In a small studio flat in south London, we are witnessing time freezing layer by layer. Painter Rod Kitson is in the middle of an extraordinary project he has been working on for approximately seven years — and without a single day’s break for the past year: he is creating a life-sized oil painting replica of his own flat, painting it one square metre at a time, every single day. This is not merely painting a wall or decorating a home; it is an act of physically transcribing the soul, light, and messiness of the flat onto canvas — a visual diary in the truest sense.
Kitson’s incredible discipline is based on painting exactly one square metre of the flat each day. Using a square viewfinder, the artist selects a corner of his home and captures that day’s mood, light, and atmosphere within that small section. The resulting giant jigsaw puzzle may resemble David Hockney’s famous photo-collages, but for Kitson the process represents a far more honest fragmentation. Because the flat is never the same from one day to the next; a laptop cable lying in one corner today may be somewhere else tomorrow, and rather than hiding these “glitches,” the artist accepts and paints them exactly as they are.
The real inspiration behind the project is not Hockney, as one might expect, but musician Brian Eno. In 2018, while suffering from creative block, Kitson heard Eno say on the radio, “It’s better to have something than nothing.” The concept of “accretion” that Eno spoke of forms the foundation of Kitson’s art. The idea that small pieces accumulate to create their own gravity and momentum forces the artist to pick up his brush every morning instead of waiting for inspiration. “If I had waited for inspiration,” Kitson says, “I probably would have only painted 50 pieces instead of 300.”
The artist’s favourite sections are hidden in surprisingly ordinary yet captivating details: a bubbling kettle, the knife magnet in the kitchen, or a pedal bin. The videos in which Kitson paints these mundane moments have garnered millions of views on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. The fact that people are so captivated watching a complete stranger paint the corner of a radiator is powerful proof of modern humanity’s longing for those small, peaceful details of everyday life. As the project progresses, this work has evolved from a mere replica of a flat into an autobiography — documenting Kitson’s personal history, the snooker matches he watches on television, or the pizza dough on the counter.
Having painted every day for more than 400 days so far, Rod Kitson aims to complete the entire flat by adding around 500 more squares over the coming year. And what will he do once this enormous replica of his living space is finished? Kitson’s answer is as dramatic and ironic as the project itself: “I’m going to move out to celebrate its completion.” After transforming the place he lives in into a work of art and fixing it forever, the artist is preparing to leave the physical space behind for a new beginning.
