Some tickets are available for The Gentle Author’s Tour this weekend, 18th & 19th June
Meanwhile, Doreen Fletcher‘s new exhibition, TRACES opens at Townhouse, Spitalfields, this Saturday 18th June and Doreen will be in the gallery on Saturday to meet guests. Below she introduces a selection of her new and recently completed paintings.
Elvis Holds The Laundrette
It is almost twenty years since I last painted a launderette and this picture would not exist if not for Covid. During the pandemic, I became interested in exploring my neighbourhood, seeking out possible subjects for paintings. At the same time, I was lucky enough to engage in one of the few activities to thrive during lockdown, dog-walking.
In my picture, I depicted two of the characters I often encountered, who live a stone’s throw from the launderette. David sits inside musing whilst Elvis, his dog, stands outside guarding the entrance.
The Cosy Tea Room
For the last decade, I observed the slow decline of this building in Dagenham until I recognised a need to celebrate such a solid, unpretentious edifice. It has a certain dignity, despite its abused and neglected state. I loved the lettering, spelling out ‘The Cosy Tea Room’ on the apex of the building which grew more obscure each time I passed.
Nearby is the latest incarnation of the Ford Motor Factory, a ghost of what it used to be locally. During the fifties and sixties it employed around 50,000 workers and this tea room must have been a lively meeting place then.
The Run
After my painting ‘The Cosy Tea Room’ was completed in 2019, the building was still standing, despite the weeds and fly tipping. By 2021, it looked even more run-down and abandoned, a sofa made an appearance on the forecourt and a mattress lay against a wall – and I realised that another painting was taking shape.
The building was razed in the summer of 2021 and a new development is now rising, so this second depiction of ‘The Cosy Tea Room’ is also my last.
The Beckton Fox
This painting depicts something that happened as we were driving home one winter’s night, when we had to pull up sharply for a fox. The petrol station is more contemporary than my usual subjects but it offered the sense of theatre I hoped to capture. No matter how functional or artificial the structure, nature will always find a way in – creeping from the sidelines in this case.
All The Fun Of …
In my childhood, we used to spend a week each year at the seaside and, ever since, I have been drawn to the bright lights and brilliant colours that offer such a contrast to the greyness of daily life.
I was never attracted to the dare-devil rides designed to inspire terror yet – decades later – I still recall with pleasure the sight of lurid graphics and garish multi-coloured light bulbs, roundabouts spinning and striped horses bobbing up and down.
Until recently, a funfair arrived each year on Wanstead Flats but it often rained and the ground became a sea of mud. Even so, there was a glimmer of hope in the bright lights, gay colours, offering a promise of better times.
Nail Bar
Nail bars, which were once unknown, have proliferated in recent years. They are mostly small businesses run by owners who work long hours to keep them going. The pet shop next door had closed its doors earlier, but the nail bar had only just shut at 8pm on a November evening.
My initial interest lay in the challenge posed in portraying a brightly lit interior on a cold wet night, resolving the contrast between the light and warmth, and the surrounding darkness.
As a painter, I have never indulged in nail decoration because that my fingers would look awful again within days. But I must confess that, once a year, I visit a nail bar to have my toenails manicured and polished in preparation for the delights of going barefoot in the summer heat.
Smallholders Pet Shop
When I first moved to Forest Gate, I wondered how long this pet shop and mini garden centre could hang on, and during the following decade I watched the façade fade and become increasingly weather-beaten.
An elderly man in a flat cap used to stand outside guarding the shrubs, bedding plants and vegetables. Every spring I bought plants, receiving detailed advice about their care whether I asked for it or not. After he died, I discovered he had been there since he was fourteen years old and continued as a volunteer beyond retirement until his legs gave out.
Waiting At Five Star Batteries
The A13 possesses a post-industrial faded glory just as the London Docks did in the eighties. I used to wander the Isle of Dogs thirty years ago, when it was on the verge of transition, and I get the same feeling today on this stretch of highway.
Five Star Batteries stands on what was once the main A13 which has been supplanted by a raised dual carriageway to take the increase in traffic. Now a despondent air prevails, in common with the wreck of The Cosy Tea Room nearby.
What appealed to me about Five Star Batteries was the dissonance of colour, such bold orange in a place where the only colour emanates from the signage on car washes, garages and tyre outlets.
The lone man at the bus stop looks marooned, waiting in no man’s land for a bus that might take a long time coming.
Night Patrol
During lockdown, I developed the habit of walking our spaniel Charlie round the block after dark. I called this activity ‘Night Patrol’, acknowledging my desire to check all was well in our patch.
I love imagining lives unfolding behind dimly-lit windows obscured by drawn curtains. Occasionally I struck lucky and glimpsed a view of domestic activities but the reality was generally far less interesting than my imagination.
These Days …
One of the last of my paintings in 2004 was of Brothers’ Fish Shop, situated in a row of small shops on Commercial Rd. So when I took up painting the East End again in 2016, I was surprised to discover this parade still standing. I made two small paintings of the Emporium and the Pharmacy, which retained their dignity even though they were closed by then.
By 2019, these shops had gone but the the taxi cab office was still standing. Its survival against the odds inspired me sufficiently to paint the taxi cab office more than once but, now the entire row has been razed to the ground, there will be no more paintings of this part of Commercial Rd.
Images copyright © Doreen Fletcher
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