Pictorial Journal #1: Hypervigilance
Oil on canvas, 100x150cm
March, 2025
Installation views: Wilson Road, London, 11-14/3/2025
Details
This painting, which I considered as a self-portrait, features a staged scene based on photographs that on Camberwell high street (see figure 1,2). In the foreground, I depict myself wearing a cap and an oversize coat, standing on the pavement with my back to the viewer. My face is not visible and my gaze is directed toward the quiet street, longing for something just out of reach.
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In an interview with Claudette Johnson conducted by Phoebe Braithwaite, Johnson was asked if the empty space in her paintings held meaning. Johnson responded by describing on her experience as a Black British woman of African Jamaican descent, reflecting how lacking of role models or peers led her to construct her identity from absence. The empty space, to her, symbolises this process of self-making. (Braithwaite, 2025, p.92)
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When finishing Pictorial journal #1:Hypervigilence (2025), I spent a significant amount of time debating whether to fill the sky with colour or not. I realise my decision to leave it empty echoed Johnson’s sentiment. Having moved to this country alone, I often feel a sense of emptiness, disconnection and alienation. The unpainted sky her is an intentional gesture, reflecting my current concern. Perhaps I will return to this painting in the future, when I have a different feeling walking on the same street.
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Reference:
Braithwaite, P. (2025) ‘An unflinching eye: Claudette Johnson in conversation’, Wasafiri, 40(1), pp. 83–95. doi:10.1080/02690055.2025.2435165.
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Figure 1. Camberwell, St Giles Church
Figure 2. Camberwell, London Photography: YaYa Lo
After visiting Noah Davis's exhibition at the Barbican Centre in March, I was particularly drawn to his 1975 (2013) series. I found the unresolved backgrounds and the larger-than-life figures especially compelling. As my painting Pictorial journal #1:Hypervigilence (2025) features a relatively large depiction of an urban landscape, Davis's paintings prompted me to reflect on the relationship between scale and proportion in painting.
In recent interview with Phoebe Brathwaite, Claudette Johnson mentioned the importances of sizes in her paintings, noting that woking on a larger scale allows her to feel more descriptive and expanded the possibilities of what she could do (Brathwaite, 2025). In Unit 3, I plan to experiment with a more reductive use of brushwork, exploring how this shift might affect my process and the emotional tone of the work during production.
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Reference:
Braithwaite, P. (2025) ‘An unflinching eye: Claudette Johnson in conversation’, Wasafiri, 40(1), pp. 83–95. doi:10.1080/02690055.2025.2435165.
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