Routes incorporated into the M50's design to enable pedestrian access over or under its constant torrent of roaring traffic. The paintings present the quiet and stillness of pedestrian spaces within noisy environments built to accommodate vehicles. The M50 is a city fringe; overlooked edgelands, where urban and rural meet. Homogeneous, yet local, landscapes of tension and banality, with a wide abundance of textural variety.
John O'Reilly is an oil painter, focusing on banal and overlooked urban landscapes in subdued palettes. As a former graffiti artist, his early subjects included non-pedestrian restricted areas he often painted graffiti in, especially the railway and abandoned sites.
His recent work describes walks around monolithic infrastructures designed to accommodate vehicles, with their collages of everchanging urban textures through human activity, grime and light.
