This exhibition will present a selection of twenty new watercolour paintings by Tom Carment, on display from August 4, 2026. These fabulous new plein air works are now available to preview in the gallery.
“My pictures are all done from life, in one session. Sometimes no-one sees what I’m doing but in more crowded, urban places I have to steel myself to get started. Outside Central Station there’s a constant flow of pedestrian traffic around the places I choose to sit. Back to a wall is best. Working small and close to the ground I hope that people might think I’m just tying my shoelaces or taking a breather. Seagulls and pigeons often gather round when I first unfold my bright-coloured plates, jostling each other to get close. ‘Nothing to eat here,’ I tell them. After about ten minutes they shuffle away. Segmented fragments of conversation float by as I work. People occasionally tap me on the shoulder and ask for a smoke or a light. I wait while convoys of noisy school kids pour off trams, blocking my view, refreshing some blobs of watercolour while they pass. I try hard to blur everything out, bar a sort of corridor between my subject, my sheet of paper and the watercolour plate.
Each small picture is associated with the things I did that day, the people I spoke to before and after, the sounds and words I heard while I was doing it. A version of what I saw remains there on the sheet of paper, hopefully true to the initial sensation that made me want to stop and paint. On rainy days I open up my plan drawers and go through recent watercolours, ripping up the ones I no longer like.
This exhibition is a selection of twenty of my recent postcard-sized works, and I will show more of them along with my oil paintings in April next year.”
– Excerpt from Tom Carment’s 2026 catalogue essay.
