Doreen Fletcher’s New Exhibition
Readers will be familiar with the work of Doreen Fletcher whom I met in 2015, when she had hidden twenty years worth of paintings away in an attic, after giving up her work as an artist ten years earlier due to the lack of any interest in her pictures.
Subsequently, Doreen and her paintings have become acclaimed and this Friday 13th October, following the success of her debut show in 2016, she opens her second exhibition at Townhouse, 5 Fournier St, Spitalfields, which runs until 29th October.
Most excitingly, inspired by the immense positive response to her work, Doreen has started painting again and her exhibition, entitled IN BETWEEN, ALMOST GONE, is a mixture of old and new pictures.
Postbox in Tooley St, 1997
Popcorn Stand at the Wakes, 1994
The Ragged School Museum, Copperfield Rd 2017
Thames Pier, Isle of Dogs, Boxing Day 1988
Metalworks, Chasely St, 2017
East End Dentist, 2017
Foot Tunnel, Silvertown, 2017
Train Over Canal, 1993
The Queen’s Head, York Sq, 2017
Bow Police Station, 2017
Road To Nowhere, 2013
Summer in Limehouse, 1997
Massala Cafe, E14, 2017
Carwash, Salmon Lane, 2017
Browns, We Have Moved, 2017
Emporium, Commercial Rd, 2017
Pharmacy, Commercial Rd, 2017
Fried Chicken Shop, 2017
Lino Shop, 2017
Tyre Shop, Salmon Lane, 2017
Dr Barnardo’s, Copperfield Rd 2017
‘Your no Bansky!’ Docklands Tyres & Exhausts, Commercial Rd, 2017
The Little Cottage, Silvertown, 2017
Twilight, St Anne’s Churchyard, 1998
Paintings copyright © Doreen Fletcher
Doreen Fletcher’s work is featured in EAST END VERNACULAR, Artists who painted London’s East End streets in the 20th century
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Gosh, Doreen’s back with a vengeance! She must paint 12 hours a day to get so much work out during 2017, and all of it ranking with her best. It’s hard to pick out favourites (though I have to say, her ‘Twilight, St Anne’s churchyard’ remains a particular, long-term one). Is ‘The Little Cottage’ a sly local reference to off-peak recreational practices therein?
Glad Doreen has been painting again, the new ones are full of such wonderful details. Good luck with the exhibition. Valerie
What a fantastic collection of paintings such a legacy to leave x
‘Twilight’ is just wonderful!
Wonderful paintings Doreen, have a great exhibition, wish we could be there. X
Wonderful that Doreen is painting again with 2017 a prolific year! I look forward to the exhibition.
I’ll be going along!
Those skies! Her time has come. All the very best for a fecund future.
Greetings from Boston,
GA, thanks for resurrecting Doreen Fletcher’s wonderful urban landscapes. I particularly liked the BOW POLICE STATION and TWILIGHT, ST. ANNE’S CHURCHYARD. She captures the light so well in both day and night.
Continued success, Doreen…
These pictures are wonderful and I really enjoyed looking at them.
These are wonderful. So glad Doreen is painting again, and with what energy and observation. She makes us observe in turn and the subjects she chooses are as lyrical as ever. I particularly like East End Dentist under a black sky, but then I get a lot from all of them. Magical!
So many great paintings, I cant believe how hard you’ve worked this year! The East End dentist is a particular favourite for me. Gritty urban and almost menacing in outlook. Look forward to seeing the show!
I can’t wait to see this at Townhouse. I’m trying to organise of my order of favourites … TWILIGHT, ST ANNE’S CHURCHYARD and THE RAGGED SCHOOL and DR BARNADO’S and … the list runs on. The way you capture light; your paintings are wonderful Doreen. Have a very successful exhibition. XX
What a talent for capturing architectural detail and neighborhood ambience. So happy she’s been inspired to start painting again. Her 2017 work is exceptional.
Beautiful work. It’s unfathomable to think her work was not appreciated. Courage and ever onward, Doreen!
Onward and upward! This is work that deserves recognition and renown.
As we say in the US: “Good on ya, Doreen!”. Keep working, keep thriving.
So evocative. I feel I am walking down those streets.
Congratulations Doreen on your return to painting.
Hope your show goes well.
Best wishes
Peta
Extraordinary ability to capture the light.
Popcorn stand, Thames Pier, The Queens Head & Summer in Limehouse have an almost photographic quality to them.
Yes – great atmospheric and fantastically detailed paintings and they will be even more interesting in years to come when the East End has changed yet again – especially things like the car wash with all those heaps of tyres! So glad she is painting again (so much better than boring old conceptual art!!)
Fantastic realist paintings, for me, capturing the real London, fast being snatched away from us. Thank you Doreen, moving and gritty.
Rampant vegetation climbs over the walls and roof of the Silvertown ‘cottage’; a sinister dental surgery at night; mounds of used tyres… Ms Fletcher is an unflinching chronicler of the shabby and overlooked, investing all before her gaze with a tender poignancy.
‘Fried Chicken Shop’ is a mournful lament: lurid yellow fascia beneath grubby painted brick and inscrutable windows. A bruised sky; the lamp-post leans, slightly. The traffic light is green, yet nothing moves.
This is serious, haunting and powerful work.
I am so pleased Doreen has taken up art again – both the older works and the new ones from 2017 are utterly enchanting. I love her work.
Bow Road Police Station is the one for sure !! Well done Doreen
This is beautiful work. There is such an evocation of a place in transition.
I love these paintings. I was in Browns every week. Where did they go?
What amazing paintings! It seems as if every brick has been painted with care. Yet these are not dull photorealist images. Just look at the skies.
The subjects are well chosen, and then there is the wit to soften the painful feeling of the transience of all of this- ‘The Little Cottage’ and the oblique Banksy reference amongst others less obvious.
Austin Clegg