Visitors to Guildhall Art Gallery are set to be immersed in large-scale paintings and layered sound recordings when a new exhibition opens later this month.
Opening on 27 February, Jock McFadyen and Jem Finer: Underground (and Surface) will be presented at the City Corporation’s gallery and brings together the work of the Paisley-born Royal Academician and the founding member of The Pogues. The exhibition combines vast painted views of London cityscapes and Tube stations with recorded sounds drawn from the capital’s transport network.
The exhibition revisits McFadyen’s Underground series, first conceived in the late 1990s, and reimagines it through a new collaboration with Finer. The project has been co-curated by Elizabeth Scott, Head of Guildhall Art Gallery for the City Corporation.
In works such as Bank and Ghost, familiar Underground signage and structures fragment and dissolve, creating a tension between recognition and disorientation. These darker, enclosed scenes are balanced by expansive cityscapes, including Popular Enclosure, which present calm views of London beneath radiant blue skies. Each painting is linked site-specifically to the Tube station it depicts.
Finer’s contribution transforms the painted underground city into what the organisers describe as a living, breathing organism. His field recordings from the Northern line and Central line combine mechanical rhythms with melodic elements, incorporating creaks, groans, pips, and other everyday urban sounds that accompany commuters but often go unnoticed.
Chairman of the City of London Corporation’s Culture, Heritage, and Libraries, Brendan Barns, said:
“Jock McFadyen’s consummate skill in presenting epic views of the capital which, at the same time, convey a sense of intimacy, as well as beauty and decay, are sure to engage and impress visitors.
“Adding Jem Finer’s atmospheric soundscapes from the Tube network to the mix is particularly intriguing, and it will undoubtedly make for a very memorable experience.”
Jock McFadyen said:
“Many of us descend daily into the tunnels and carriages that offer rapid access to distant parts of our urban world.
“We see and hear a remarkable variety of things there, but how often do we pay attention to the graffiti-daubed exteriors, the rails, pipes, struts, and wires that adorn the surface of the spaces through which we pass? How often do we really listen to all the mysterious mechanical and organic sounds that emanate from the subterranean caverns that house our public transport?
“I’m honoured that Jem has contributed such a beautiful soundtrack to my Underground series, one that is far superior to my original idea of a simple raw recording of closing doors, announcements, and the rattling and grinding of rails. It is a wonderful haunting piece, which seems to unfold with new sounds every time I hear it.”
Jem Finer said:
“I hoped to find a resonance with Jock’s paintings where the figurative dissolves into abstraction. I remembered him writing “All paintings are abstract. The subject of all my paintings is the paint”. I feel the same way about sound… about it being the focus of composing.
“For me, the form is important, but the sound is the true subject. I started to flip Jock’s thinking and work with the sounds I’d recorded in the way that he might work with paint, transformed just far enough that there remains a trace of familiarity while becoming something unexpected, newly discovered.”
The exhibition will operate a ‘Pay What You Can’ admission model, following its use for three previous shows at the gallery.
Guildhall Art Gallery forms part of the City of London Corporation’s wider cultural offer and supports the Destination City strategy, which aims to encourage people to live, learn, work, and explore in the Square Mile. The City of London Corporation invests more than £130m each year in heritage and cultural activities and manages a range of institutions including the Barbican Centre, Tower Bridge, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and Guildhall Art Gallery.
