StolenSpace Gallery is excited to debut work by Emily Fromm, for her solo show, A Look At London. Fromm’s paintings focus on urban landscapes and locales in cities across the world, with this exhibition focusing on none other than London’s east end hot-spots!

Fromm hails from Los Angeles, California, later re-locating to San Francisco in 2009 to study painting, drawing, and ceramics. The layered bright and muted hues of acrylic paint give her paintings an instantly recognisable style. The contrast in colours is extended to artistic style as she mixes graphic design with traditional sign-painting techniques. The inclusion of people in her paintings, who often have a prominent place in the composition, provides a commentary on the interactions between people and the self-constructed environment surrounding them. These paintings also highlight the vast array of signage, text, and advertising that constantly surrounds us daily in city life.

Fromm’s artistic process involves physically visiting the places she paints, to take detailed photographs of window displays, signage and people. This process has evolved to take a more virtual ‘tourist’ look at East London and the surrounding neighbourhoods, rather than a resident or frequent visitor’s perspective. Travel restrictions have encouraged a collaborative approach, as we scoured the neighbourhood and local favourites to provide plenty of reference material. This enlightening process has revealed the triumph of Fromm’s ingenuity and artistic skill.

"As a figurative painter of cityscapes, I am now faced with the task of reimagining landscapes as they were pre-COVID, or deciding if I should allow them to be sparse, as is, which I find challenging as an artist. Likely not coincidentally, when my dad and my step mom heard about the show in London, they sent me the Frommer’s 2020 guide to London, and the first chapter was titled A Look at London. As another Fromm tourist view, I felt the name fit well." – Emily Fromm, 2020