Painter Marc Gooderham: pausing the bustling streets of Whitechapel
Marc Gooderham’s paintings of Whitechapel and the East End provide a moment of stillness to appreciate our city architecture hidden in plain sight.
Artists have the power to shed new light on old subjects that may have gone unnoticed. We see this in Marc Gooderham’s work, whose paintings provide a new perspective on Whitechapel and the wider East End.
A former resident of East London, Gooderham’s style of painting quietens the bustling streets of Whitechapel. Using his paintbrush like a wand, each stroke helps create a ghostly atmosphere in his paintings.
It dares us to pause and reflect on the landscapes that we are used to seeing, but we don’t stop to perceive.
After studying Illustration at the University of Westminster, Gooderham focused on paintings that highlighted the uniqueness of old buildings in the city. What we may not offer a second glance at is what drives the motivation behind his art.
Having walked past these buildings every day, we revisited the locations to get an immersive experience of this message on display.
‘Corner of Vallance Road’
The sky behind the building creates a canvas-like effect for the graffiti artists and advertising agencies. Just off the busy high street of Whitechapel Road, this corner of Vallance Road isolates this building from the stacked out storefronts and draws our attention to the gap that exists on a saturated road.
‘Electric Blue’
Capturing another street corner, this painting at the Western end of Fashion Street depicts the old storefront of ‘Fairy Goth Mother’ that once stood here. Now Cult & Bloom, a hair salon, Gooderham’s paintings served to document the changing landscape of Whitechapel’s high streets.
‘Rainy Night, Brick Lane’
Gooderham’s painting depicts Brick Lane on a quiet rainy night. Normally busy with shoppers and people visiting its famed curry houses, Gooderham allows visitors to take in the long vista of this historic East End road.
‘Wilton’s Music Hall’
Gooderham’s love for buildings that have fallen into disrepair is at the forefront of this painting of Wiltons, the oldest Grand Music Hall in the world dating back to 1690, and proudly fashioning a shabby chic look. Here Gooderham painting beautifully captures the personality of the building, its peeling walls evidence of the number of people that have touched its walls over the centuries.
Marc Gooderham prints are available for purchase and can be found on his website: www.marcgooderham.co.uk
If you enjoyed this article you may also like to read Photographer John Claridge: remembering the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
