Life has finally returned to those silent London streets that we watched for years like an empty theater stage—its set ready, but its actors missing. John Riddy’s new exhibition “Winter Landscape,” meeting the audience at Frith Street Gallery on Golden Square, marks a radical departure from the artist’s familiar unpeopled, frozen urban aesthetic. While Riddy constructed the city as timeless monuments in his previous series, completely excluding human movement from his viewfinder, this time he invites the transient—humanity and momentary motion—into the frame under the pale light of winter.
For Riddy, who was trained as a painter but is a self-taught photographer, art history has always been the most powerful compass guiding his shutter finger. In this new series, he draws inspiration from the famous winter landscapes of 17th-century Netherlands—the paintings of Hendrick Avercamp and Abraham Beerstraten. Just as frozen rivers and lakes serve as raw backdrops for social life in those classical paintings, Riddy places the River Thames at the central axis of his composition, looking down at the city from an elevated vantage point. Following the artist’s meticulous editing process in the studio, the hazy yet crisp winter atmosphere emerges before us with formal sensitivity and technical accuracy.
A Modern Interpretation of Seurat
The most striking and documentary-like frame of the series was captured at Burgess Park in South London. In the middle of this green space, which used to be an industrial zone, we see human figures aligned in perfect geometry between faded 1960s housing blocks, the modern city skyline, and The Shard rising in all its majesty. In composing this frame, Riddy pays homage to Georges Seurat’s famous Bathers at Asnières painting, transplanting the frozen, melancholic moment of workers by the river into the heart of modern London.
Having recently reinforced the intellectual labor behind it through an artist talk organized on the occasion of Photo London, this exhibition carries a vast network of references extending from John Ruskin’s autobiography to Hokusai’s woodblock prints, and from Gustave le Gray’s plays of light to modern sociological observations. Riddy shows us that what brings a city to its true completion is not merely its permanent architectural surfaces, but the transient human silhouettes that continue to walk, pause, and exist in their shadow despite the winter cold. Open until June 25, 2026, these winter landscapes offer a wonderful opportunity to look at London and humanity through a viewfinder with the touch of a paintbrush.
Exhibition Details:
- Artist: John Riddy
- Exhibition Title: Winter Landscape
- Venue: Frith Street Gallery, Golden Square, London
- Closing Date: June 25, 2026
- Key References: 17th-century Dutch landscapes, Georges Seurat, and London’s urban transformation.
