It's that time of the year again! The Annual Exhibition of the
Royal Institute of Oil Painters is currently on and will run from the 10th of December to the 21st of December at the
Mall Galleries, London.
This year I am really pleased to have had four paintings selected for the show.
All my paintings this year focus on the
effect of light in urban spaces. I decided to explore the mystery of shadows and radiant light.
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| Rupert Street, Soho, 18" x 9", Oil on Board, 2014 |
This is a scene from Rupert Street Soho at Night. I was
working on a commission when I got the idea for this painting. This is
typical Soho at night. Rupert Street has many night clubs and the neon
lights at night are just explosive. I exaggerated the colour to have a
saturated warmth and included two main figures to balance the abstracted
crowds in the background. I really love painting night scenes as they
are mainly about tones and very little about temperature.
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| Summer Heat, Edinburgh, 16" x 20", Oil on canvas, 2014 |
This is a scene from an Edinburgh Street in the blazing afternoon in Summer. I tried my best to move totally from the normal local colours of a scene like this to a warm blazed colour scheme. I was drawn to the scene because of the reflective wall on the right. It almost seemed like a scene with in the scene. I thought it added a lot of drama to what would have been an ordinary street scene.
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| Morning Light, Sloane Square, 20" x 30", Oil on canvas, 2014 |
This is a scene from Sloane Square. For those of you conversant with my blog, you'll know I love
Sloane Square! I can paint this area all year through. This time I was totally mesmerized by the powerful radiant morning light from the right side of Sloane Square Station. It was the abstract shape and it's effect on the few figures emerging from the Station in the morning that made it irresistible for me!
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| Summer Shadows, Marylebone, 8" x 20", Oil on board, 2014 |
And the last painting I have in the show is a scene from Marylebone. The one thing that drew me in here was the back lighting! Everything was in pure silhouette apart from the sky and the effect of light on the foreground. I just love when light explodes in the background of an urban space in this fashion!
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| Adebanji with "Summer Heat, Edinburgh" at the ROI Annual Exhibition 2014 |
The whole exhibition is a visual feast! If you are in London or around London and you love oil paintings, take a trip down to the Mall Galleries for this great show, you'll enjoy it! But if you can't make it you can see some of the works online by clicking
HERE.
