Market Arcade

This composition is based on the roof trusses of Smithfield Market. The receding ribs recall the animal carcasses which were still at that time trundled beneath them on barrows. This painting was made using masking tape and sprayed acrylic paint using a limited range of colours. After receiving a commission from the City in 1981, Johnson spent many days roaming around with a camera and decided that ‘the most powerful image was the Smithfield ceiling and the almost heroic structure of the roof’. This depiction doesn’t pretend to be a direct representation of the structure, rather a reconstruction of building’s innate rhythms and patterns. However, he’s also been considered a hyperrealist painter and his works have been displayed at the Hyperrealism 1967-2013 exhibition, one of the first major European retrospective dedicated to Hyperrealism at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum.
Ben Johnson was born in Llandudno, Wales, in 1946. He studied at the Royal College of Art and has lived and worked in London since 1965. His architectural and large-scale cityscape paintings are among his most popular artworks. The view of London was completed working as a resident artist at the National Gallery, London, in 2010. He has received commissions from the RIBA, the British Museum and some companies such as IBM and HSCB among others.