Andrew Horrod

"Coffee shop, Covent Garden"
Pastel
34 x 42cm
 

Like much of my work, this picture was completed substantially on location. As is so often the case, not all of the people in the picture were there for the whole time. The warm interior (on a cold afternoon, after the sun had gone down) was welcome but what caught my eye in an artistic sense was the use of laptops. So the picture attempts to represent two sides of modern café life: friends or a couple chatting away and individuals using technology. The figure checking a mobile phone/taking a photo combines, perhaps, these two aspects of social interaction.