOPLE IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT

Andrew Young makes excellent use of background layers, collage, drips, splatters etc to create powerful, detailed images.

ANDREW YOUNG

Bill Jacklin’s crowd paintings suggest the energy, pace and movement found when people move around the urban environment. His use of strong paint textures and strong light sources is eye-catching.

BILL JACKLIN

Francoise Neilly – bold urban portraits, similar to graffiti and posters.

Fernand Leger – scaffolding and construction sites in bold colours

Kapp uses loose, gestural marks and strong under-painting to create a lively effect. He also uses photographs as a starting point, often shooting down towards the street from a high viewpoint.

DAVID KAPP

Li Tianbing – multi-layered images of children in Chinese cities

Umberto Boccioni – Futurism and a positive look at the chaos and energy of city life.

Edward Hopper’s urban environment is a lonely, reflective, isolated place. His figures rarely look at or engage with each other and there is a clear sense of distance between the viewer and the painting.

EDWARD HOPPER

David Hockney’s ‘Joiners’ are a famous example of an artist trying to look at many different aspects of something at once. This technique is especially useful when trying to capture the large amounts of complex information seen within busy city environments.

DAVID HOCKNEY