Marie Lenclos, Painter
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Sandys Row, Spitalfields
For some time, I have admired the paintings of Marie Lenclos, so I am delighted to publish this gallery of her East End streetscapes today
“My paintings capture a moment of seeing, when lines, light, colours and shapes fall into a particular order that makes sense to me. I am particularly attracted to the strong lines and clear compositions which I see all around me in my urban surroundings.
My main sources of inspiration are the streets of London, particularly around Loughborough Junction where I live but, in the last year, I have been visiting East London, preparing an exhibition in Stoke Newington and travelled there by train from Denmark Hill.
The journey itself offers many opportunities for paintings, as you can see in ‘Hoxton from the Train’ and ‘Haggerston’. This train journey with its changes brought about by light, time of the day, mood, weather and season, gave me a repeated reason to look at the urban landscape. There is also a certain random poetry in capturing a passing building that light hits in the right way at a unique moment.
Some years ago, I worked as a documentary maker, filming the city almost constantly while on buses or trains. I enjoyed the surprise encounters with fluttering tableaux seen for a second and gone the next. I grew used to ‘framing’ things all the time. So, even without a camera, I would walk around and see something and think, ‘that would make a good shot.’ Now I am no longer a filmmaker, instead I see something and think, ‘there’s a painting in that.’
When I am walking along the street, I am often struck by the beauty and harmony of architecture and urban compositions. Spitafields, Hoxton and Hackney are rich in their industrial past and the omnipresent brickwork reveals layers of time, creating harmonious tones of warmth and light.
I translate this urban chaos into clarity and order by using precise lines and detail. In painting, my aspiration is to extract beauty from the mundane through focussing on light and colour.”
Marie Lenclos
Green shutters, Spitalfields
Cafe, Stoke Newington
London Fields
Mare St
Morning in London Fields
Haggerston
Hackney Downs
Hoxton from the train
Hoxton in July
Blue shutters, Spitalfields
Paintings copyright © Marie Lenclos
Beautiful use of colour and form.
They add some colour to a rainy day.
Brightness.
Thank you Gentle Author for being just like Chris Searle eg his interest in kindling a light for Isaac Rosenburg, artist and poet, and modern day East End poets.
OH!! These are just wonderful! what a joy to the eyes to see such control of colour on a grey November morning!! I love the matt surface qualities of paint and paper, and am left wondering what medium they are painted in, also what size they are ??? Wish I could see them in real life, and hope the exhibition will be a roaring success for Marie! A true delight. Thank you so much.
These are fab pictures and would make stunning graphic prints.
I’d be interested to know her technique – does she work from photographs as the shapes made by shadows at one particular moment is captured so beautifully in most of the paintings? But the end result is so much richer than a mere photograph would have been, and makes us see so much more.
I’d also like to know how big the paintings are, and whether they will be exhibited at any time soon?
Gorgeous paintings.
I really love these artworks. The green and blue shutters give me a feeling of being invited in to see what’s beyond.
What a discovery! The sharp skillful stabs of color/shadow here are so descriptive. I usually
gravitate to work that is crusty, layered and slathered — This work has given me a whole other
visual language to consider/admire. A masterful artist, with a great eye for “what to leave in, what to leave out”.
Many thanks, GA.
How striking these paintings are! Chilly buildings yet here such warmth to view.
I, too, wonder how small/large these paintings are–if huge one would feel as if one were actually standing on the street outside those size-as windows!
The ‘window panes’ that are cast by the sun in the middle of ‘Hoxton from the train’–superb!
Postscript: Intrigued, I went to Marie L’s website: http://www.marielenclos.com/about
She paints in oils and in one photograph you can see a rather large canvas.
I’ll enjoy my morning coffee while admiring more of her art seen on her pages.
Striking images
Marie, your paintings are splendid. Beautiful handling of color and surface. And you bring new life to this location you paint. I agree with the above comment that these would make great prints.
Marvellous paintings by Marie Lenclos: luminous, sharply angular, bristling with linear tension – and imbued with mystery. Superb!
Hi all, thank you so much for your warming and encouraging comments.
These are all oil on linen or canvas, and vary in size from 24x18cm (the windows) and 101x76cm (From the train in Hoxton), with a few other sizes in between.
I am exhibiting in Queen’s road Peckham at the moment, where you can see some of these and other paintings in real life. The address is Curious Kudu, 117 Queen’s Road, Peckham SE15 2EZ
There are two other painters in this show: Martin Grover and Steve Wilde.
You are all warmly invited to our Meet The Artists drinks and Private View
10th November 2022 6:30-8:30pm
Show opening days and hours:
2nd-27th November 2022
Mon – Tue Closed
Weds 2 – 5.30pm
Thu – Sat 2 – 6:30pm
Sun 12 – 5pm
Curious Kudu is a private dining room and events space. The space is open as a gallery in the daytime.
Please feel free to pop along to the exhibition, entry is free and all art is for sale.
Wonderful .