London

As London evolves into a Babylonian-style city of lofty towers, the artist Anna Keen was inspired to paint this metamorphosis, imagining its future townscape. While each new edifice heads to the heavens, the exposed entrails of these vast construction sites strangely resemble ruins. Keen’s large canvases are enriched with details stemming from her patient observation, on-the-spot sketches, and voyages around the city by helicopter, boat, road, and on foot. Like the eighteenth-century artist J. M. Gandy, who simultaneously painted London in ruins and in construction, Keen takes us just beneath the surface of the metropolis to where the emotional landscape lurks and shows us where the soul of London is heading. Internationally renowned London-based author and art historian Edward Lucie-Smith, who has followed Keen’s painting career since 1995, provides a foreword.