Art in the City & Urban Environments

A Landscape is a Landscape, while a Cityscape or urban landscape painting depends on the vastly variable city scenes and their surrounds, such as buildings and their inter-related composition with other city elements. The artwork in this collection features hero subjects within this environment.

Some of the “Great Masters” have produced Landscape paintings, some as almost photographic records and some even impressionist. Figures are often represented but usually less so as the main focus. L.S. Lowrie had his industrial landscapes with the matchstick men and Canaletto tended to produce overall vistas that appeared rather wet.

Doug tries to reproduce and enhance the sights and feelings he experienced in these environments.

The use of cityscapes as a backdrop. Cityscapes in art act as a one of the main sources of inspiration for telling the story in my paintings, because it reflects all the different facades of the city such as its identity, modernity, size, density and of course the architectural design. Doug Kemp

Comet. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1970s & Heroes pop-art series.

City Days, v1. AKA Hither and Tither. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 2000s. This painting is reviewed by KCAI president Tony Jones.

City Guy. 60 x 45 cm – Acrylic painting on paper from the 1990s collection.

The Call. 48 x 36 inches Acrylic painting on paper from 1990s collection.

Angel. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 2000s collection

Hanging Joke. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1990s collection.

Weekend Getaway. 114 x 106 Acrylic painting on canvas 1990s collection.

Cherry Beret. Acrylic painting on canvas 1990s collection

During the 1980s I took an assignment at MJS International Gallery in Fort Worth, Texas, and produced a small series of paintings. Although a relatively short time was spent there on that occasion, the experience appeared to have had a disproportionate influence. Although, perhaps, it was just resurfacing and reinforcing earlier experiences.

Bigger and brighter fed Doug’s already primed fertile mind, because of so much more potential material being available. He also took a roll of paintings (on paper) over there with him and didn’t bring them home.

Fort Worth is a city in North Central Texas. In the late 19th century, it became an important trading post for cowboys at the end of the Chisholm Trail. Today, it’s a modern city, with international art institutions like the Kimbell Art Museum.

The Fort Worth Stockyards are home to rodeos, and the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame honours pioneers. Heee-Haaa!

Fort Worth days. 121 x 91 cm Acrylic painting on paper from the 1980s & Texas art collection

Fort Worth Cowboy. Acrylic painting on canvas commissioned in Fort Worth Texas in the 1980s.

Texas. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1980s collection.

Shopping in Fort Worth. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1980s collection.

A planned tour of the Chicago art scene in the late 1980s was cut short by a family bereavement, but other occasions provided stimulus from visits to the sites of modern real life legends and the sites of famous movie scenes also served to enhance the tableaus in the work, incorporating both real and imaginary.

Chicago has always been my favourite city in the United States of America. Its decor and history of real-life gangsters and movie characters are recalled but in vivid colours. For me it was a city where the sun always seemed to shine and didn’t suffer too much from the wind.

Chicago days, v1. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1980s collection.

The big parade. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1990s collection.

Dream on. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 2000s collection.

Mr Chicago. Limited Edition Artist Lino Print 24×26 Inches. This is a commissioned piece of work.

Lady with two feathers in her hat. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1990s & Divorce series.

Lady with four feathers in her hat. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1990s & Divorce series.

City Tales was the title of an exhibition of Doug’s work at Texas Christian University, in Fort Worth. Cityscapes, from Art Deco architecture to street scenes, even to WW2 bombsites with their bones laid bare, have always been abundant in Doug’s memory.  Some of these that are featured in his work can appear exaggerated or just as a flavour.

The influence of bombsites isn’t readily apparent anywhere unless there is a leap of the imagination and include some of the abstract forms and, perhaps, some of the exposed industrial elements.

The only direct representation appears in the painting Dolly Silver’s Curtains where a there are the remnants of a crashed bomber aeroplane. Figures and their place and their experience in the cityscape is still one of Doug’s greatest of desires to be expressed.

The Magician v3. 168 x 152 cm Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1970s & magician mini art series. The Magician in this series of paintings references a paparazzi from the 1930s.

Moving on. Acrylic painting on canvas 1970s & Divorce art collections. Touch of the Industrial.

Let’s go Shopping. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1980s period

City days v2. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 2000s collection.

ZIP. 183 x 137 cm Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1980s collection.

Walk on by. 182 x 137 cm Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1980s collection.

Torpedo Jacks v2. 127 x 140 cm – Acrylic painting on canvas from the 2000s collection. Industrial art overtones – nice torpedo!

The Beach. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1990s collection

Mzic 2. AKA The office party. Reference Miss Icarus. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1980s

The monuments art collection shows Doug’s love of Art Deco architecture. This architecture is still to be found in most cities and towns and particularly at the seaside. Not always noticed and often neglected, it was once the epitome of a brighter hope and confidence between the World wars.

Fashion (even in architecture) changed greatly post WW2, and many great examples were torn down with only a relatively recent revival and desire to preserve them. Now they are more than just monuments to times passed, and even if only the mere facade is kept and the rest has been disemboweled in modernising their utility, that remnant takes its place in the established cityscape. Some of the remaining structures formed reference to the 1950s and 1960s subculture, architecture and principles of modern-day design.

This series also pays homage to the form of the figures and structures in the Medici Chapels in Florence, designed by Michelangelo.

Monuments v1. AKA Trains, Boats, Planes. 115 x 127 cm Acrylic painting on canvas from the 2000s collection.

Monuments v2. AKA Paramount. Paramount Pictures was the force behind many glamourous Hollywood movies, although the central structure represented here actually resembles an Odeon. 115 x 127 cm Acrylic painting on canvas from the 2000s collection.

Monuments v3. AKA The Guardians. 115 x 127 cm acrylic painting on canvas from the 2000s collection.

Nightlife Art In the City: Darker than the Cityscapes series and the presence of the figure further dominates.

Visiting Night Clubs is not the only thing to do in the dark. 1930s and 40s American and, latterly, British movies often depicted the clubs only as venues for the trendy and upper classes. The culture differences on either side of The Pond favoured the American scene as something to aspire to, which was actually more attainable for Americans in their environment.

The early British club scene also appeared to be portrayed also only for the rich, rife with emigres and even spies. Later, the British scene appeared not only dark but also seedy – a Neon light down a dirty alley and cramped interiors featuring some past-their-best working girls.

The American scene always appeared brighter and more expansive, exuding glamour and giving more scope to the imagination with the the larger than life characters including the slick gangsters, their molls and their victims.

It is hardly surprising, then, that American Glitz has such a profound effect on Doug’s work. Hooray for Hollywood, Carry on Pinewood.

Smoke dreams. Acrylic painting on canvas 114 x 127 cm

The B Girls. 127 x 140 cm Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1990s collection.

Watching Casablanca. AKA The Bramford Girls V1. Acrylic painting on canvas from the 1990s collection.

The 1920s saw the emergence of many female musicians and singers including African-American blues singer Bessie Smith who went on to inspire women singers from later eras and to this very day.

The video featured here from ‘Babylon Berlin’, a German TV series, encompases just about everything Doug loves about the late 1920s nightclub scene. The music, the vibe and the banana girls. Other fruits are also available.

Babylon Berlin is a German speaking neo-noir television series and is set in the latter years of the Weimar Republic (1929).

The story follows a police inspector on assignment to dismantle an extortion ring, and Charlotte Ritter, police clerk by day, flapper by night, who aspires to become a police inspector herself.

Soho Series by artist Doug Kemp. There is more than one Soho. Once a byword for seedy or risque, Soho in London is now bright and vibrant, which hopefully will keep the ghosts at bay. It is also the cultural home of the Royal Academy of Arts. However, SoHo (also written as Soho), is an area in Manhattan in New York City. Since the 20th century it has been the location of many artists’ lofts and art galleries.

The area’s history is an archetypal example of inner-city regeneration and gentrification, encompassing socioeconomic, cultural, political, and architectural developments. There goes the neighbourhood………….

The name “SoHo” derives from the area being “South of Houston Street”, and was coined in 1960s. The original name Soho recalls an area in London’s West End, where in the 16th century, this area was a hunting ground and it’s widely claimed that ‘Soho!’ was an old hunting cry used either to encourage or to call off harrier dogs when fetching game. It’s a funny old game there now.

Well Hi Hello. 122 x 91 cm Acrylic painting on paper from the 1990s collection.

Street walking music. Acrylic painting on paper from the 1990s collection.

Spies 2. Acrylic painting on paper from the 1990s collection.

Miami Si. Acrylic painting on paper 1990s collection.

City guy. 60 x 45 cm Acrylic painting on paper from the 1990s collection.

City lies. Acrylic painting on paper from the 1990s & Divorce collection.

Walk like an Egyptian. Acrylic painting on paper from the 1980s art collection

The Entrance v1. Acrylic painting on paper from the 1990s fine art collection

The Entrance v2. Acrylic painting on paper from the 1990s fine art collection

Industrial works of art on paper from the 1980s. Realistic representations of industrial plant is mirrored in other works by guts laid bare equipment and even as stylised weapons, such as a torpedo, plus some structures in abstract form or those apparently just out of place.

“Up the workers” had other, sad, connotations at the time and Margaret Thatcher is not fondly remembered by the Unions to this day. Although not intended as political comment, there may have been a subconscious influence (as many influences on him actually appear to be) by the then current industrial relations.

It could also be, of course, just have been the desire., in imagination anyway, for a return to the city or maybe even a celebration of getting away from it.  Spot the Industrial tags scattered throughout this site.

Doug worked in various factories in the early days where glamour pin-ups juxtaposed with heavy industrial machinery. Colleagues manning the machines were not quite as glamorous but many were interesting in their own right.

Industrial still life v1. Acrylic painting on paper from the 1980s Pop-Art Series

Industrial still life v2. Acrylic painting on paper from the 1980s Pop-Art Series