As part of our Home of Expression campaign, we commissioned 12 inspiring creatives who live, work and play in White City to create unique works that speak to the dynamic energy of the area. Here, artist Amy Shuckburgh shares her perspective on personal and professional development, as shaped by her surroundings.

Responding to the landscapes and lives that thrive around Television Centre, Amy created a trio of expressive paintings defined by bold colour and dynamic brushwork. Fascinated with both nature and the built environment, Amy draws parallels between the structures of bare branches (the work was created during the winter months) and the intersections of streets – each forming grid-like structures from which to view these magnetic city scenes.

After growing up in Notting Hill, Amy moved to Shepherd’s Bush when she was 12, and while stints in the countryside have peppered her years since, she has returned here again and again to live and work. The connection to the area infiltrates all parts of her life, from the studios she’s rented, to her favourite places to eat (The Anglesea Arms), her sources of inspiration (Kites Studios just of Askew Road), and her support for local football team Queen’s Park Rangers.

Now based at Kindred Studios, a community of some 60 artists from across the spectrum of creative fields, she is currently working on commissions, from large-scale landscapes to intimate portraits and expressive still-life compositions. Her work is shown in solo and group shows across the country.

Tell us about your connection to West London

“I’ve had studios in all different parts of the area, but W12 is basically where I’m from. It’s a really exciting area. There are green spaces, there’s the river, there’s the canal, it’s got markets and interesting restaurants, and it’s got a feeling of energy as well as such culture and diversity. There’s a sense of layers of the different stories and lives being lived as some things change and others remain the same here. Shepherd’s Bush Market is enormously inspiring. The colour and vibrancy, the fruit and veg stalls, the material shops. Then there are all these cultural venues such as Bush Hall and Bush Theatre – they just keep getting richer and more interesting as time goes by.

“This commission came when I’d just returned to London from the countryside, and it felt so timely because it gave me the opportunity to look intensely at my own city environment. I grew up in Shepherd’s Bush and I’ve come home really. It’s been really exciting to turn my gaze to city streets, noticing the amazing green spaces, too.”

You work from Kindred Studios in Shepherd’s Bush – what is it about this space that made sense for you?

“Kindred Studios is a community, currently of about 60 artists. Everyone has their own space here, but there are groups, lunches, parties and group shows – even an ongoing collaboration between some of the artists with the Hoxton Hotel down the road, in their exhibition space. There are painters, sculptors, photographers and dressmakers. It’s an incredibly supportive atmosphere.”

What does your creative process look like?

“I work in oil paint, but also in soft pastel, using quite an impressionistic style, so whether it’s a city street, woodland or seascape, I’m really trying to capture the feeling of being somewhere. I use quite loose energetic lines or brushstrokes to evoke the vibrational energy that I feel in a place.

“I’m so grateful for my commissions because they often force you to approach things slightly differently, which is very energising. A lot of painting in a studio is solitary. I don’t feel the loneliness, but it’s amazing when you’ve been working on a body of work for so long and you reveal it to the public. It’s an incredible feeling.”

How did these paintings come to life?

“I did a lot of bicycling to get the lay of the land. Then I came again with my camera, taking hundreds of photos of the area. I relished being able to show Shepherd’s Bush through my eyes, as a dynamic, colourful and vibrant place. I went exploring all around Television Centre, and this doughnut of a building with this extraordinary architecture: the curved cauldron of windows, the gold figure, the amazing fountain. It’s been through so many different guises and is now reanimated. The area is amazingly buzzy now. I think it’s testament to the creative community that’s there and the fact that it’s attracting a new wave of talent.

“There were ways in which the work could have become really abstract as there was so much to play with, the facades joining other facades, the perpendicular lines. It was difficult to narrow down what to focus on. In the end, the paintings connect the street scenes that surround Television Centre, as seen through nature: bare branches create a kind of grid through which you can hang the image; the composition gets marked up into sections by the lines of the branches, the buildings, traffic lights and street lamps infused with the bright winter light. The flow of traffic, the movement of people at crossings. All these streets I know really well but don’t really know – like a sundial coming from this central development.”

“I grew up in Shepherd’s Bush and I’ve come home really. It’s been really exciting to turn my gaze to city streets, noticing the amazing green spaces, too.”

How would you describe your art and process?

“The final pieces explore the energy of the streets themselves, the buildings, the architecture. My aim is to make the paintings look slightly mysterious; you can keep looking and they can shift in perspective as you see them on different days. I really like bright hot colours combined with a sludgy muddy grittiness to the paint. There’s some quite washy liquid paint built up in layers. Then there’s thicker paint in dabs or slashes that’s kind of more impasto. All of that together builds a sense of depth and variation.

“I think I’m getting braver and learnt to use colour more boldly, to use bigger brushes and more wild strokes in my work. I think it’s become freer and more lively. There’s always a sense with painting that if you tried it one more time, you might get the thing that you were really meaning. And I think that’s that motivating drive, to just experiment with one more go and one more combination of weird colours, just push it even further. And that never really goes away.”

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