Cathedral’s Express Service

I had a go at using something recently that I haven’t tried out since GCSE art – acrylic paint. After speaking to a friend over the weekend, I was inspired to create something from my mind. Or, rather, something influenced by the colours and images around me…  

My reaction when he said I should do this was ‘I can’t create things from my mind though’. However, he pointed out something very important. Pure creation is impossible. We all use what’s around us to influence our ideas. I knew this, but had never thought about it in relation to my artwork. My usual go-to piece of work is copying images (particularly of birds!) from photos – I still make them my own, but I can always keep looking at the image to check I’ve done things ‘correctly’. When something just comes from your own head then it’s far more risky! My friend’s suggestion – make a note of things that I’ve seen around me and create a mental (or physical) moodboard.

So I had a think. I have a lot of materials in a cupboard upstairs that need using – particularly canvases. Perhaps I should use one of those. The only thing I’d be comfortable using on a canvas is acrylic paint and I had some of that too so that was a big tick. Now, the problem with acrylics is that I’m very out of practice and, in my view, wasn’t that good at using them back in the day anyway. So, I channeled my friend and thought about what I did like about the GCSE art I used to do – I really liked impressionism. Fab. We’re starting to get somewhere.

This encouraged me to start thinking about the background in more detail. I decided I wanted to use the colours that I’d recently seen on a piece of literature at work – a really vibrant orange, mixed with yellows and reds. And I really like blues and purples so I thought maybe I could find a way to blend these together.

Now the content (and a sketch was needed!) I saw someone post a really impressive skyline that they’d painted on social media recently. My reaction: I could never do that. But then I thought that perhaps a silhouetted skyline would work well on the background I had in mind. It was pretty obvious to me about which skyline I’d pick. It was always going to be Oxford (the ‘City of Dreaming Spires’)…

But I was a bit conflicted about this. I wanted to paint something onto this colourful background that harboured warmth and beauty and it’s true that I have many very happy memories of the city. It’s where I had my first full-time job and it’s where I met my partner. And we still enjoy going back to our favourite haunts – it’s a real treat! But it’s also a place of a more trying time of my life. It’s where I ‘grew up’ as a university student and (ironically) learnt that perfectionism wasn’t feasible anymore. The ‘City of Dreaming Spires’ in this sense was a very daunting place.

Although I still had the more positive angle on my radar when I started painting the background, I realised that the stress and turmoil I endured could also also be seen. Somehow, I’d done what I said to my friend I couldn’t possibly do: I’d actually created something. And, what’s more, I’d created something that was open to interpretation. On the one hand, I feel the use of the colours (many of which are my favourites) conveys the warm, happy memories I associate with the city. On the other hand, the image also undeniably looks like the city has been engulfed by a fiery torrent. Completely unintentional and yet so reflective of my internal conflict!

As for the title… I wasn’t going to give it a title (not really my bag), but something popped into my head when I finished the painting. I had to travel quite a bit when I worked at Oxford and that meant I often had to catch an early train. It always tickled me that there was a Great Western Railway service around 7.50am titled the ‘Cathedrals Express Service’ which went to London Paddington. It was a notoriously unreliable service, was a mouthful for the poor automated voiceover to say and was a pretty uncomfortable journey. Yet it invoked something that Oxford is certainly familiar with – pure pretentiousness!