John Duffin

Tube Light 1 and Tube Light 2 diptych

2021

John Duffin is a painter and printmaker whose work is based on the modern environments of cities and towns, creating dynamic and cinematic images of contemporary urban life. His unique images of architecture, lighting and figures have been greatly praised and awarded, recently receiving the Most Outstanding Print Award from Sir Peter Blake. He has a distinctive artistic voice and has much to say in his work about contemporary life in all of its manifestations. His work is in the tradition of LS Lowry in Britain and Edward Hopper in America and like these artists, he creates unique views of contemporary urban life, a combination of his ability as a draughtsman, his imagination and his personal use of perspective and color. Duffin makes drawings and watercolors in front of his chosen subject and takes these sketches back to his London studio, where he creates from them his imaginative interpretation of the site, recreating the place anew via his imagination. Duffin's work is redolent with influences from cinema, graphic novels and the history of figurative painting, but from this comes a vision that is his alone.