John Riddy: Winter Landscape

Depicting London and especially the Thames, swathed in fog or at dusk has been a recurring motif throughout art history. J. M. W. Turner, Claude Monet and James McNeill Whistler all exploited the river’s light and atmosphere. For Riddy, the muted colours and tones of the Thames in autumn and winter was an essential motif within this series and he photographed the river repeatedly over a two-year period.

James McNeill Whistler, c.1871-72

The sky, the Thames, parks and railways, all appear as changing backdrops, often for moments of fleeting social engagement. In London (Thames), 2025 we see a crowd beginning to gather on New Year’s Eve.

The rhythm of activity is concentrated below empty office buildings, the electric light of the Christmas tree starkly contrasted against the darkness of the riverbank. In the centre of the image, masts and cranes populate the sky, reminiscent of early maritime paintings.

John Riddy, ‘The Viaduct Segment’ portfolio,
for HS2 as part of the Artist Record

Much like the documentary images related to HS2, the works in Winter Landscape were also often taken within a limited window of time, capturing specific moments and events. This approach marks a departure from Riddy's previously deserted urban scenes, shot with a much slower technical camera on a tripod.

In this piece, we see journalists gathering outside parliament on the night that the British Chancellor of the Exchequer presented the Autumn Budget in October 2024. Having waited patiently for many hours, Riddy took this photograph just as the central figure was illuminated by artificial light.

Key to this series is the framing of both time-past, and time-present within a single image. This has always been a constant for the artist and he has noted that the merging of temporalities has been particularly poignant when photographing London’s rail networks. Often the foreground architecture and industrial infrastructure date back to the Victorian era, while contemporary buildings are visible on the horizon.

One of the most documentary works in the exhibition, this photograph captures a scene in Burgess Park, a green space in South London that was previously an industrial landscape. The carefully composed image holds many narratives, simultaneously framing a derelict 60shousing block alongside the modern cityscape. The figures which appear equidistant from the centrally positioned Shard, are captured in profile, individually introspective in the early Spring sunlight.

Riddy has referenced Georges Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières (1884) in relation to this piece; a painting which shows local residents resting on the banks and bathing in the Seine, transformed by bright sunlight against a backdrop of industrial architecture and smoking chimneys.

Speaking about London (Hackney Marshes), 2026 Riddy mentions his fascination with the aerial photographs from the 1950’s showing more than 80 football pitches on the reclaimed Hackney Marshes, all with a match in play. In this work the action and colour are confined to a narrow horizontal band stretching the width of the frame and contrasting with the grey / green urban landscape. As with so many of these images the rhythm across the image is carefully articulated, in this case by the goal posts.