Janet Rady Fine Art is pleased to present ‘Paul Ettedgui | City Pathways’ at the
Encounters section of London Art Fair 2024. ‘Paul Ettedgui | City Pathways’ will be
the British artist’s second solo-show exhibition with the gallery. The
selection of works, created between 2021-2023, consider the relationship and interaction between Man and the Metropolis. For Ettedgui, London has always been home, and the subject of his explorations of the relationship between its inhabitants and the man-made infrastructure and architecture that frames this existence. Ettedgui’s new body of work is a visual examination of the sites of transportation that connect space and place as well as the urban architecture that contextualises our interaction with the city, while grounding each work with quotidian figures of daily life.
Ettedgui creates multi-layered works depicting the urban spaces and
landscapes of London, during the commuter frenzy of the day to the early hour
activity of the city at night. The paintings portray surprisingly homogeneous pictures with saccadic movements and posterized-like surfaces. Dense layers of shapes and intertwined patches of colour tones present a rich amalgam of daily scenes and situations that are intensely lively, despite being frozen in time and space. The technique used by Ettedgui produces a peculiar abstraction of heavily detailed scenery, which appears to be simultaneously in and out of focus. Clear delineating lines – signage with occasional sharp words mixed with blurred texts – are overlaid on the canvases like an involuntary grid, echoing the infrastructure and mapping systems of the location.
Throughout Ettedgui’s oeuvre is an exploration of the sites where different parts of our urban environment intersect – with people, natural landscapes, construction sites, congested roads and transportation hubs. The artist grounds his works in the fleeting glimpses of man in this overall environment to create a more total understanding of the cities we inhabit. Ettedgui’s focus on transport networks and sites where the landscape is ever-changing due to development or demolition, old buildings take on new forms. As Maria Watford notes, ‘these works reflect on ebb and flow within a highly built up environment. They show the contrast between the movements of people and vehicles used by transport systems with the liminal spaces where vegetation emerges amidst the hard landscaping.’
Fundamental to Ettedgui’s work is the experience of living in and engaging with the architecture of the city. The artist’s works vividly capture the character and sense of this city, a place familiar to many, grounding them for the viewer, and as such this body of work feels wholly relevant and at home at London Art Fair 2024.
Paul Ettedgui Bio
Paul Ettedgui (b.1967) lives and works in London. After a foundation at Camberwell
School of Art he then completed a degree in Fine Art at the Kent Institute of Art
and Design. Paul has, in previous years, often exhibited at the Islington Art Fair and the Chelsea Art Fair with Patrick Davies CA and in a group show at the Davies and Tooth Gallery, Dover Street. He has also previously exhibited with Cynthia Corbett Gallery, at the Islington Art Fair and at other shows with her including at Leadenhall. Additionally, Paul has shown in independent group exhibitions including a pop up show in Clifford Street and participated in open studio events in London. He has exhibited at the Discerning Eye event for smaller works. His first online solo-show “Sight Lines” with Janet Rady Fine Art was in November 2021.
