Blue Print

The River Lea, or Lee, was once London's main water supply and its valley the home of extensive agriculture, most of it under glass. It was an important freight route with the Lea Navigation canal and offered a easy route for narrowboats and later the railways, then roads. Its length is broken up and criss-crossed with bridges, viaducts, locks and weirs but forms now the Lea Valley Park. Its banks are lined with all sorts of craft, many of them homes. Despite it picturesque quality it is a post-industrial landscape, much of it from the Victorian period with hefty ironworks, railings, columns and rusting iron panels. These are the inspiration behind these pieces. This work is of a single span iron railway bridge seen at a sharp angle as it stretches across the canal. No shadows are cast, there are no reflections; the railway crosses the navigation, the canal slips below the silent bridge having nothing to do with each other just silence, blueness, stillness.